Timothy DuWhite in "Neptune"

In July, Timothy DuWhite, a writer, poet and performer living with HIV will present the world premiere of his latest performance piece, Neptune, at Dixon Place in New York City. The show, which will run from July 13 through 28, is described as “a poetic contemporary spin on the fairy-tale tradition” and “exposes the violence, grace, humanity, prejudice, wit and other shards of our lived complexities.”

In an interview with online magazine Afropunk, DuWhite explained, “Neptune is my abolitionist attempt to construct a world to which I have no current blueprint other than my desire for me and mine to live happy, fulfilled, joyous lives. Black people deserve Neptune.” As the Afropunk headline put it, "[Neptune] dares to imagine a world without white supremacy, queer-antagonism, capitalism."

DuWhite is currently the program director at NY Writers Coalition, which offers free or low-cost writing workshops to New Yorkers of all backgrounds, with a particular focus on underserved communities. In his own work, DuWhite mines his personal experience as a Black, queer HIV-positive man to envision ways of becoming his own “self-determining agent of authenticity,” as he writes in one of his best-known poems, “Joy Revisited,” in the face of systemic patterns of oppression and discrimination. Duwhite has performed at the United Nations/UNICEF, Apollo Theater, Dixon Place, Nuyorican Poets Cafe and La MaMa Theatre.

To learn more about DuWhite’s work, check out this video from NYCityLens on Vimeo.