Ebony Noelle Golden

Wielding ecowomanist and Black feminist practices, I devise theatrical ceremonies for reclamation, re/memory, revival, and revolution. Ignited by my family's stories of land loss and reclamation, my choreographic, visual, poetic, and experimental theatrical ceremonies venerate the cultural and spiritual technologies of southern, rural Black folks. By centering historical and contemporary ecowomanist, ethnographic, and environmental methodologies and movements for climate reparations and liberation, my current body of work illuminates how "generative apocalypse" upends regressive political, environmental and economic systems to make way for a more just society. Fueled by messy, magical, and medicinal rituals for Black liberation, thriving, and climate intimacy, I imagine my work as a gathering ground, where portals of possibility conjure communal, personal, and planetary evolution.

Ebony Noelle Golden is a city-born, southern, Black woman. She is a proud descendant of self-emancipated sharecroppers who migrated from rural East Texas and Louisiana to Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, and Los Angeles for economic and educational opportunities. Golden is a theatrical ceremonialist, culture worker, public scholar, and entrepreneur who wields ecowomanist and Black feminist practices—often invoking messy, magical, and medicinal methods to support movements for cultural wellness and social justice. Her approach to art-making, strategic design, teaching, and organizing is steeped in Black women’s activism, experimental performance, and the socio-spiritual power that resides in the communities with which she organizes. Golden’s work embodies the power of art and collaboration as drivers of the movement for liberation.

Since 2017, Golden has been developing in the name of the m/other tree, a body of work that uplifts wisdom, healing practices, and earth-affirming rituals of southern Black women and femme healers. In 2024, The Apollo and National Black Theatre in New York, NY co-produced and presented Golden’s The Divining: Ceremonies from in the name of the m/other tree, a multi-disciplinary immersive ritual that unfolded on the streets of Harlem and the Apollo Stages at the Victoria Theater. The next episode of this theatrical ceremony, again, the watercarriers, centers on women mystics over the age of 60, the primordial mothers described in Yoruba cosmology as the Iyaamí, and Golden’s own maternal lineage. again, the watercarriers will tour in 2025.

Golden’s work has also been presented at the Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn, NY (2023); Double Edge Theatre, Ashfield, MA (2022); The Shed, New York, NY (2019); and BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Bronx, NY (2018), and has been profiled by The New York Times and National Endowment for the Arts.

Golden is the recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant (2023), a New England Foundation for the Arts National Theater Project Creation & Touring Grant (2023), an Association for Theatre in Higher Education Transformational Practice Award (2022), a Creative Capital Award (2020), and fellowships from Cave Canem Foundation (2010, 2011, and 2012). She was selected as the inaugural SOUL Directing Resident at National Black Theatre and Hi-ARTS’ inaugural Skylab artist-in-residence. She has also been awarded residencies at MacDowell, Peterborough, NH (2023) and Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY (2023).

Golden holds an M.A. from New York University, an M.F.A. from American University, and a B.A. from Texas A&M University. She is the founder of Jupiter Performance Studio, a hub for the development, exploration, and production of diasporic Black performance traditions, as well as Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, a cultural consultancy.