She is a self-described Writer/ Performance Artist/ Dancer/ Activist/ Health Educator/ and proud southerner. A natural sign watcher, very much in tune with her surroundings, Ms. Harris finds it almost impossible not to hear the stories hovering around people. Growing up in a multi-talented family, she always felt at peace pursuing her creative interests. However when it came time to choose a career, Cynthia chose to focus on her parallel interest in health and graduated from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University with a BS in biology in 1999. Her subsequent work in the field of women’s reproductive health research fed her appreciation for the analytical and gave her the opportunity to study human behavior, leading her to not only be a vocal advocate for women’s health issues, but to create stories of empowerment.
Ms. Harris developed her weaving voices technique as she deepened her understanding of the intersection of performance art and public health. In 2017, Ms. Harris completed her Master of Public at Tennessee State University. In 2018, How to Catch a Flying Woman premiered and was commissioned in 2019 by Nashville Public Library. In 2022, The Calling is in the Body debuted with Actors Bridge Ensemble.
Actors Bridge Ensemble and Meharry Medical College’s Maternal Health Excellence Research Center in the School of Global Health present MAMA STORIES, the latest choreopoem by acclaimed Nashville artist Cynthia C. Harris.
Based on nearly 90 interviews with women sharing complex, emotional, and heroic stories of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood, this world premiere production runs November 13–15, 2025, at Darkhorse Theater.
I have a vision. It has been with me for decades and grew from my experience with traditional West African dance in a community setting, a failed semester in college, dancers becoming family and the Urban Bush Women summer dance institute. I want a life that brings me joy and allows me to be in circles with Black women, listening to stories, dancing, cooking, playing, holding babies, creating, sharing solutions, and being medicine for each other. Music to me was the sound of my mother and her 4 sisters or the power of my aunt performing gospel music with four other women and feeling like a full mass choir. The little girl who first dreamed of being a doctor and a ballerina, figured out a way to make it happen.
Here in 2025, I find myself managing a women’s health research center at an HBCU and researching methods for using qualitative data (interviews and personal stories) to create theater that can heal and educate. I am working with graduate students in public health, adolescents and artists. I bring Black women’s stories to life on stage with the intention to illuminate our brilliance and power.
This year has been busy with art making. January to April I co-facilitated autobiographical writing circles with justice impacted women at Deborah Johnson Rehabilitation Center. I watched 8 women come to voice in the most beautiful way. The smiles at their final performance will feed my should until we meet again next Spring.
I trained two graduate research assistants in my choreopoem creating methods. In turn, they transformed interview transcripts from research on Black women clergy and their experiences with sexual health education in churches. The monologues were performed as s surprise to the key researcher at the Bold Women, Bold Ideas: Innovation in HIV prevention.
We also presented a choreopoem based on the autobiographical writing of public health students.
Actors Bridge presents The Vagina Monologues at City Winery Nashville on Thursday, 2/13/25. The event is a fundraiser for the outstanding writing and performance program, Act Like a GRRRL!! Doors open at 6pm and show starts at 7:30 pm.
Lead artist, Cynthia C. Harris, MPH will serve as playwright and facilitator for proposed choreopoem and performance project, funded in part with support from a Metro Arts THRIVE Project award. In partnership with Leah Alexander, PHD, MPH Director and Associate Professor with Meharry Medical College’s Master of Public Health (MPH) program in the School of Graduate Studies. Thirteen second-year students will work with the lead artist to develop an original choreopoem around the social and political determinants of health as they impact their own lives.
The student writers from Dr. Leah Alexander’s Health Education and Promotion Course, Fall 2023 MPH Program at Meharry Medical College
Ms. Harris is uniquely suited for this work based on her 20 years of practice and training in behavioral health, cultural competency, and community engagement. Ms. Harris has led several programs based in autobiographical writing and performance. Ms. Harris has been creating original choreopoems since 2002 and creating a resurgence of the choreopoem for Nashville audiences, with plays like HOW TO CATCH A FLYING WOMAN(2018) and THE CALLING IS IN THE BODY (2022), which have both received high praise from audiences and critics alike. The term “choreopoem” was first coined by playwright Ntozake Shange, a dancer and poet, to describe her groundbreaking work For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. It has come to represent a body of work that combines personal narrative, oral history, movement, and music. Choreopoems are a particular form of artmaking that speak directly to the experience of being Black or marginalized in America, playing on Black Aesthetics of performance, like call and response. The choreopoem focuses on creating an emotional response from the audience. Ms. Harris believes this emotional response to be an important tool for sharing and processing factors that impact the health of communities of color.
The Creative Team!!!
Beginning with an introduction to choreopoems workshop, created and facilitated by Cynthia C. Harris. MPH, students will be guided through the process of creating autobiographical monologues, songs, and poems from writing prompts. A vocabulary of movement to be included in the final performance will also be developed during the Fall 2023 semester in conjunction with their Health Education and Promotion course, which is required for all second year graduate students. The performance will be further developed and rehearsed during the Spring 2024 semester. Student-participants will be welcomed to perform or the lead artist will identify community artists to join the production as needed.
Students, Performers and Crew at Final Production on May 3, 2024. Meharry Cal Turner Center
Based on the Act Like a GRRRL model, Big GRRRL is for female-identifying adults over 18. Participants write autobiographical narratives in response to prompts from Vali and Cynthia, then share their writing at our weekly meetings, giving and receiving supportive feedback along the way. The program concludes with public performances of 2 selections from the many pieces created during this 6-week program. You choose which writings you are ready to share in front of a live audience.
This is a 6-week intensive that meets 3 hours per week plus 2 rehearsals and 2 performances. All sessions take place at the Actors Bridge Studio.
A failed journalist hired by the Federal Writers Project in 1932, catches hold of a highly sought meeting with a former slave who mysteriously acquired his former master’s fortune, including over 100 acres of land. Inspired by Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and the Slave Narratives gathered by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930’s, Narrative of the Life of Cedric Bartholomew, tells an epic story of legacy, love, and tragedy.
MAMA STORIES by Cynthia C. Harris
Thurs–Sat, Nov 13–15 at 7:30 PM
Darkhorse Theater
$25 in advance / $30 at the door
Healing Waters Productions 