Terence Nance is artist, musician, and filmmaker born in Dallas, Texas in what was then referred to as the State-Thomas community. He is best known for his directing debut ''
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty'', and as the creator of the avant-garde TV program ''
Random Acts of Flyness'', which is produced by his production company MVMT for
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
and streams on
Max
Max or MAX may refer to:
Animals
* Max (American dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog
* Max (British dog), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of the OBE)
* Max (gorilla) ...
.
Early life
Nance was born in
Dallas, Texas
Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
. He earned his MFA from
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
where he studied visual art.
Career
Nance wrote, directed, scored, and starred in his first feature film, ''
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty'', which incorporates an earlier short film, ''How Would You Feel?'', animation and an original score by Nance and
Flying Lotus
Steven Ellison (born October 7, 1983), better known as Flying Lotus or sometimes FlyLo, is an American record producer, DJ, filmmaker, and rapper. He has released seven critically acclaimed albums: ''1983'' (2006), ''Los Angeles'' (2008), '' Co ...
.
It premiered in the
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023.
The festival has acted ...
's New Frontier section in 2012 and was also screened as part of the 2012
New Directors/New Films Festival
The New Directors/New Films Festival is an annual film festival held in New York City, organized jointly by the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Established in 1972, the Festival generally selects films from first-t ...
in New York.
Scholar Terri Francis has described it as "...an experimental film...that recreates the unspoken space amid friendship and relationships. Starring Terence Nance himself and the girl with whom he is caught up in this difficult dance, the film shifts between reconstruction and reimagining using both animation and live action."
[Francis, Terri. "Close-Up Gallery: The Afrosurrealist Film Society." Black Camera 5.1 (2013): 209-219. Project MUSE. Web. 3 May. 2015.]
The film was also featured at a screening as part of the Afrofuturist Film Festival at the New School on 3 May 2015.
''An Oversimplification of Her Beauty'', which premiered at the
2012 Sundance Film Festival
The 2012 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 19 until January 29, 2012 in Park City, Utah.
64 short films were selected for the festival from 7,675 submissions, including 27 international shorts from 3,592 submissions.
Non-competitio ...
and was released theatrically in 2013. In the years following Nance was chosen as one of the 25 new faces of independent film, awarded the
Guggenheim fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...
and the USA Artist Award for his multidisciplinary creative practice.
In the summer of 2018, Terence’s
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and in ...
-winning television series ''
Random Acts of Flyness'' debuted on
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
to critical acclaim.
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
hailed the show as “hypnotic, transporting and un-categorizable” adding that, "it’s trying to disrupt and re-disrupt your perceptions so that, finally, you can see."
In September 2018, Nance was announced as the director of the sequel to ''
Space Jam
''Space Jam'' is a 1996 American live-action animated sports comedy film directed by Joe Pytka and written by Leo Benvenuti, Steve Rudnick, Timothy Harris, and Herschel Weingrod. The first film produced by Warner Bros. Feature Animation ...
'', produced by
Ryan Coogler
Ryan Coogler (born May 23, 1986) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is a recipient of ten NAACP Image Awards and four Black Reel Awards, and has been nominated for two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Awards, Golden Globe ...
. On July 16, 2019, Nance was informed he would be replaced as director of ''
Space Jam: A New Legacy'', though he retained both screenwriting and executive producing credits.
In 2020, Nance (under the name Terence Etc.) released his first EP, ''THINGS I NEVER HAD'' followed in 2022 by his debut album ''V O R T E X'' on Flying Lotus’
Brainfeeder
Brainfeeder is an independent record label based in Los Angeles, California, founded by Flying Lotus in 2008, focusing on electronic music and instrumental hip hop. It has signed artists such as Ras G, Samiyam, The Gaslamp Killer, Thundercat, ...
Label. Most recently he collaborated on film and TV projects with
TELFAR,
Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine (often abbreviated as RATM or shortened to Rage) was an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1991. It consisted of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim ...
,
Earl Sweatshirt
Thebe Neruda Kgositsile (born February 24, 1994), known professionally as Earl Sweatshirt, is an American rapper and record producer. Kgositsile was originally known by the moniker Sly Tendencies when he began rapping in 2008, but changed his na ...
, and a feature length film experience with
Andre 3000 for his debut solo album ''
New Blue Sun''. This was followed by his first feature length score for
Tayarisha Poe’s ''
The Young Wife'' starring
Sheryl Lee Ralph
Sheryl Lee Ralph (born December 30, 1956) is an American actress and singer. Known for her performances on stage and screen, she earned acclaim for her role as Deena Jones in the Broadway musical ''Dreamgirls'' (1981), for which she was nomi ...
,
Kiersey Clemens and
Leon Bridges
Todd Michael "Leon" Bridges (born July 13, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He signed with Columbia Records to release his debut studio album, '' Coming Home'' (2015), which peaked at number six on the ''Billboard'' ...
''.''
In 2023, Nance collaborated with Blackstar Projects on his first solo museum show, ''SWARM'' at the
Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. The show featured immersive video installations.
The exhibition opened on the heels of season 2 of ''Random Acts of Flyness'', subtitled ''The Parable of the Pirate and the King''.
Richard Brody
Richard Brody (born January 22, 1958) is an American film critic, filmmaker and author.
Background
Brody grew up in Roslyn, New York. He is Jewish and has personally identified as an atheist. Brody attended Princeton University, receiving a B ...
of ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' described season 2 as “a work of music-like
Afrofuturism
Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture ...
, the closest thing I’ve seen to a cinematic reflection of the tones and moods of the music of
Sun Ra
Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific ou ...
, complete with the mythopoetic dimension.”
Filmography
Film
Short films
Television
Discography
* ''Things I Never Had'' (2020)
* ''V O R T E X'' (2022)
Accolades
References
External links
Official website*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nance, Terence
Living people
African-American artists
American artists
Mass media people from Dallas
1982 births
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American people