Austyn Rich’s 021 is an equation for the self. Filmed during Rich’s Human Resources-Los Angeles time space money residency the dance film illuminates how the self unfurls and coils in service to the love for and of others. Informed by Rich’s relationship with his older sisters, Rich being the youngest of three, 021 gives motion to their unwavering love and guidance veering these bonds into more philosophical questions of inseparability and of power. Choreographed in three acts 021 spells out the osculating process of gathering and becoming, and how those processes are often always tied to other relations like sisters, to places, and to the ephemerality of instances and moments. The title riffs of the civil rights leader and Black Panther Kwame Ture’s question “How do we go from zero to one?” in reference to the history of Black American’s and the necessity to assemble, gather, and be more than one. Rich takes Ture’s question of oneness and political power and suspends it in 021 underlining the improvisational and unyielding nature of black being. — Hugo Cervantes