On February 7th at 6pm, MOTIF hosted a virtual roundtable with the composers of A WORTHY MIRROR, a commissioning project from early music revivalists that puts 12th-century poet-composers in conversation with their modern counterparts. Moderated by poet and critic danilo machado, this roundtable explored how A WORTHY MIRROR translates lyric poetry into new compositions, forefronts female and anonymous femme voices in medieval canon, and reflects upon themes of gender, self, and relationships across time.

A WORTHY MIRROR world premieres at National Sawdust on February 25th.

Stay tuned for a transcript of this recording.

About danilo machado

Born in Medellín, Colombia, danilo machado is a poet, curator, and critic living on occupied land interested in language’s potential for revealing tenderness, erasure, and relationships to power. A 2020-2021 Poetry Project Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow, their writing has been featured in Hyperallergic, Art in America, Poem-A-Day, Art Papers, ArtCritical, The Recluse, GenderFail, No, Dear, Long River Review, TAYO Literary Magazine, among others. They are the author of the collection This is your receipt and is not a ticket for travel (Faint Line Press, 2023) and the chaplets wavy in its heat and to be elsewhere (Ghost City Press Summer Series, 2022).

An honors graduate of the University of Connecticut, danilo is Producer of Public Programs at the Brooklyn Museum and curator of the exhibitions Otherwise Obscured: Erasure in Body and Text (Franklin Street Works, 2019), support structures (Virtual/8th Floor Gallery, 2020), We turn (EFA Project Space, 2021), and Eligible/Illegible (co-curated with Francisco Donoso, PS122, 2023). danilo has contributed writing to exhibitions including at CUE Art Foundation, Henei Onstad Kunstsenter, Miriam Gallery, Abrons Art Center/Boston Center for the Arts, Second Street Gallery, and Real Art Ways and, with Em Marie Kohl, danilo co-hosts the monthly queer reading series exquisites. They are working to show up with care for their communities.