“I am the sum of everyone I’ve ever pretended to be.” (Unknown) SHEEP is a short dance film exploring the blurred lines between self, social environments, and how identity is challenged in our attempts to connect. Using different dance genres and aesthetics as a cinematic tool to narration, varying personalities, and psychological conflict, watch as Devonte’s sense of self becomes compromised with his need to belong. 

Creative directed, choreographed, conceptually developed, styled, and location scouted by Destiny Arlette Cooke

Performed by Devonte Tasker, Alexandria McGriff, and Ikira Peace

Videography and Editing by Brandon Germain

Invited Screening: 

Dance Canvas’ Dance On Film

ATLAS Intersections Festival 

Official Selection:

Breaking Walls Film Festival 

Articule Feature:

Arts Atlanta 

Haystack is a short dance film featuring a duet shaped by abstraction and contemporary movement, reflecting the anxious and overwhelmed mind of its choreographer. Using framing of profiles, setting, timing, and cuts, the movers breathe through separate circumstances that slowly begin to overlap. Repetitive scene changes and eyes met with the camera evoke dissociation and a refocus, showing how ideas shift and feelings change during the creative process.

Creative directed, conceptually developed, choreographed, and styled by Destiny Arlette Cooke

Performed by Jalena Findley and Ikira Peace

Videography and Editing by Travis Marshall

Featured: The Holy Art Gallery, THESIS: Virtual Exhibition

The work draws from her choreographic response to the environment, merging dance movement, fashion, and conceptual storytelling through photography. Costuming elements include a cream suit blazer worn backward and  a cream headscarf veiling the eyes, creating juxtaposition in formality against a woodland background. These choices were decided by her in deeper reflection of ancestral and historical relationships to water: of birds and Black bodies—lighter tones against darker shades within the spiritual practices of baptism; and the coats of birds, wingspans outstretched for careful landing or forceful pursuit of the day’s meal. This image is the result of improvised movement responding to the depth of water or swallowed by leaves on the land, her footing, and balance.

Conceptually developed, styled, and modeled by Destiny Arlette Cooke

Photography by Kristian Whipple

The work draws from her choreographic response to the environment, merging dance movement, fashion, and conceptual storytelling through photography. Costuming elements include a cream suit blazer worn backward and a cream headscarf veiling the eyes, creating juxtaposition in formality against a woodland background. These choices were decided by her in deeper reflection of ancestral and historical relationships to water: of birds and Black bodies. This small dance snippet is the result of improvised movement responding to the depth of water, footing, balance, and the eerie and rigorous nature of birds when feeding: subduing their prey by shaking to kill or stun fish.

Improvised, conceptually developed, and styled by Destiny Arlette Cooke

Videography by Kristian Whipple

DART is a dance photography shoot conceived fashion-first, with an outfit sourced from a local boutique that immediately served itself as costume and character. Conceptually created and styled by Destiny, the apparel shaped a secret agent or assassin inspired persona, setting the tone for her introductory collaboration with photographer, Wavey. It both complemented and juxtaposed the raw, industrial atmosphere of the CopyCat building warehouse, highlighting a fathomed tale that this character was potentinally in the midst of, or escaping, a heist. Dance positions leave the character contorted in different shapes, emphasizing the flexibility and durability of this professional villain. As a distinctive element, Destiny chose a real dart to double as "cigarette" and the character’s implied weapon of choice–sizing up before aiming precisely at her targets.

Conceptually developed, styled, and modeled by Destiny Arlette Cooke

Photography and editing by Wavey

En Avant was a personal dance photography project initiated, conceptually developed, styled, and location-scouted in Berlin by Destiny Arlette Cooke before collaborating with photographer Steve Tsigaras. Shot in the Unter den Linden U-Bahn station, the work emerged through structured improvisation—testing dynamic poses, timing movement with the passing tram, and experimenting with how the station’s benches and architecture could be used without disrupting commuters. The costuming was designed to be sleek and dark, with provocative elements that echo Berlin’s fashion sensibility, offering a cat-like exterior through selective exposure of skin while allowing full freedom of movement, unrestrained by rigid construction. The contrasting extensions of her upper and lower body point in opposing directions, but emphasize a direction as if to say "en avant!" which translates to "onward" in French. There's a physical expression of her tenacity and growing devotion to performance. Berlin awakened her, and this project was her way of offering her practice back to the city.

Conceptually developed, styled, location scouted, and modeled by Destiny Arlette Cooke

Photography by Steve Tsigaras

Tejido is a dance-centered staged performance created by GALAX Dance Movement Duo, reimagined as a storefront email template. It serves as a poster, artistic documentation of the work's tone and message, and email template to invite viewers to enter the performance rather than passively view it. The duo's choreographic and scenographic proposal is translated into a layered visual system, drawing from the performance's motifs of fabric, identity, and entanglement. The design features edited imagery of amalgamated body parts, adaptable skin-tone palettes, and morphed painted references—alluding to GALAX's costume choices that double as environment in set design. The storefront format allows audiences to window-shop, offering a visual layout of what they're purchasing to see while allowing the narrative to circulate before they reach the theatre.

Created, conceptually developed, and edited by Destiny Arlette Cooke.

This digital template, developed for the dance film, “SHEEP,” functions as promotional material and as its own visual artifact. Displaying torn-page composition, an obscured reveal of the main character, repeated typography, and an underlying message in red lettering, this design reflects the film’s tone, message, and the constant bickering between self and belonging. Its structure is claustrophobic yet clear, allowing it to stand independently as an abstract, contemporary piece. This graphic reframes choreographic elements by translating rhythm and psychological tension through layout, typography, and image.

Created, conceptually developed, and edited by Destiny Arlette Cooke.

Movement Variant is an early-stage experiment exploring the translation of choreographic phrasing through photogrammetry. Within a movement phrase, a held moment is isolated and scanned as spatial data. Produced through multiple 360 degree orbits totaling 120 image captures, the scan preserves and renders alignment, weight, and tension, allowing choreography to exist as both form and information beyond live performance. 

Why this matters right now: As we enter further into a digital age--AI-driven tools continuing to expand and funding for artistic labor declines--I am committed to identifying ways creatives can remain active stakeholders within these evolving systems: performing artists as models and performers, videographers and virtual designers as co-creators to the work's vision, stylists and composers as partners. My motives include continuing work with 3D-to-4D capture methods (photogrammetry and Gaussian splatting) as a means of extending my practice in dance photography and