About

Havanna Fisher is a multi-interdisciplinary artist, designer, and educator from Harlem who uses design, performing arts, film, and education to bring about political and social awareness—and thus probable change—within the American landscape of ideological identity. She received a BFA in Fashion Design from Parsons School of Design and a BA in the Arts with a concentration in contemporary dance from Eugene Lang College. Her goal as an artist is to blend different art forms like fashion, dance, acting, and film, emphasizing community and unity to create a world of many possible approaches to living life and building a new, just society.

At the heart of Havanna's practice is a deep love for creating stories that honor and bring to light forgotten histories—unearthing the untold and suppressed narratives of the African Diaspora and marginalized communities, and reimagining them as living, breathing works that expand public consciousness.

Artistic Practice

Havanna is the founder and creative director of Vanna Black, an Afrocentric haute couture fashion label seeking to merge high fashion with social change. Rooted in a holistic, humanistic approach to production, Vanna Black celebrates global Black aesthetics and has fostered cross-cultural collaboration between Harlem and Bahia, Brazil, including work with Brazilian textile artist Alberto Pitta.

She leads a dance troupe performing her ongoing choreographic project, the Cotton Series, which explores the lives of Black women living in the USA through themes of sisterhood, labor, and spirituality. She is also an actress and aerialist, training in aerial hoop and contortion, continually expanding her artistic practice to explore new dimensions of movement and storytelling.

Havanna's performance work has been presented at esteemed venues and institutions across New York City and beyond. She has danced with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company in a 100-person cast exploring individual and collective identity, and performed with Afro-Brazilian percussion composer Fernando Saci at Dizzy's Club at Lincoln Center. As director and choreographer of "Blood on the Bronzes," an ancestral dance protest for the Restitution Study Group, she staged work at The Met, The Brooklyn Museum, and The Museum of Natural History. Her opera excerpt "Black Water Part 1" premiered at Alchemical Studio and was selected for full production by City Lyric Opera. She has also been a featured artist at Movement Research at Judson Church, the BAAD!ASS Women Festival, and The New School's Centennial Celebration. She is a drummer with Batalá New York, a premier all-women, Black-led percussion ensemble.

Teaching & Community Work

Havanna believes her work must reach the realms of organizing and teaching to accomplish her goals as an artistic humanitarian. She is a Part-Time Professor at Parsons School of Design, where she designed and teaches "Access, Equity, and Justice in Art and Design" and the Parsons Scholars capstone course "Artistic Assistant in Community Preservation." As a Lead Teaching Artist with Partnership with Children and a Youth Advocate with the Parsons Scholars Program, she designs interdisciplinary arts curricula that merge fashion design and performance art while supporting young people's college readiness and creative development.

Her approach to teaching is an extension of her artistic practice—a tool to mobilize, connect, and heal. She has developed and facilitated programming with organizations including the University of Orange, Community Voices Heard, 400 Years of Inequality, Harlem Children's Zone, Groundswell, Inspiration Point, BAAD!, and The Africa Center, using art as a catalyst for social change and community preservation.

Whether through fashion, choreography, film, performance, or teaching, Havanna is committed to using her artistic voice to amplify community narratives, honor ancestral legacies, and imagine more just and liberated futures.