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 and streams on HBO Max.
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival 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 and the USA Artist Award for his multidisciplinary creative practice.
In the summer of 2018, Terence’s Peabody Award-winning television series Random Acts of Flyness debuted on HBO to critical acclaim. The New York Times 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, produced by Ryan Coogler. On July 16, 2019, Nance was informed he would be replaced as director of , 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 Label. Most recently he collaborated on film and TV projects with Telfar Clemens, Rage Against the Machine, Earl Sweatshirt, 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, Kiersey Clemons and Leon Bridges .
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 of The New Yorker described season 2 as “a work of music-like Afrofuturism, the closest thing I’ve seen to a cinematic reflection of the tones and moods of the music of Sun Ra, complete with the mythopoetic dimension.”
2009 | No Ward | Documentary | |||||
2012 | An Oversimplification of Her Beauty | Himself | Also editor and animator | ||||
2016 | Women Who Kill | Darren | |||||
2018 | The Burial of Kojo | ||||||
2021 | Replaced as director by Malcolm D. Lee |
2015–17 | The Show About the Show | Tony | |||||
2017 | Lost & Found | Jonathan | |||||
2018–2022 | Random Acts of Flyness | Himself | Also creator, composer and editor |
2014 | Guggenheim Fellowship | Creative Arts | |
2018 | United States Artists (USA) Fellowship | Film | Recipient |
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