BODY AND SOUL: Dr. Nina Angela Mercer: Mythologies of Erasure

Dr. Nina Angela Mercer (photo: Fabiola Jean Louis)

 

A headshot of a caramel-honey-skinned Black woman who is looking directly into the camera. She is wearing her dark brown hair in many long twists. She is also wearing a maroon crocheted hat that has saffron and sky-blue accents crocheted into a panel at the edge of the hat. She is wearing deep maroon lipstick. She is not smiling fully, but she looks content. She is outside in daylight.

Dr. Mercer in Invocation for José Antonio Aponte, a video poem (photo: Toshi Sakai)

 

 

A black-and-white photograph of a caramel and honey-brown Black woman holding two tree branches in front of her face. The branches frame her face so that parts of the top and bottom of her face are covered by the two branches she holds. Only her eyes, cheeks, and nose are visible in the dim light. Her hair is engulfed in shadow. But her hands and collarbone are also visible. She wears a black dress with a v-neck collar. She has on a silver necklace with two charms hanging from it--one charm is a lapis lazuli gemstone, the other is a small silver bow and arrow.

Next on Body and Soul podcast, we visit with playwright and scholar Dr. Nina Angela Mercer who draws from family roots in Washington, DC and her lifelong fascination with mythology and world-building to examine how the stories a society or community tells about itself too often promote marginalization and erasure of history.

To listen to Part One of her Body and Soul episode--Dr. Nina Angela Mercer: Mythologies of Erasure---on Spotify, click here. And you can find Part Two here.

Gypsy and the Bully Door at Georgetown University, 2023

Dr. Nina Angela Mercer is a culture worker, scholar, and interdisciplinary artist. Her plays include GUTTA BEAUTIFUL; ⁠ITAGUA MEJI: A ROAD AND A PRAYER⁠; ELIJAHEEN BECOMES WIND; CHARISMA AT THE CROSSROADS; A COMPULSION FOR BREATHING; MOTHER WIT AND WATER-BORN; and ⁠GYPSY AND THE BULLY DOOR⁠. She also collaborated with Urban Bush Women as writer and performer in HAINT BLU. Nina’s writing is published in The Killens Review of Arts & Letters; Black Renaissance Noire; Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre, and Performance; ⁠A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine Online⁠; Break Beat Poets Vol 2: Black Girl Magic; Are You Entertained? Black Popular Culture in the 21st Century; Performance Research Journal; Represent! New Plays for Multicultural Young People; and So We Can Know. She is currently a community engagement fellow at The Woodshed Center for Art, Thought, and Culture at Georgetown University's Racial Justice Institute. She is also the executive director of ⁠Ocean Ana Rising, Inc./OAR⁠. For more information, visit her at ⁠www.ninaangelamercer.com⁠.