Triple Consciousness: Black + American + Female

On Saturday, October 18,
Brooklyn Museum hosted
Body Rock: The Politics of Black Female Identity on "Stage,"
the first in a series of three conversations
co-sponsored with 651 Arts and MAPP International Productions.
photo (c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Shay Wafer (l) of 651 Arts
and Lisa Yancey of MAPP International
welcome the audience to Body Rock.
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Panel moderator, Toni Blackman
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

I'm not sure what I expected from an event entitled Body Rock: The Politics of Black Female Identity on "Stage." But what I took away was nourishment to keep me going in the daily struggle as a Black woman surviving and making my contributions. So, thank you to 651 Arts, MAPP International Productions, Brooklyn Museum, Rasu Jilani (MAPP Director of Community Programs), Ebony Noelle Golden (series curator), Toni Blackman (panel moderator) and panelists Pastor Desiree Allen, Charlotte Brathwaite, Karma Mayet Johnson and Shannon Washington.

"Stage," for these multi-talented sisters, means anything from an actual theater (Brathwaite acts and directs) to the pulpit (where Pastor Allen, typically sporting a pair of killer shoes, affirms rebellious personal style) to Shannon Washington's high-tech digital world. "Stage," in the title is all about space, visibility and agency--how Black women occupy environments and possibilities, how we choose to shape space for ourselves and for those around us and coming after us.

It started beautifully with Johnson's song heralding "a new day comin'" when everything would turn over and Golden declaring it "a good day to be a Black feminist." And I'm sure Golden wasn't just talking about this particular Saturday afternoon in the museum's fairly chilly auditorium. She was talking about the intense times we're in and how needed we are. "We are at a crossroads, culturally, politically and socially," said Blackman, hip hop artist and actress.

Charlotte Brathwaite
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Pastor Desiree Allen
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Shannon Washington
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Karma Mayet Johnson
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

The conversation, always grounded in the personal, turned to the very fact of presence as power.

"Our showing up, being here, changes everything, changes the rooms we're in," said singer-composer Johnson who regularly listens and responds to the frequencies within any environment. "There's a gift inside my being incarnated as a woman that makes my listening exponentially [heightened]," she said.

Washington, with her pioneering work as a creative director in advertising and online platforms, takes pleasure in the popularity of the selfie. "Nothing gives me more joy than a good selfie, she said. "We are not used to seeing ourselves happy on a mass media stage. There is so much power in that, so much permission." With her video storytelling project, I'm Feminist Enough, Washington takes that idea to the next level.*

Pastor Allen focuses on making "more space for Black women and girls to find themselves in relation with God" by being authentically themselves. "All of our experiences are Bibles."

The way of feminism--by that or any other name or no name--is not at all foreign to Black women, and the panelists offered up examples from their own families and colleagues. They also acknowledged the many personal and societal barriers that continue to challenge Black women--capitalist institutions, a culture of competition pitting one woman against another, a fear of facing and seeking help for hurt and trauma, and the trap of being the pulled-together, selfless one constantly available for everyone else's needs. There were calls for daily spiritual practice, no matter what form that might take, and many sighs of assent and relief when Washington wisely declared, "By any means necessary, REST!"

Watch Body Rock here.

*Visit Shannon Washington's
I'm Feminist Enough video project here.

About the Triple Consciousness series

Derived from W.E.B. Dubois’s concept of “Double Consciousness”, “Triple Consciousness” speaks more acutely to the experience of black women as both black and American and also female. Through a series of three public dialogs, Triple Consciousness delves into and looks beyond the current representations of Black female identity in mainstream media and culture. Each conversation features a different theme to explore black women on “stage” and in pop-culture, and to reframe black feminism(s) in the 21st Century. Formats and discussants vary for a dynamic conversation with audience participation.

Upcoming Triple Consciousness discussions at Brooklyn Museum:

Triple Consciousness: "Mythologies of the Diva"

Saturday, November 8, 2pm

Triple Consciousness: "Beyond Binaries and Boxes"

Saturday, November 15, 2pm

Click here for information and tickets.

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
(map/directions)

Dreaming America with Sekou Sundiata

Singer Ronnell Bey
from the 51st (dream) state

Launched in April and concluding tomorrow night, Blink Your Eyes: Sekou Sundiata Revisited festival has spanned numerous performance sites around town, paying tribute to the Black poet-griot-activist who died in 2007. A presentation of MAPP International Productions, Blink Your Eyes offers a timely retrospective of Sundiata's work and of questions that preoccupied him, such as the still unfinished business of realizing American democracy and justice.

Last evening, the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in Soho presented Sundiata's final theatrical work, the 51st (dream) state, in an adaptation for radio broadcast before a live audience. It was directed by Arthur Yorinks and hosted by John Schaefer of WNYC's Soundcheck. The unusually close, intimate space at the Greene heightened connection between audience members and an array of wonderful performers including jazz singer La Tanya Hall (taking Sundiata's role of narrator) and the original vocalists, Ronnell Bey, Audrey Martell, Bora Yoon and Samita Sinha.

La Tanya Hall as Poet/Narrator

Vocal cast of The 51st (dream) state
L-r: Hall, Bora Yoon, Ronnell Bey, Samita Sinha and Audrey Martell

Aside from a few times when the flourish of music swallowed Yoon's or Sinha's occasionally wispy vocalizing--both otherwise shine in quieter, spirit-filled passages--the work proceeded with fearless honesty and radiance. The small band--led by musical director/trumpeter Eddie Allen and conducted by Richard Harper--was tight, authoritative, sensuous to the max. Sitting just a few feet away, we could feel, to the core, everything they set before us.

The 51st (Dream) State is a post-9/11 meditation and intervention. Although, as Schaefer chose to emphasize, this is not "a 9/11 piece," Sundiata did not shrink from vividly invoking chilling imagery from that time of horror. He did so with exceptional courage to witness reality, free of sentimentality, and to grapple with consequences. And then he urged us to move on because we must--as a nation in flux and possibility--visualize who we want to be when we grow up.

Sundiata concluded with this challenge: "Why don't we get our hopes up too high?"

The poet has gone. His irreverent question resounds.

Watch the Blink Your Eyes presentation of the 51st (dream) state in its entirety here:

Blink Your Eyes: Sekou Sundiata Revisited continues with these remaining programs:

Days of Art & Ideas: Democracy, Imagination and Peeps of Color Now, a panel discussion at Harlem Stage Gatehouse. Tonight at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Days of Art & Ideas: Blood, Muscle, Bone: the anatomy of wealth and poverty. Discussion and presentation on community-engagement by dance artists Liz Lerman and Jawole Zollar at Harlem Stage at Aaron Davis Hall. Saturday, October 12, 4pm-6pm. Free with reservation. Click here.

WeDaPeoples Cabaret: Fall 2013 at Harlem Stage at Aaron Davis Hall, Saturday, October 12, 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Citywide arts tribute to the late Sekou Sundiata

A Citywide Retrospective for the Poet and Playwright Sekou Sundiata
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times, February 18, 2013

Take part in this tribute to Sekou Sundiata

Blink Your Eyes: Sekou Sundiata Revisited, a NYC-wide retrospective, is COMING SOON -- a feast of concerts, poetry readings, re-stagings of theater pieces, discussions, gatherings, and more celebrating Sekou Sundiata -- the man, the poet, the soothsayer, band leader, teacher, soul stirrer, activist and the griot. We want to create a video montage using footage created by -- and starring -- Sekou's friends, fans, collaborators, colleagues and students. TO DO IT RIGHT WE NEED YOU!! YOUR MISSION Please record yourself reading Sekou's poem, "Blink Your Eyes" (click the link to get a PDF of the poem or see the full text below) -- you can do this with a phone, a flip cam, whatever you have access to. You do not need to record it all in one "perfect" take. We just request that you record yourself reading/performing the entire poem so that we can edit it together with other people's videos, and footage of Sekou as well. FORMAT Any digital format can be submitted via email, or via  YouSendIt addressed to julia@mappinternational.org. Please include your name as you want it to appear in the credits and your contact info. STYLE Please film yourself with the camera in a horizontal (landscape) POV. Please do not record yourself in a vertical (portrait) perspective. DEADLINE In order to produce this video piece, we request that you submit your video no later than Friday, February 8, 2013. QUESTIONS Please contact Julia Gutierrez-Rivera julia@mappinternational.org Updates on the retrospective will be posted at sekousundiata.org  Thanks for participating and, in the spirit of Sekou, All of a sudden, Ann *** BLINK YOUR EYES   by Sekou Sundiata I was on my way to see my woman but the Law said I was on my way thru a red light red light red light and if you saw my woman you could understand, I was just being a man. It wasn't about no light it was about my ride and if you saw my ride you could dig that too, you dig? Sunroof stereo radio black leather bucket seats sit low you know, the body's cool, but the tires are worn. Ride when the hard time come, ride when they're gone, in other words the light was green. I could wake up in the morning without a warning and my world could change: blink your eyes. All depends, all depends on the skin, all depends on the skin you're living in Up to the window comes the Law with his hand on his gun what's up? what's happening? I said I guess that's when I really broke the law. He said a routine, step out the car a routine, assume the position. Put your hands up in the air you know the routine, like you just don't care. License and registration. Deep was the night and the light from the North Star on the car door, deja vu we've been through this before, why did you stop me? Somebody had to stop you. I watch the news, you always lose. You're unreliable, that's undeniable. This is serious, you could be dangerous. I could wake up in the morning without a warning and my world could change: blink your eyes. All depends, all depends on the skin, all depends on the skin you're living in New York City, they got laws can't no bruthas drive outdoors, in certain neighborhoods, on particular streets near and around certain types of people. They got laws. All depends, all depends on the skin, all depends on the skin you're living in

African women's "Voices of Strength" at New York Live Arts

Read my review of "Voices of Strength" here on DanceMagazine.com.

Dialogues Across Culture: reflecting on international exchange

Dialogues Across Culture: A Model for Building Enduring Partnerships

a free, two-day symposium presented by

MAPP International Productions and The Africa Contemporary Arts Consortium in partnership with the Museum for African Art, The Center for African Education at Teachers College and the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University

Friday, October 28 (7pm-9pm)
Saturday, October 29 (11am-4pm) 

This symposium is designed to open up conversations around international cultural exchange, to share lessons learned through case studies, to introduce some of the projects and artists with whom the Consortium has partnered, and to promote and build understanding and connections among artists, arts organizations, and public communities in the United States and the African continent.

Activities of the symposium include informal performances by choreographers Faustin Linyekula, from Democratic Republic of Congo, and Maria Helena Pinto from Mozambique; interviews with the choreographers; and presentations and discussions with members of the Consortium, MAPP, the Museum for African Art, and Columbia University faculty.

Friday, October 28 (7pm-9pm)

Performances followed by a reception

This event will take place at The Milbank Chapel at Teachers College, Columbia University. Enter on 120th Street midway between Broadway and Amsterdam (State-issued ID required for entry)

Saturday, October 29 (11am to 4pm)

Plenary session, interviews with artists, project presentations and discussions including: 

Investing in Curatorial Research

Dana Elmquist, Producer of Theater Programs at the Museum for African Art (NY)

Lisa Binder, Visual Art Curator, the Museum for African Art (NY)

Ken Foster, Executive Director, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco)


Advancing the Creativity of the Artist

Faustin Linyekula, Artist (Democratic Republic of Congo)

Ralph Lemon, Artist (NY)

Randy Gener, American Theater magazine (NY)

 
Connecting Artists and Communities

Maria Helena Pinto, Artist (Mozambique)

Laura Faure, Director, Bates Dance Festival (Lewiston, ME)


Building and Sharing Knowledge

Zoe Strother, Professor of African Art at Columbia University (NY)

Ann-Marie Bouttiaux, Royal Museum for Central Africa (Brussels)

Joan Frosch, Director, World Arts & Culture at University of Florida (Gainesville)

This event will take place at The Institute of African Studies, Columbia University
606 West 122nd Street (State-issued ID required for entry)

Admission for both days is free. Reservations required.

To RSVP for the October 28th event, click here.

Costuming "Nameless forest"

The beginnings of costumes for Nameless forest

from Mapp International Productions, March 18, 2010

See the process of building Roxana Ramseur's costumes for Dean Moss's Nameless forest.

Julie Alexander and Kayvon Pourazar report from Japan

...with wonderful Flickr photos! You've got to read and see this:

From Julie Alexander & Kayvon Pourazar: Rehearsing Tyler Tyler in Japan
Mapp International Productions, February 5, 2010

Steven Reker listens

Steven Reker: ‘American’ songwriter
Mapp International Productions blog, December 14, 2009