Maleek Washington brings family memories to BAAD!

Dance artist Maleek Washington
(photo: Whitney Brown)

Last night in the sudden chill, the mist-veiled, almost-full moon rode high over St. Peter's Episcopal Church, its landmark chapel, Foster Hall--home to Bronx performance space BAAD!--and its cemetery. Approaching from nearby Zerega Avenue station felt like stumbling onto the set for Michael Jackson's Thriller, a feeling intensified at first sight of signs directing visitors to enter not through the usual chapel doorway but by a side path within inches of massive gravestones.

For the opening section of Shadows of Heaven: Bronx Blues, dance artist Maleek Washington took over the familiar, modest allotment of space inside Foster Hall's entrance. So his audience had to wait downstairs in BAAD's office--stocked with refreshments and brightened by disco classics--before being let upstairs, carefully, in groups of five. I lined up, walked up and found myself in cramped quarters with a ring of people, some of whom, clearly, were family and friends of Washington. How did I know this? Well, he had strung up several mobiles to which old family snapshots were clipped. People were touching them, oohing and ahhing and wow-ing and OMG-ing at the sight of people they knew--or themselves!--so much so that they appeared to completely ignore the dancer's presence and performance.

I kept shifting--dodging these folks, trying to stay out of Washington's way, too, as he coiled and spun or abruptly darted back and forth with photos or photo albums in his hands. I admired how he managed the continuous reconfiguration of his space as people entered and moved about. I wondered if he improvised his ductile maneuvers according to whatever space was presented to him at any given moment.

There was something...a sudden lighting change, if I recall...that signaled the next phase. Filing past large painted portraits (by Sophia Dawson) and reflective "portal" paintings (by Chet Gold), we transferred to BAAD!'s theater space and, gratefully, its usual seating. "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone" was in the air, and dancers--a man and a woman--posed behind huge painting frames on either side of an empty frame. A disco ball twirled, and Chic's "Le Freak" came on, which made the dancers groove, and then Smokey Robinson's "Ooo Baby Baby," which took their story further. In just the space created by two songs, you could grasp how different they are--her powerful self-possession; his sweetly easy-going, if less-focused, nature. As I type that now, I realize how stereotypical it looks--the Strong Black Woman; uncertain, emasculated Black man. But this seems drawn from personal life, Washington's history, a couple of actual portraits, and Washington is at his best, in this work, as a portraitist.

Although a first-rate dancer with extensive technical background and range, I find my attention not fully engaged with the solo material he has made for himself. I think we're meant to understand him to be the son of this couple long separated, apparently, by the man's incarceration--a story that ultimately fascinates me much more for its sensitive and moving depiction.

Performers: Danielle Mills, Sophia "Wet Paint" Dawson, Chet Gold and Maleek Washington

DJ: DTTONYMONKEY (aka Antonio Brown)

Writer: Niya Nicholson

Mentors: Sidra Bell, Francesca Harper

Shadows of Heaven: Bronx Blues (closed) was a presentation of Pepatián and BAAD!'s joint Dance Your Future: Artist & Mentor Collaborative Residency and a feature of BAAD's BlakTinX series (on through November 18).

Dance Your Future programming continues 

with the following performances:

Tatiana Desardouin / Passion Fruit Dance Company

Friday, November 10

Beatrice Capote & Miguel Aparicio / The Sabrosura Effect

Friday, November 17

Click here and scroll down for information and tickets.

BAAD!
2474 Westchester Avenue, the Bronx
(map/directions)

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At National Black Theatre, a "peculiar patriot," loyal to her people

Liza Jessie Peterson performs her one-woman show,
The Peculiar Patriot, at National Black Theatre
(photos: above by Garlia C. Jones-Ly;
below by Jean Chambers)

Time and time again, Betsy LaQuanda Ross spends tedious hours riding a bus to and from upstate towns, visiting family and friends like her city homegirl, Jo Jo. She takes Jo Jo hand-quilted squares bearing precious symbols that represent the incarcerated mother (an orange moon) and each of the children she desperately misses (stars). She comes laden with personal stories of life on the outside, told with verve and spice, almost ceaselessly at a breathtaking clip. Together, the women--one we see and one invisible to us yet made palpable through Betsy's love and insight--help us understand the devastating impact of America's prison industry on communities of color, particularly women.

Liza Jessie Peterson
(photo: Ani Berberian)
Below: Director Talvin Wilks
(photo: Adam Nadel)

The Peculiar Patriot--directed by Talvin Wilks and starring its extraordinary writer, Liza Jessie Peterson at Harlem's National Black Theatre--could have been 90-minutes of pure didacticism about a social ill. But it is no such thing. From the moment the pointedly-named Betsy Ross enters the space--set up like a prison's visiting room, with neat, bleak rows of industrial tables and chairs--and calls out "Hey, Boo! Look at you!" you're in her firm grasp.

Peterson, who derived her material from years counseling prisoners at Riker's Island, goes full-on Anna Deavere Smith in adopted body language, facial expressions, vocal intonations, emotional range and expert timing. Not easy to do and sustain but, let me tell you, she's brilliantly on point at every turn.

Her Betsy is hilarious, a Wanda Sykes just waiting to be discovered. But she's there at the prison on a mission to keep her friend's spirits up--as well as her own. In the meantime, we learn much about what it's like to be shut away while your kids are so far, growing up without you; what it's like to have a pal you can't lean in and whisper to and hug and cry with any time you want; how easy it is to get caught up by stringent sentencing laws that disregard your humanity.

If--when--you see this show, you might have a hard time keeping up with the mostly black-and-white slide and video projections that play throughout Peterson's monologue. You'll mostly notice some of these images with your peripheral vision, when aware of them at all, but that's going to be enough. Pay attention to that experience. Peterson holds your attention. Peterson alone, the living, breathing, ebulliently colorful person at the center of this machine. That's as it should be.

Of the many unfortunate, outrageous things The Peculiar Patriot informs us about, as it entertains us, is a new initiative restricting prisoners and their visitors from conversing in person. Some prisons--encouraged by corporate profiteers--have begun instituting visits by video only. When Betsy learns that she and Jo Jo will never again meet face to face across a table, she's shocked and heartbroken, and we immediately get it. Removing the possibility of human touch and connection, like Betsy and Jo Jo have enjoyed, represents one last, inhumane way for the prison industrial complex to control and exploit people caught up in its system. Our only partial awareness of the flat, drab visual projections has been steadily leading us, in a subliminal way, to this moment. By coming to love Betsy--and, through her, Jo Jo--we know what matters and the cost of its loss.

Set and lighting: Maruti Evans
Projections: Katherine Freer
Sound: Luqman Brown

The Peculiar Patriot runs through October 1 with performances on Thursday, Friday and Monday at 7:30pm; Saturday at 2pm and 7:30pm; Sunday at 4pm. There is no late seating. Each performance is followed by a talkback with Peterson. For information and tickets, click here.

National Black Theatre
2031 5th Avenue (at 125th Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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