Photo by Simone Finney
[ID: Man with deep brown skin, up close and wearing black glasses, in a jean jacket, is in the middle of the frame in a sunny room with shiny wood floor. He has a stack of pencils in jacket pocket and there’s a line of crumpled paper on the floor behind him.]

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Does an artist have a responsibility to anything or anyone other than their whim?

The recognizing, capturing, and sainting of beauty is what separates human beings from beasts. In all honesty, I doubt this statement is true, but it sounds true, or at least true enough. This brings us to that fundamental, yet vexing question of what is ‘Beauty’? Hell if I know. Hell if anyone I trust knows.

But unless gibberish is your preferred form of communication, where else can we begin a conversation on beauty than with ‘why are you beautiful?’

The one thing I know for absolute sure and without even a shred of doubt, is that those witless Europeans behind slavery and colonialism, whose air of invincibility (better known as ‘power’) gave their Eurocentric ideas of beauty a certain divine vigor (better known as ‘truth’) have a lot to be accused of. When you take even a cursory glance at our world today and see what it holds dear when it comes to beauty, the blood-stained fingerprints of those thirsty Europeans are everywhere. Here’s the thing, the ‘Beauty’ I’m interested in has nothing to do with statues of naked men by the Greeks, or aquiline noses, or the perversity of a white Jesus, or powdered wigs, or eminent artists from the Renaissance, or the three-movement structure of a concerto, or fake beauty spots on TikTok, or anything to do with runways at fashion houses or airports. The ‘Beauty’ I’m concerned with is the one that every artist I know, and probably every artist I don’t know, made them want to become an artist in the first place. It’s the one that gives you reason to pause, to make you wonder, to make you ponder, that lets you believe in the idea of God, scrambles your senses, and has humanity at the very core of its existence.

Ridiculous as this sounds, and I must admit I feel a little queasy at my confidence, I believe that every artist, no matter what culture or tribe they come from, became an artist because they discovered something that spoke to the good in them, the humanity in them. Of course, if that discovery arrives when you’re eighteen years old, or, if you’re really unlucky, six years old, humanity’s the last thing you can imagine your unconsciousness wanting to talk about. But that’s okay, that’s okay. If you’re too young to realize what happened without your consent, your only responsibility is to keep on keeping on with your drawings in crayon, your songs on your toy piano, or your scribbled stories about dolphins and boats and a universe of glittery stars.

The moment of truth will return and the path which knows which way to go will show itself soon enough.

Around about here, with this very sentence, in fact, if I’m to be fair to you, dear reader, I should take my untethered, abstract idea of humanity and shape it into something concrete, something you can actually see. But fuck that!

Go write your own damn article if you want a vision of fairness! Naw, I’m only clowning around with you. But why would anyone need a concrete version of humanity when their unconsciousness already knows what it is? It would be a lonely and desolate place indeed if our instinct for humanity was not a song we all shared. Fortunately, the person standing next to you at the bus stop also has the same knowing, just as the person watching their laundry go round and round at a laundrette, just as the person buying and selling a slice of the future on Wall Street. We all have the same knowing. We all have the same knowledge.

My moment on the road to Damascus came while sitting next to my extremely self-contained Father on the dumpy yellow couch in our cramped, but lovable flat in Brixton, south-east London. Father was watching the drama “Angels are so Few” by Dennis Potter on the British television series, “Play for Today.”

I’m sure all I knew was that it was about an angel named Michael, which was, thankfully, all I needed to know to keep watching. But what I couldn’t have foreseen was that this story about an angel that arrives on the doorstep of a bored housewife, would knock me off my feet and I would keep on falling for the next ten years. Eventually my feet touched the ground again and my falling stopped, but only after I had directed my first play, Barrie O’Keefe’s “Killing Time.” That was it, that moment on the couch was my introduction to humanity and the rest of my life.

So, to that end, an artist, any artist, once bitten by their hidden humanity, sets off on their adventure with a packed lunch and a dreamy desire to add their voice to the cultural conversation. Or put another, less poetic way, a dreamy desire to make the world a better place. In my experience, and the experience of every artist I know and probably every artist I don’t know, that desire is fuel enough to create countless paintings, and countless books, and countless songs, and countless dances, and countless photographs, and countless creations that don’t have a definition. It’s an adventure fueled by the personal. But don’t be fooled by the etiquette of that word ‘humanity.’ When pushed to stand its ground by dictators or fascism or rampant intolerance, humanity thinks highly enough of itself to respond with bared teeth and revolution, which might be hard to believe at this precise moment in time, but you can see it throughout history.

For years, all I had to do was have an inspiration by whim from the good in me and that was enough. For myself, that is, it was enough for myself to simply have a whim and follow it. And then I moved to New York City from London. And then in 1999 Amadou Diallo had 41 bullets fired at his body from point-blank range, and sometime during that same year I started to listen to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” which I had heard a million times before, but hadn’t truly listened to. To be honest, my return to “What’s Going On?”  wasn’t consciously to do with the Diallo murder, but unconsciously…. ?

And then, as if to relieve myself of any hesitation, I saw David Bowie at the Roseland Ballroom and had a night of pure, unrestrained, ecstasy. In the larger scheme of things, I don’t know why this rock concert has anything to do with anything, but it does, it really does.

I had lived through the butchering of Stephen Lawrence, the steel-capped boots of the National Front marauding the streets, the rocks and fires of the Brixton riots, the rebellion of the Notting Hill Carnival. But there was something about the Diallo murder, about being in America, about being on the verge of the 21st century that made it hit differently. Not long after that hail of Police bullets rang through the air, and I wish I could remember exactly when, I felt a Divine Elbow thrust itself into my ribs with real intent. The Divine Elbow said, ‘Wake Up! You’re not just an artist, you’re a Black artist, and that should mean something.’ And for the first time in my life, it did. So, here’s the thing. I was always a Black artist, obviously, but the unspooling of my faith in natural justice left me naked and shorn of all feathers, save for the fact that I now had a new coat of responsibility, and it was a coat weighted to the bone with history. From that time onward, as best as I could, I tried to correct, or at least challenge a past narrative that marooned the Black experience in the corner of the room. You could see it in what I wrote about, the plays I directed, the events I attended, where I spent my time, where I spent my business, how I let myself be.

That was how it was for close to twelve years and I’m proud of that time, but then fatigue set in. It’s an ugly truth that I don’t always want to admit, but slowly and surely I found myself exhausted from doing what I knew had to be done, by what I knew was my responsibility. To change a past narrative about the Black experience was to constantly wade again and again and again in the struggle of the Black experience, and bit by bit, day by day, month after month, year upon year, it eventually used me up. I remember thinking when no one was looking, ‘Is it okay if I create something that’s just beautiful? Something that doesn’t have anything to do with correcting a narrative? Something that doesn’t have anything to do with the meaning of history? Something that doesn’t have anything to do with anyone or anything but me and mine?’ Then I heard the painter Amy Sherald speak on the purpose of her work: “Public Blackness has been codified to be something that’s always attached to resistance, which limits our humanity and the ways in which we can imagine ourselves existing. There has to be some relief from the battle or we can never evolve as a people. I often say that my paintings are a ‘resting place,’ a place where Black people can see a reflection of themselves that’s not in resistance or contention. It’s just a Black person being a person.”

All at once, as if laid at my feet on a velvet cushion, I was given a landing and a new responsibility: Art as a ‘resting place.’

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When the good people at In Dance asked me if I was interested in writing something for the upcoming edition, I told them that I wanted to write about the responsibility of an artist, particularly the responsibility of a Black artist.

I was put in touch with two vanguards of art as an agent of change. The glorious writer, director, and human rights advocate Ellen Sebastian Chang, whose work includes “Your Place Is No Longer With Us,” “A Hole in Space (Oakland Redux)” with Maya Gurantz, and “House/Full of Blackwomen” with Deep Waters Dance Theater. And the wondrous composer, bassist, bandleader, and educator Marcus Shelby, whose works include “Harriet Tubman,” “Beyond the Blues: A Prison Oratoria,” and “Soul of a Movement: Meditations on Martin Luther King Jr.” He is currently composing music for “The People’s Palace,” a site-specific performance installation with Zaccho Dance Theatre.

There’s nothing like being in conversation with brilliant minds.

 

Michael French: So, Ellen, here’s why I wanted to talk with you. For some time now, I’ve found myself on projects – some of which I’ve created myself (!) where the overriding aim is to correct a past narrative about Black folk or the Black experience. And trust me, I know the good that’s in there, how important it is to address those things, but sometimes, sometimes I just want to create something that’s beautiful and not have it be a correction to anything.

Ellen Sebastian Chang: I hear you.

MF: Sometimes I want beauty to be my only responsibility.

ESC: I always want to create and pay homage to what I’m in love with. I’ll use this as an example. So, the very first show that I ever wrote and directed, which was called “Your Place Is No Longer With Us,” was an homage to someone I love profoundly, my muse, which was my grandmother…It was my grandmother that I learned the importance of responsibility and obligation from. They’re both words that are really testy in modern, western, mindsets. Especially the American mindset.

MF: Especially in my mindset, to be honest with you.

ESC: When I’ve done Human Rights work we talk about Helen Fine’s ‘Universe of Obligation.’ Every time we try to teach that in relation to Human Rights, Oh My God! People hear that word ‘Obligation,’ and I’m talking about queer folks, people of color, and there’s something about that word that just pisses people off!

MF: You can put me in that group.

ESC: That’s right. Because what it sounds like is that you’re not free, you’re not liberated to do as you wish. And I go, we’re obligated all the time! Breathing oxygen is an obligation to maintain life — would it not behoove us to be responsible towards clear air in an effort to maintain healthy life? We can’t escape some form of obligation and responsibility. We can create an illusion that ‘I’m doing me, this is about me, I’m living my best life,’ and all that. But I go, your best life is still in a relationship, an interdependency with everything and every being around you.

MF: Okay. So, for you, you have an obligation, but it’s only to things you love.

ESC: That’s right.

MF: And you say that you’re fooling yourself if you think you can live a life as an artist, any color artist, without an obligation to something.

ESC: Yes.

MF: I get that, but…. and I’m going to twist this around a bit… But Black and Brown people, the minute we step out our door we’re always — As the painter Amy Sherald would say, we’re always in ‘contention.’ Sometimes it’s with the people on the street, sometimes it’s with feeling like you’re always being observed, sometimes it’s with keeping the right distance so the person in front of you feels safe, sometimes it’s with history itself, and it’s fucking exhausting!

ESC: Believe me, I’ve been feeling that myself.

MF: And so, lately, I’ve been asking myself, where do Black people get to rest?! Again, Amy Sherald talks about creating work that’s a ‘resting place’ for Black people. Do you feel that responsibility in any way?

ESC: I’ve had the privilege to rest. I think it really began with the shutdown of the pandemic, to re-think how –- because I too was getting exhausted of always responding to the narrative of “white” history. For me, it was, Oh My God! I don’t want to see another ‘slave narrative’ ever again in my life! And it’s not because I don’t think that narrative is important to learn and understand. Many of those narrative stories are written or produced for white people or people that have been willfully ignorant the past four hundred years. So, yes, if someone wants to take that on, to continually educate the white mindset, no problem. But for myself, I had to ask, ‘what am I curious about, what interests me,’ and in trusting what interests me — be it science fiction or rural landscapes…. What’s the relationship between birds and African history? What’s the relationship between honey and certain African cultures? That’s what interests me and I just want to go down those rabbit holes and ask questions. I’m going to quote Chinua Achebe because one thing he said is, “Our art is based on morality.” The earth Goddess among the Igbo people is also the Goddess of morality. So, in our aesthetic, you cannot run away from morality. Morality is basic to the nature of art.

MF: That is such an interesting way to put it.

ESC: And then I have to follow that up with a quote from Nietzsche, he says, and I LOVE THIS, “If you crush a cockroach, you’re a hero, but if you crush a butterfly, you’re a villain.” Morals have aesthetic criteria.

MF: Wow! Wow! Wow!

ESC: So, that, in relationship with Chinua Achebe, reminds me that beauty has always been something that comes with a kind of moralism, okay? And why we feel so angry and frustrated is because we think, ‘fucking white men! They can just decide that they’re going to do something and just do it for the sake of doing it,’ but that is a lie!

MF: WHAT!!!!?

ESC: The reason I say that it’s a lie is because what the white patriarchy is doing is leading with their moral authority. They’re the ones that create these notions that say a cockroach has no value therefore it should be wiped out. Notice the language of othering and devaluing humans by calling them insects, vermin or animals. White supremacist patriarchal mindsets have been the gatekeepers and standard holders to decide, ‘what is craft and what is art, what has worth and what doesn’t.’ Who gets to decide what beauty is and why!? We are talking about it openly now, these are exciting times of change.

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Four days later, with Ellen’s words still echoing around my nervous system, I had a Zoom chat with Marcus Shelby and rewound the inquiry to the beginning.

Michael French: I just want to give you the big picture of why I wanted to talk with you…

Marcus Shelby: Okay.

MF: It’s about the idea of Black artists and the ‘responsibility’ we can feel to correct the past with our work. Just looking at the titles of some of your work. I mean, you’ve made a very clear statement as to where you’re coming from…. 

MS: Absolutely! There’s no question I feel that responsibility! ‘Cus I’ve had the opportunity to check the work of people like Nina Simone and Charles Mingus, and that’s what they were all about. Nina Simone said, and I’m paraphrasing, but she talked about the duty of the artist. It’s the artist’s duty to speak on what’s going on around them. I mean, that’s one philosophy, but I buy into it one hundred percent! And it can be grueling to put yourself where the action is. I did a piece on Harriet Tubman where I went to where she was born, to where she passed away — three years of incredible research, and just putting myself in all those places was really valuable to getting an understanding of her and the times and what they went through. I did the same thing with the Civil Rights piece I wrote. I went down south, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas. I put myself in places where you can see a slave block right there — I wanted to see the Civil Rights movement on a local level and find the stories that don’t make it into the history books.

MF: But let me step in a little bit on that, which is… So, you’re saying that you feel a duty to go into the African American experience from the angle of politics and social justice, and that the corrective narrative framework that I’m reacting to is not something that tires or exhausts you. In fact it’s something that nourishes you.

MS: Most times I don’t know anything about a subject beyond surface knowledge, and so for me, if I’m going to have something to say artistically about it, I need to learn as much as possible. Sometimes, like method acting, you become what you’re acting. And there’s a selfish part to this, because I want to gain more knowledge about a subject, get more meat on my bones.

I mean, I did a piece on the prison industrial complex…. As an artist, what am I supposed to do? Just sit by and act like it’s not happening? No, that’s not what Charles Mingus would have done! Look, I want to be the best artist I can be, but my aim is to see myself in the light of Mingus, Nina Simone, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln. These are towering figures in history, a level that I’ll never achieve, but if you use your work to highlight what’s happening around you it’s often gonna be about injustice.

MF: So being an activist and an artist are one and the same thing to you?

MS: Oooo, that’s a tough one. I don’t know how to answer that right now, but I know that my impulse is to show up for my community. I mean, the last thing I did that had to do with “activism,” was organize a bunch of musicians to raise money for MECA, which is a Middle East children’s alliance that helps send money to kids and families in Palestine.

MF: I knew talking to you wasn’t going to be easy because there are some artists that remind you of all that you can do as an artist, whether you choose to or not, and you’re one of them! Like this thing for MECCA, it’s not somewhere I would go, quite honestly, but I love the fact that you said ‘I want to do this, I want to contribute.’

MS: Well, again I ask myself, what would Nina and all those be doing right now? I mean, Gaza is such a loaded topic right now and some folks may not agree with what I’m doing, but —

MF: So be it.

MS: So be it.

MF: I understand the duty that you feel, the muses that you have and their influence on you, I get that. But to be Black is political, whether we want it to be or not, I mean, that’s what we’ve been turned into because of history, and my version of being a Black person has never been easy going, y’know what I mean? There’s always some kind of tension when I’m in public, and that’s the tiring part. Amy Sherald, the painter, talks about a ‘resting place’ and puts it so much better than I will, but do you ever want to create something that doesn’t take from Black people in tension? If you’re going to talk about Harriet Tubman, there’s a tension there. MLK, there’s a tension there.

MS: Well, yes, is the short answer to that. That’s why I started reading a bunch of Octavia Butler books. Because I looked up and I thought, man, everything I’ve involved myself with has to do with history and it felt like maybe I was limiting my possibilities. And I have done things outside of the ‘movement’ pieces, but they’ve all been about Black culture.

MF: I understand that.

MS: I did something about the Black experience during the pandemic.

MF: You did?

MS: Yeah, but thinking about it, it was still to do with struggle because it dealt with the protests, the expansion of homelessness in the Tenderloin, so it was still along the same lines, but…. I like that idea of a ‘resting place.’ I’m also horribly behind on so many things about our struggle.

MF: Hahahahahaha!

MS: Trust me, I’m not into the ‘struggle’ fetish.

MF: That’s such an important phrase you just used.

MS: I mean, look how long it’s taken film to reflect the diversity of the Black experience outside of “Roots” and the “Color Purple!” All great stuff, but — Y’see, I don’t think stories that are centered on our struggle are absent of beauty. I mean, that’s the definition of the Blues, triumph and tragedy side by side, and the human condition cannot exist without both things being represented. That’s how it is, isn’t it?

***

resting place

Word forms: resting places plural

1. COUNTABLE NOUN

A resting place is a place where you can stay and rest, usually for a short period of time.

The area was an important resting place for many types of migrant birds.

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I’ve always seen creative expression as a spiritual act, as creativity is something you receive, something that comes to you, rather than something you need to search for. And no matter how it shows itself, how it manifests, it takes an extraordinary amount of faith to take something from the safety of within and put it out into the world for everyone to inspect. In the ‘Booming Declarations’ dept of my soul, I still believe that the artist is the slayer of autocratic dragons, defender of the bold and the beautiful, the messenger that gives life meaning. Artists give us a lot to be thankful for. Viva Le Artist!

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This article appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of In Dance.

Rendering by Sean Riley
[ID: A blueprint-style drawing of a section of San Francisco City Hall with two red ropes attached from corners of the ceiling to a single dance figure below.]

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Sean Riley interviewed by Rowena Richie

Rowena Richie: “Sunny Jim” Rolph is the San Francisco mayor responsible for christening City Hall “The People’s Palace” when it opened in 1915. The expression referred to its intended purpose: it was not a palace for kings and queens, but for ‘the people.’ Tell me about your set design for Zaccho Dance Theatre’s upcoming performance, The People’s Palace.

Sean Riley: I guess we start with the building itself which is the essence of site specific work. Basically we’re making a piece of time-based art in conversation with this locale. This is different and distinct from what we would think of as traditional theater where the proscenium is a blank frame in which we create a world inside, and you can move it and plug it in somewhere else and have a similar experience. But in site specific work we’re talking about making the work specifically in conversation with that locale which can only happen in that place. So in this case, the building itself, City Hall, is that locale, right? So, in terms of my approach there are two pathways: there’s what the space is, and there’s what the space means. They are different ways of unpacking the building.

Architecture is an emotion machine. It’s designed to evoke, to provoke a set of reactions from us as humans. When we walk into a building, we get a feeling. With this space, where we have the huge vaulted ceilings, the tool that’s evoking that emotion is so powerful that you can’t help but notice it and be affected by it, but also notice that it is affecting you. There’s not a lot of subtlety in this beaux arts style. This style is specifically designed to inspire, to overwhelm, to impose. So, I look at the building in terms of what it is to understand what makes this building stand up. The different ways that force is managed within the architecture actually has an effect on how we feel. But also because in this specific kind of work we plan to use these spaces in unorthodox ways.

RR: This kind of work meaning site specific aerial work?

SR: Yeah, I certainly have done other kinds of site specific work, but I’m talking about doing aerial which is, you know, a wide umbrella of a term. Sometimes it involves ropes. Sometimes it just involves being in a place where humans can’t normally get to — unique access. It’s really all about drawing attention. In this context with Joanna, aerial is not just a trick, not only circus and spectacle. It is very carefully thought out to inhabit and embody the space in a unique way that’s positioned to draw attention to certain aspects that are aligned with the message of the piece.

RR: Tell me more. How do you as a set designer ‘draw attention to certain aspects that are aligned with the message of the piece?’

SR: I start to tease apart specific elements [of the building] and try to figure out okay, so how does this emotion machine work? Like what are actually the moving parts here? And that’s where I’ve started to find elements that I can play with.

RR: For example?

 

SR: Throughout the building, there are these busts, busts of previous mayors and other figures. And all these busts are presented on these funny plinths. It’s like a box, you know, like a four foot high by two foot by two foot box that the bust sits upon. And what that plinth means is here is an object worthy of your attention, right? So I have latched onto that shape of the plinth as a method within the context of this building, of calling attention to an object worthy of consideration and of appreciation. I’ve recreated these plinths without the bust on top as performance props. And then, because of the limited surface area on the top, right, you just follow the poetry of it. There’s all kinds of other vocabulary about the limitation of space, the confinement of that tiny plinth for human beings to dance on. And that leads to movement. It leads to storyline. It leads to all sorts of things.

RR: Are there any obvious “elephants in the room” that need to be addressed?

SR: In this space, there certainly are. The reason this piece needs to exist is the essential disconnect between what the building is today and what it purports to be, and the architectural style and the intention of that architectural style. There’s a disconnect in what this building is — our political and social center — and what it represents or what we hope it represents. What it strives to represent is inclusion, a governmental system that upholds all of the best ideals of our American style of government, which we profess to be equality and equal consideration and access.

RR: Yes, and yet.…

SR: And yet I think we all would agree that it’s a complicated history in this country, so unpacking what this building means is a complicated thing. I think it’s really important to note that it’s a gorgeous building. It is Joanna’s position, and mine as well, that unpacking and trying to understand and comment on this building’s architecture doesn’t take away from that fact. But the truth is that this beaux arts style has elements of Baroque and Rococo and is strongly influenced by Europe, and in turn back to Rome, and back to Greece. It’s got these classical shapes and forms and it’s no mistake that it was chosen because of its association with these classical societies and these classical seats of power. It was designed to place American society and American power in this inherited lineage of the great societies of the world, right? It’s all about what this architectural style uplifts and supports. And what it lifts up and supports is a vision of what is relevant and good in a society. And this particular vision of what is relevant and good in society is patriarchy and capitalism and essentially, white supremacy.

RR: And essentially, white supremacy.

SR: Yeah. The roots of this style are part of the foundation of what it means to fabricate whiteness. What it means to build an identity of whiteness. And it does so by reaching out and borrowing history from other places that for better or for worse, or truthfully or untruthfully, were identified in the minds of the people that chose this style as flourishing whiteness. I think it’s fair to say that indigenous cultures were not considered and are not considered. We see this colonial style in plantation architecture, right? We see it in all sorts of places attempting to identify with whiteness, and trying to transplant that into this space in this country.

I must acknowledge that as a cisgender white man in today’s climate of identity politics, it’s very difficult to separate the speaker from the message. Of course, I have invisible biases like anybody else that I can’t always perfectly see. But I have been really lucky to work with amazing artists. Joanna is really one of my north stars. I’ve learned a lot about how to talk about this subject and how to see things more clearly. And I’ve also learned how to have a voice and that it is okay for me to have a voice within the subject matter. As a cisgender white man, for me to talk about white supremacy is not only possible, but important.

RR: Absolutely, yeah.

SR: So now perhaps after that whole bit, you can see more clearly why I preface that by saying that this is an amazing piece of architecture, and it’s beautiful, and I love it. This is not, for Joanna, and certainly not for me, a criticism of the architecture as it sits. This is a contextual understanding of it, right? This is something that informs the way we’re moving forward. So the piece is not in any way designed to slam the things but rather further complicate it. This building is supposed to be for everyone. And I think it’s clear going through that building that not everyone is represented. So one of the things we really focused on — the elephant in the room — are these four rather large medallions in the ceiling. They have a relief carved within them representing the virtues liberty, learning, strength and equality. They’ve compiled images of lots of different symbols like you’d have on the back of the dollar bill. All this different symbolism. But they’re clearly not representative of the full breadth of our society.

RR: In other words, the moniker “the people’s palace” didn’t really mean all the people.

SR: Yeah, in my words, I think this piece could be described as an intervention to add back and showcase the missing elements of society that have not had representation or a voice within this space.

RR: What’s another example of an element you’re reimagining?

SR: So the medallions — I forget exactly how Joanna put it, she said something like, ‘The strength medallion is a half naked man with a sword.’ Like a really muscular white guy sitting down with a big sword. This is the vision of strength that we are presented with. And I think the vision of strength that Joanna would like to present, that she lives through her life and presents in her art and that we would like to present here, is something more nuanced. It’s the strength of caring and trust and respect. This is the strength of a society. This is the strength of an interrelated group of people inhabiting a piece of geography. The strength of that society lies in so much more than a sword.

RR: What’s it like to work with Joanna?

SR: A masterclass in how to be a person on the earth is how I feel about the privilege of being around and working with Joanna Haigood. She creates art with a fierce bravery but without anger. How to separate those things is one of the magic tricks that she does so well. I have benefited from learning a tiny bit of that.

RR: Do you have any sense of what her secret is?

SR: Love, just love. An enormous bottomless pit of love. An enormous supply of love that governs what she does. She wrestles with subjects and realities that are oftentimes deeply disturbing and uncomfortable and she does so, without the bitterness that would be so understandable and forgivable. She manages to find this way to present a subject without any hint of an attack, but also never avoiding hard truths. Without having a blameful attacking component to it really opens the door for healing. There are lots of people, particularly these days, in recent times, calling attention to wrongs and highlighting aspects of our history in our society that could be better, and that’s great, and they can be better and we should be looking at that. But Joanna does it in a way that makes a very, very large roof that even those who might feel alienated from the message can stand under. She holds space so that we can all come together to acknowledge and find a different way.

RR: Obviously, The People’s Palace, the performance, is ephemeral. What trace do you want it to leave behind?

SR: The same as always, to touch hearts and minds. The reason we do theater in the first place is to affect someone. I know that sounds like a platitude, but this time based thing we do exists for a moment and it exists in collaboration with an audience member. That transformation within the audience member is actually the object that I’m crafting. And in terms of Joanna’s always leading with love, I hope that we will leave with a feeling that is warm and good, even though not everything we saw is easy to see. That there’s hope in it. This is an important, timely message. And it’s an important place for it to be happening. I think there’s power in this. In City Hall, this big governmental organization being the venue for this message to happen. This is right where the change needs to happen. This is like the bullseye.

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This article appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of In Dance.

Photo by Wayne Hazzard
[ID: Saharla Vetsch, a caramel-colored Black woman draped in shiny fuchsia fabric, gestures gracefully amidst the neoclassical architecture of San Francisco City Hall. We see her in profile and only her head and left arm are visible outside the fabric. A navy blue and white bandana is tied upwards around her afro.]

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Joanna Haigood’s The People’s Palace premieres at San Francisco City Hall May 9, 10 and 12. I had the pleasure and honor of watching a rehearsal and later interviewing Joanna (all over Zoom). Rooted in the knowledge that neoclassical architecture, both implicitly and explicitly, reinforces the invisibility of marginalized populations, The People’s Palace is both intervention and celebration meant to lift every voice. Joanna shared with me this deeply germane quote by adrienne maree brown: “…we have to understand that imagination shapes the world and so those of us who have been oppressed by how others imagine the world, the supremacists, the patriarchs, the war mongers, the capitalists, we have to imagine something so compelling it moves us beyond and out of the compliance with our entrapment in these systems that do not love us.”

Let us radically imagine our worlds.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Maurya Kerr: I’ll just share some of my impressions from rehearsal if that’s cool as a starting point. I was really struck by so many of the artists saying they felt beautifully small and held. I was thinking about that return to embrace and how rarely we get that in our lives. I’d written down in my notes something about the safety of the fetal-ness, being held that way, womb-like. Also this sense of being sideways and aslant in the world, off-kilter, that the aerial work allows you to do, and how that relates to the double consciousness Du Bois talked about, seeing the world as if everything is slightly askew compared to people who aren’t marginalized, either racially or through class. I’m wondering if that figures in for you—or what does aerial offer you?

Joanna Haigood: I guess for me, it’s many different points of perspective, being able to see the world from all these different angles. Oftentimes, we feel like we know where we are, but as soon as we change our relationship to up and down, it’s very different. And the things that are revealed are sometimes, well, life-changing in the biggest respect, and illuminating in terms of where we are, who we are to each other, what we are to our environment. It’s a sense of scale, really. If you’ve ever been down to the desert, like Death Valley, or amongst the giant sequoias, those feelings are immediately apparent or bubble up.

MK: It’s also feeling small in safety, as opposed to feeling small and diminished. I feel like we’re always having to be big in the world to survive, and when we feel small, it’s often at our expense. So that ability to be cradled felt unique and special.

JH: Yeah, because in this context, feeling small is really about being able to feel and acknowledge the larger scale of the world. Not that we are insignificant, but that there is so much happening alongside you.

MK: That sense of scale, it’s a different virtuosity and a holding space. I know that having been in your work and seen your work, it is so much about the holding of space and presence, as opposed to choreography or physical pyrotechnics. I think that’s one of the great beauties of your work, plus this sense of working to place, or of place, or from place. So I was wondering about how you, within this process, how you’re directing the artists, for example, in the section about liberty.

JH: For me, it is much more about mining, exploring, connecting, and sharing each other’s life experiences, things that people have gone through that relate to these particular virtues [Henri Crenier’s four Civic Virtues: Learning, Liberty, Strength, and Equality], or how they relate to them in general from where they stand. And also, what are the expectations of these ideas and ideals. The whole piece, for me, is about upending the notions that the architecture proposes: white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism.

MK: It’s an incredibly white space on every level.

JH: Yes, very white. When we talk about liberty from a European perspective, it’s based on politics, class, and religion. But from our perspective, as people of color, it’s all of these things plus these really horrific notions of race and caste, as Isabel Wilkerson would say. Liberty is linked to our struggle for humanity, a struggle we’ve been in for many generations.

MK: With that, the sense that not much has changed. I think you’re saying that as well.

JH: It’s changed… some things have changed on the surface.

MK: But the essence of how we deal with Blackness or class…

JH: And how we see and respond to each other, where our priorities are, it’s still very imbalanced. The whole thing of learning: I’m working with Indigenous culture bearers Gregg Castro and Jonathan Cordero, who are helping me navigate through the idea of decolonization and come to some deeper understanding of our histories. One of the virtues is learning, and thinking about what that is from an Indigenous point of view. So much of their teaching and from where they build their social structure and relationship to life in general is anchored in this notion of harmony with nature. And that is precisely the area where we have gone so astray. Like, we’re really far off! We’re always trying to control and harness nature. That idea of being the superior being on the planet has interrupted this relationship that, when it works from the point of view of integration and harmony, feeds and creates this environment where we really thrive.

MK: I think thrive in ways that we can’t even comprehend. And it does seem, too, that City Hall is the antithesis.

JH: Completely!

MK: That kind of edifice, that kind of architecture, the literal and figurative whiteness is the antithesis of harmony with nature.

JH: Yeah, and there are no direct references there to our connection to nature, and no references to Indigenous people, in terms of the statuary or anywhere.

MK: It’s important to go into a room and ask who’s missing. And it’s usually Black people; it’s almost always Indigenous people. I’m never in spaces with Indigenous people. Society doesn’t ask that enough—who’s missing from this work space, this dance space, etc.

More on aerial-ness—the balance of support and surrender feels important and in line with Indigenous culture. I was also thinking about the folktales that slaves could fly, which I know is very present in your mind and work. Those are some things I was thinking of as I was taking notes and watching, some of those ideas and motifs that feel integral, I was going to say a Black experience, but I think it’s more an integrated experience, speaking with some of the language you’ve been using around indigeneity.

JH: I’m impressed you could see that through Zoom. Like, that was really good watching! [both laugh]

MK: I taught over Zoom for three years, so I’m zeroed in!

I love the title The People’s Palace. Obviously that’s a reclamation—we don’t think of ‘palace’ and ‘people,’ so the combination of those words is important.

JH: Yeah. This is what it was called when it was built.

MK: Oh really! I didn’t know that.

JH: That’s what the mayor [James “Sunny Jim” Rolph] called it. That was his desire, to create a place where people felt like they were being honored and had a place to feel celebrated.

MK: Majestic and grand, that “the people” are allowed to feel that, have that invitation.

JH: At the end of the day, it ends up that “the people” are very specific and not inclusive. But when I was at City Hall with an architectural historian, he mentioned that for him, the diversity of people in the building dispels the ideologies of whiteness and patriarchy. I don’t know if you’ve been there on a busy day, but there are like twenty weddings happening all at the same time [laughs], quinceañera celebrations, just so much activity. Really, every possible type of human is there doing something deeply meaningful to them. It feels like their place, their right, and I love that about the building.

MK: That’s awesome. I didn’t know that. So it sounds like the intentions of the building are happening!

JH: Yes. But I also feel that the architecture, what was chosen and what it represents on the physical plane, is the antithesis of that. This project is focused on the intentions of neoclassical design in civic architecture. I think those intentions are very clear, even in the choices of the added statuary on display around the building. People might say, ‘Oh, it’s a reflection of the time,’ but that’s also what they say about the people who enslaved others, right?

MK: Yes, ‘that was just what happened.’

JH: And it wasn’t like Asian people weren’t here; they were here. There were Black people here, all kinds of people here. They weren’t the majority, but they were here.

MK: There was enough representation to be included.

JH: That’s just the thing, I mean, even in the Exposition [1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition], there was a Primitive Pavilion, where visitors got to look at these ‘underdeveloped Native cultures,’ while around the corner were gorgeous examples of the Beaux Arts and European architecture and culture movement; we can see which was considered to be more aesthetically beautiful and intellectually superior. But we, of course, know that to not be true.

MK: Yeah, it’s always the vaulting of European intelligence. It is interesting though for a building to fulfill its intended intention, yet be modeled after whiteness. I mean, it fulfills its intentions for “the people,” but “the people” aren’t represented within the architecture.

JH: Well, again, it’s true that at that point, white people—well, it’s still true—were the dominant voice and everything else was considered lesser. [Thomas] Jefferson was really influential in this movement, particularly with the Beaux Arts and these classical styles as representing these civic ideals, and at the same time enslaving people.

MK: So we’re talking about architecture and working against those symbols into more inclusivity. Is there anything beyond what’s on your website that feels critical to talk about with The People’s Palace?

JH: Well, there’s been a lot of discussion around dismantling many things—dismantling white supremacy, colonization, statues—and I’m not really calling for this building to be torn down. I’m more interested in being in conversation about what these things mean, what these built environments are there to support, and then how we can rethink or create interventions that bridge these worlds. And I’ll be curious about what conversations come up, how we can move forward in a way that creates environments where all people feel like they belong.

MK: What’s your utopian result of people seeing this performance? Or what kind of conversations would lead to praxis as opposed to just another conversation about an art piece?

JH: Well, I think it would be really great for a group of architects and artists to get together and explore what are the things that we can honor about this architecture and what are the things that we can introduce to bridge this really gaping hole.

MK: Okay—we’ll put the word out! That would be amazing! [both laugh]

JH: There are some conversations about architecture and whiteness getting some traction right now because it’s all operating on such a subliminal level at this point. People are not walking around in their environments aware of the lineage of whiteness.

MK: Well, I think that particularly for white people, whiteness is invisible, and so when you go into these sort of vaulted spaces, white people generally aren’t asking that question of who’s missing, or ‘how is my whiteness loud in this space and time,’ as opposed to just assuming it as the norm. Whiteness is not invisible at all to people who are not white.

JH: We’re constantly navigating that relationship. I was trying to explain to someone that for us, we’ve been thinking about this since the moment we were conscious, and about how I work through these varying identities—that when I wake up and am going out, first I prepare Joanna, and then I prepare myself as a Black person.

MK: I wanted to talk briefly about Robert Henry Johnson.

JH: Yeah. [sadly]

MK: I was looking at your website and it was wild to see photos of me and Robert from Departure and Arrival [2007]. He was such an integral part of your process from the very beginning. I feel like he was such a masterful carrier of narrative in his body, of storytelling. So I don’t know if I want to ask what it’s like not having Robert Henry in your processes right now, just wanting to bring that huge absence into our space.

JH: Yeah, it’s a very deep, heavy, sad loss. He was supposed to be in this piece—I’m dedicating it to him. He was such a deep wanderer and so incredibly gifted.

MK: Oh my God, so gifted. Like his ability to shapeshift…

JH: Yes, shapeshifting.

MK: … was so remarkable and it looked like he did it with such ease, but I also know the appearance of ease takes a toll.

JH: He worked deeply on his craft, he really did. He worked a lot of things out, studied a lot. He was one of the few people I would only have to say a few words to and he knew exactly what I was after, almost like there was a kind of telepathic connection.

MK: I think part of the deep wandering of him was also that his instincts were so attuned from the vastness of how he inhabited the world.

JH: I really miss him a lot. I’m thinking about certain parts of this piece and about him, the conversations we would be having right now, both verbally and non-verbally.

MK: And also as someone who’s probably been in your work the longest, the loss of that legacy of communication and collaboration, I imagine it’s quite large for you.

JH: Yeah.

MK: So lovely to connect; thank you Joanna.

JH: So when do I get to interview you?! [both laugh]

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This article appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of In Dance.

Design by Jesus Morales
[ID: Digital painting of a map for Delta Real/ation. The multicolor graphic shows different environments such as mountains, bodies of water, buildings, and more.]

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In January, I attended the MIT Reality Hack, an Extended Reality (XR) hackathon in Cambridge, Massachusetts as part of my professional development tour. XR is an umbrella term that includes augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) mixed reality (MR), and anything in between. The MIT Reality Hack motto, “Hack to the Future”, unfolds annually as a community-driven XR hackathon, attracting a diverse ensemble of XR professionals, brand mentors, creators, participants, students, and tech enthusiasts. There are also a LOT of prizes! This gathering serves as a nexus where attendees engage in tech workshops, discussions, project collaborations, and innovative endeavors.

But what exactly is hacking? It’s the art of coaxing hardware into performing beyond its prescribed functions, a technicity articulated by phenomenology philosopher Erin Manning. In her book Always More Than One, she draws parallels between dance-making, specifically William Forsythe’s choreography, and improvisation emphasizing the importance of pushing the boundaries of technical vocabulary to spark new creations, a technicity or a hacking, underscoring how choreographers and dance artists engage in the manipulation of language and gestures of movement to cultivate invention.^[1]

The best part of this event is the wide range of backgrounds and skill levels of attendees from all over the world. Although the event requires an application process and community agreements with check-ins, I had the opportunity to meet people from the XR industry, academics, and people who simply love to play, fail, and play again. My collaborators NI DO TO XR — an exhibit on the choreographic research for IKKAI featuring interactive technologies such as an Obon dance tutorial hologram and a video game of packing and unpacking — encouraged me to apply. Being the kind of dancer used to being well rehearsed, or at least thoroughly planned, I wasn’t sure how I could go to the hackathon if I didn’t already have a plan or idea in motion. How would I fit in? What would I even do? But then I considered that maybe that was the point. What I discovered is that as dance artists, we are natural storytellers who integrate physical interactivity with design, and these skills are essential in XR.

After an intensive day of workshops ranging from sound haptic design to ethical hacking, I found myself at 11 pm in an impressive and modern MIT campus building on a multigenerational team working on a project with Ayaskant Panigrahi, Jennifer Chan, Barak Hussein, and Jesus Morales. Collectively, we embodied the intersection of programming, design, cyber security, and, of course, dance. A team of diasporic XR creatives — developers, designers, and dreamers.

Our project Delta Real/ation introduced a game where migrants lead in designing their new settlements rooted in a mixed reality XR game. This project followed a more-than-human design ethos, placing players in the shoes of Koda and Nisa, recent migrants tasked with planning a sustainable and inclusive community. Aligned with the UN Sustainability Goal #11, the game aims to foster inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities and human settlements. The Looking Glass, a 3D frame-like display, serves as a window into Koda’s Meta Quest or VR headset design process, making transparent what is usually invisible: individual decision-making and its potential community consequences. After a round, players swap roles and are then encouraged to contemplate gestures of welcome for newcomers in their communities. This project drew inspiration from speculative design principles, embracing the Protopia Futures framework to explore possible, plausible, probable, and preferable futures. Through ideation processes, world-building, and collaborative activities, Delta Real/ation envisioned a future where diverse communities can thrive. If you are interested, check out our game building on our DevPost.

Back in San Francisco, and being home, I’ve begun to integrate my three-week professional development tour. One of the things that has become clear is a larger research question guiding my work inspired by a conversation I was having with the co-interrogators of Dancing Around Race, Gerald Casel, David Herrera, Raissa Simpson, and Bhumi Patel: how might creative practice be employed as a framework for harm reduction within the capitalist context in which we live? Through creative practice, I can actively involve and evolve, implicate myself, and invite my audiences to journey alongside me.

One of the next pieces I am working on to premier in 2026 is (a) Bathing, a fantastical, immersive dance film where viewers’ bodies control a visual narrative that flickers between staid urban gardens and the natural glory of a forest or natural environment. This is to stimulate audiences into imagining a diverse community where colonial modernity converses with these majestic lands. I will use a motion-tracking camera on the audience so viewers explore how group movement affects the narrative outcomes of this film. If little or no movement is detected, the film glitches to an alterity of a city or suburban garden, dancing a metaphor of neo-colonialism. (a) Bathing contemplates in motion the historical tensions between migration, settlement, belonging, and being responsible to a beloved place – nature. When the audience moves together at a certain speed, a metaphor for collective action, they will witness an emerging screen story that reflects the interior lives of the film’s all-BIPOC cast. This culturally rich community comes from a range of socio-historical positions, yet bathing in nature together will show a poetic relationality that contests the present world’s racial and colonial hierarchies of value. With the audience experiencing collective physical movement, I hope this embodied social art experience with integrated technology will help foster and imagine a cross-racial alliance for audiences to reckon with their conscious and unconscious colonial complicity.

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[1] Manning, Erin. 2012. Always More than One. Duke University Press EBooks. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822395829.

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This article appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of In Dance.

Photo by Isadora Paz-Taboada
[ID: On a sunny day, four women explore their relationship with water and ropes. One is sitting on a rock and holding the end of the ropes while the other women are standing in the water. They are wearing typical dresses from Lenca culture.]

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This article was written in English and Spanish. For the Spanish version, please click here.
Este artículo fue escrito en inglés y español. Para la versión en español, haga clic aquí.

 

*Wise woman. In Spanish Savia means Sap, and Sabia means to be wise, we want to emphasize the meaning and relation between both words.

**Lenka cacaopera language

 

What am I?

It’s the memory of the space that existed, inside and outside of me.

What is that space?

It’s my grandmother’s house, the yuyuba tree in the garden, the layer of cells that originated my heart, my grandmother’s chest that cradled me as a child, or my own chest.

The memory of the space moves me, as if it were a consequence of my desire to inhabit that space again, to expand there, to explore every fold, every corner, and every texture.

 

Who we are is essentially linked to the space in which we grew up and all the memories we have about those spaces. When we talk about the space where we grew up, we include the space of the maternal womb, the spatial configuration of embryological development, the coordinated and precise movement of cells that originates human tissues and systems.

Thus, as Honduran artists we decided to undertake the task to explore the geographical spaces inhabited by our indigenous Lenca ancestors. The Lencas are a Mesoamerican group that occupies part of the territory of Honduras and El Salvador. Currently, there are around half a million Lencas who preserve their culture, gastronomy, clothing, agriculture, dances, and rituals. The Lenca indigenous movement is now internationally recognized for their struggles in defense of rivers and forests.

In March 2024, we held a movement exchange meeting with indigenous Lenca women in the department of La Paz, Honduras. Environmental leaders, farm workers and artisan women from eight communities in the area gathered to exchange movement, dance, and rituals linked to nature and indigenous culture. This exchange is part of a collaborative and multidisciplinary performance led by three Honduran artists: Diana Lara, Isadora Paz Taboada (movement artists), and Gabriel Vallecillo-Marquez (video artist). The project is being developed in Honduras and San Francisco and is part of the Edge residency at CounterPulse, which will premiere in June 2024.

We were fortunate to work in collaboration with the organization Murilpaz, Indigenous Lenca Women Association from La Paz. On the first day of the meeting, the participants opened the event by performing the “compostura.” The compostura is one of the original ceremonies that are configured as a dance-rite and tribute to Mother Earth. For centuries, the Lenca people have interpreted this ceremony to mark the moments of the planting and harvesting cycle. In the representation, the participants set up an altar and recreate a series of acts and consecration movements for abundance, anticipating the arrival of the rainy season. The ritual, as interpreted through the lens of the Murilpaz organization, expands much more, as its leader Donatila shares, “We ask that the land be distributed equitably, we ask that the lands belong to women.”

Each woman brought an element that is part of the altar, such as copal, colored candles, vegetables, fruits, and flowers. The candles were placed marking the cardinal points: white towards the north, which signifies purity; yellow towards the south, which signifies fertility, seed, and reproduction of women and nature; red towards the east, which signifies the blood of martyrs, the people who have resisted and been killed; and black or purple towards the west, which represents the ancestors, those who have already departed. In the center of the compostura, a green candle representing nature and a blue one representing the sky were placed.

The first day of the workshop coincided with the celebration of International Women’s Day, March 8th. In Honduras, there is a tradition of celebrating Women’s Day with events in communities at the local and national levels. It was then very significant that this exchange of body awareness, somatic movement, and rituals in nature took place specifically on this date.

On the second day of the meeting, we continued our exploration of movement and rituals at a specific site chosen by Murilpaz to allow contact with nature. “The island” is located an hour from Marcala by unpaved road. It is a small area of land through which a river passes, forming a water pool and a waterfall. In this place, we remembered the movements generated the previous day in this new landscape, incorporating the element of water and the guacales. Guacales are oval-shaped vessels of pre-Columbian origin made from a tree called jicara. They are used in Honduras to carry water and for other uses in cooking and daily activities.

Another element we explored both days was the use of the Lenca language. Currently, there is a process of recovery and revitalization of the Lenca language, which ceased to be spoken in the mid-20th century. The young women who attended the workshop are learning in school to speak and write one of the Lenca languages. We encouraged the participants to write a sentence related to Lenca culture in Spanish and Lenca and to incorporate movement into the sentence. The process was creative and playful and opened the door to collaboration among women from different generations.

The scenarios of the body and the expression of dance are rooted in territories, collective memory, the exchange between tradition and modernity, between multiple identities. Dance continues to occur in squares, in the scenarios of the everyday, and also in dance halls and theaters. Our task as Honduran performing artists is to reinterpret this wealth of movements, sounds, rituals, emotions, and language that are alive in our Lenca culture and roots. We want to share this performance with others to motivate them to explore all their roots and especially those that are less visible. It is not an easy task but it is worth the challenge.

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Visit counterpulse.org/edge2024/ for tickets and information about Savia~SapFlow, made possible with generous support from CounterPulse Edge Residency and German Cultural Center in Honduras.

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This article appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of In Dance.

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Diana Lara is a choreographer, performer, and somatic movement educator born and raised in Honduras. Her choreographic work is influenced by contemporary dance, contact improvisation, Body-Mind Centering training, and Latinx culture. She creates choreographies that explore the effects of coloniality, religion, and gender on the body, and that generate rituals to peel layers of oppression. Her choreography has been staged in San Francisco Bay Area venues including the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, NohSpace, Dance Mission Theater, among others. http://www.dianalara-somatics.com/

Isadora Paz Taboada is a Honduran-Argentinian choreographer and performer, co-founder of DA escenica, an independent collaborative project based in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. She has been a resident artist at ADF Durham, NC and the National Choreographic Center in La Rochelle, France. She explores community narratives, practices and performances promoting collective inquiry and intercultural dialogue through dance and performance. DA escenica