Performing Diaspora 2019: She-Verse & mouth/full Dec.11-14 @ CounterPulse

Gabriel Christian and Chibueze Crouch
 in mouth/full

Performing Diaspora 2019 at CounterPulse is really wonderful this year. It's always wonderful but the three artists: Cherie Hill's IrieDance in She-Verse and Gabriel Christian and Chibueze Crouch in mouth/full this weekend, Thursday-Sat., Dec. 12-14, 7:45 p.m.-9 p.m. (Don't be late) -- is "more" wonderful. 

How often are Africans or Black people VIP because they are African or Black people?! We are royalty because of our melanin. We are called out for an exclusive, pre-show experience that sets the tone for the evening, perhaps for the rest of our lives, definitely for 2020.

It is experiences like Performing Diaspora 2019 that hold us when the days are chilly with whiteness-- a crisp breeze that seeks to rob us of our Black Souls, even when we know, that is not really possible as we grab doorknobs and other objects that have more permanence than flesh to buffer ourselves against what happens when stage coaches return to pumpkin state. All Cinderella had was a dream, right?

How easy it is so easy slip into antebellum attitudes, what with white folks claiming "fragility," feigned helplessness, as an excuse for structural racism. "We're just too weak ethically to do any better, so adjust your attitudes Black people," is the unspoken reality of Blackness in America if you are a descendant of enslaved Africans. 

The two-ness W.E.B. Du Bois writes about in his "Souls of Black Folks" is what saved and saves America from complete destruction.  There are places we can go to be free. Within the craziness, artists like Cherie Hill; Gabriel Christian and Chibueze Crouch have opened with their work windows into spaces where Blackness -- just everyday Blackfolkness is a ticket or key or pass code into rooms others seated behind us out of sight and mind/full/ness cannot enter.

Theatre is ritual. It is a place where we can imagine and then practice another reality. She-Verse and mouth/full are the scaffolding. Blackness our shelter. It is our protection from artificial Gama rays. In the theatre that evening "darkness" was currency. It was our shelter as we ascended to Giovanni's room where magic was conjured. Spells were cast and we were sworn to secrecy. The ritual is for us.

And we return changed.

Lights are on us as we see magic carpets . . . take our seats in the pews, some seated closer to the literal pulpit than others . . . and then the paradigm shifts. We are back on the slave ship-- the actors are wearing clergy robes. We are protected by the light, by the red and white barriers, by the altars and stained windows, by the sacrifices -- ancestors' lives, bones paving the railroad cross the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.

We have lifetime vouchers -- already stamped, to spirit ferry passage-- not Spirit Airlines, rather links to a People who could fly and another branch of the family who walked from Ibo Landing back home. They just walked into the water back to Africa. They were magical like that. 

Cherie Hill's IrieDance in She-Verse 

Cherie Hill's She-Verse stands at the intersections directing traffic and often stopping the same. She is shadow and presence. She is steady and stable. She is mother and earth. She is see forever and what is past. Her children walk, crawl, roll, move staccato into habitats familiar and hostile.

Earlier, we Africans keep moving; however, for the moment we sit in pews sanctified and holy until intermission when the set is remixed and we are among the swine and bovine, we get to practice Blackness unapologetically.  It is a good thing to rehearse. 

We sing songs of freedom, lifting our feet, raising our hands, waving hands the way we do when holy spirit lifts us up like waves on a ocean -- caught up in a breeze. . . . This movement is not televised yet voyeurs are seated just behind us wishing perhaps they were Black-- at least for this cinematic moment.  But we don't let them play. No one breaks rank. Unity, Umoja is a constant.  We light the Black candle and do not let anyone blow it out.

During the praise break, the evening I attended, the two artists, Europa Grace and Bronte Velez, share a meal-- greens, sweet potato, corn bread, legumes, and then watch each other sleep as the other person shares poetry, rhythmic beats and other thoughts. It is lyrical and lovely. Together, taken with mouth/fullness, this evening's "praise break" is part of a larger meditation on faith and hope and recovery -- Blackness as refuge and shame.

Here in this mouth/fullness moment; She-Verse Moment -- we are beauty, we are power, we are all there is and all that matter.  Blackness is where it's at. It always has been where it's at, but to have the validation within a public space means there are witnesses and perhaps a collective shift and rememory of this moment is a tangible takeaway.

Perhaps those that are not Black, those who were not VIP will remember the feeling of being outside, not belonging and make a visceral performative change the next time when roles are flipped back and the lone or a lone Black person clings to a tangible periphery.  Will these white hands reach out and grab that of the person about to fall? Will these hands notice, someone is missing? 

However, this is not the point. The point is whether these other patrons get it or not, remember the experience or not -- it is not a Black problem.  It is not our job to take care of the white people, to worry if they get it or what they get.  We are just to bask in Blackness and enjoy the privilege of Black space: Its beauty, its peace, its love.

As the collective dances this African Diaspora with Cherie Hill; Gabriel Christian and Chibueze Crouch we are lifted, baptized, anointed, made holy the way Wayne Corbitt used to do when he performed. We are holy; however the white gaze like smog often makes our legacy, our greatness difficult to see.  Sometimes we just need to get away. Step aside, take the day off, get with other Black folks and witness as participants great art created by and for people like us -- and so . . .

We are called out-- "If you are Black or an African identified come with me" Gabriel says and we look at each other those who self-select, check the box: Blackness. Hum, I hope being Black is a good thing, we hope; we wonder. Trusting the process is also having faith. When Gabriel takes the lead, I have the feeling he is going to take good care of those of us who are following him. I am not disappointed. I am safe.

Thursday, Dec. 12 is pay-what-you-can. It is also a special tour for the visually impaired or those who want to experience such a tour at 7 p.m. The show begins at 7:45 p.m. to 9 p.m. at 80 Turk in San Francisco (near Powell Street BART).  Visit the CounterPulse website for all the details and to see what artists will be performing during the "Praise Break" in mouth/fullness. The Praise Break features a new artist(s) each evening. Mouth/Full is a continuation of a query, the two choreographers explored first in mouth/fullness of seeds at the National Queer Arts Festival. How did Africans come to America? They are looking at creating a third part to this query. Listen to Gabriel Christian and Chibueze Crouch in a recent interview on Wanda'sPicks Radio Show Dec. 11.

Listen to Cherie Hill and Chibueze Crouch in another conversation a week ago: https://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2019/12/04/wandas-picks-radio-show

Like so many seeds we crossed land and oceans and planted ourselves in these new worlds. Now that we are here how has this experience changed us and how do we remain the same? What happens when seeds from a distant land are planted in new soil? 

Faith and religion are two spaces that African Diaspora still occupy-- the names might have changed, but the spirit remains. In mouth/fullness, Christian and Crouch's characters struggle visibly with the crosses they've been carrying and through story and movement we learn the cost of bondage and the price of freedom. This is not a Harriet Tubman story, and yet it is a Harriet Tubman story. It is also the story of Araminta "Minty" Ross, the girl who trusted her dreams. A woman who feared no man.

Is that what it takes to be free, an absence of fear?  Visit http://counterpulse.org/upcoming/