for The Future Impossible

by Fana Fraser

 

“How would you respond to the idea of radical imagination?”

            Would I?

            I would, I would repeat the question.

I repeated the question. 

 

            How would I respond to the idea of radical imagination?

I would ask myself the question.

On December 2, 2020, I copied and pasted questions from an email Raja sent me on Saturday, November 21, 2020, 1:23pm EST, into a new Google doc that I titled, “for The Future Impossible”. Over the course of two weeks, I typed an 18 page response to the question “How would you respond to the idea of radical imagination?” and also made Another Roof Dance or Roof Dance no. 63. At some point between December 2, 2020 and December 21, 2020, I also wrote the question several times, along with several responses, with my right and left hands into a red Moleskine® journal.

So

           how would I respond to the idea of radical imagination?

I would drift into Fana daydreamland.

            While drifting in Fana daydreamland, I usually encounter others dreaming

             playing with memories, hopes, anxieties. 

I would play with memories, hopes, anxieties.

I would repeat the question, how would you respond to the idea of radical imagination?

I would listen to the worlds within and around me. 

I would obsess over the question, look up every single word and analyze every part of speech.

            I slept with the question. I sat on the question. I danced with the question.

            (I would dance with the question)

            I ate, showered, brushed my teeth with the question.

            I masturbated with the question.

            I cooked channa (chickpeas) with the question in mind.

            I worried that my response to the question 

            “how would you respond to the idea of radical imagination” 

            wasn’t radical enough.

 

I would take a nap.

 

I would repeat the question.

 

            How would you respond to the idea of radical imagination?

 

I would dance.

I would daydream.

 

             I thought about dancing.

             I thought about daydreaming.

             I thought again, about the words in the question

             how would you respond to the idea of radical imagination?

             I danced in my room, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the shower.

             I danced on the beach in Montauk, at The End of The World.

             I danced on beds, I danced on chairs.

             I danced with a spoon.

             I tried to remember feelings from the dances

                           feelings like 

                           feeling sexy, feeling stiff, feeling free, feeling guilt

                           feeling shame, feeling grief, feeling sadness, feeling relief

                           feeling hurt, feeling joy, feeling hope, feeling nope…

             I repeated the question.

             I scrolled instagram.

 

             I thought about dancing.

             I thought that if I danced, the dancing would help me radically imagine.

             I imagined

             I spoke to friends, I texted friends.

 

             I smoked Secret Cookies and read passages from M Archive: After the End of The World by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. 

             I listened to a conversation on Permission to Imagine: Radical Love & Pleasure featuring adrienne maree brown and Sonya Renee Taylor. 

             I joined a reading group at @yard_concept (YAAD).

 

             I facilitated artist convos.

             I repeated the question.

             I did other things.

 

How would you respond to the idea of radical imagination?

 

             I danced in a thong.

             I danced without my glasses.

             I danced to “Money” by Cardi B

             half naked, horizontal in my bed

             I danced to the tune of 3 of the ghosts living in my head. 

             I danced with the bedroom lights on, trying to look scared

             I danced with the moon, and howled from a ledge.

             I danced with my feet up and channeled memories of long and not so long ago

             I danced with fantasies, to be shared, perhaps, tomorrow?

 

             I repeated the question.

 

             How would you respond to the idea of radical imagination?

 

             I thought about lists and essays and books

             I thought about writings by bell hooks.

             I thought about drama – as in the bacchanal of the day

             I thought about vaccines, and horses and hay 

             I thought about parrots and hot air balloons

             I thought about that time Ernie visited the moon.

 

             I thought about circles and triangles and squares

             I thought about pushing Donald Trump down a flight of stairs.

             I thought about diamonds and exes and Os

             I thought about endings that begin with, hello.

             I thought about how I string words in my mind.

            I thought about translating and transposing language to unwind.

 

             I slept.

             I dreamt I was sleeping.

             I woke myself up to dream.

 

How would you respond to the idea of radical imagination?

 

I would sit in the sun and observe the flight patterns of birds and I would imagine myself flying, birds of a feather, now. I would repeat the question, “how would you respond to the idea of radical imagination?” 

I would meditate, sometimes guided by Lama Rod Owens, and I would invite my circle of care of benevolent ancestors to huddle around me. We would lay hands on my heart, on my womb, on the small of my back, on my forehead – or FORRID – as my mother tongue would correct. 

 

            I think about my own voice, and remember that sometimes, it is difficult to hear. 

            I listen.

  

I would let go.

 

I would take a nap.

 

On December 20, 2020, 10:17am EST, I decided to give the response 

 

      even more    

                space

                                             and 

                                                                  @ 10:58am EST 

 

                                                                                I     a m   d  e f l a t ing

                                                                                               spinning 

                                                                                       as I land,

                                                                                       eyes drooping

                                                                      nostril passages opening bones

                                                                                    creaking, resetting

 

                                                                    The church bells start their ringing 

                                                                                     11 times

                                                                                  my teeth are shifting

 

                                                                                     Big Belch

 

                                                                         jaw loosening saliva pouring 

 

                                                                              moaning exhales 

                                                                                    hands alive

                                                                        pelvic mouth softening, opening

                                                                              waters bubbling,

 

                                                                                                                lips

                                                                                                                       hips 

                                                                                                                         lips 

                                                                                                             tongue 

                                                                                                      wagging

 

                                                                                      back of the lungs spreading

                                                                                               wings sprouting

 

                                                                                       spine waving, balancing

 

            How would I respond to the idea of radical imagination?

 

I would think with multiple generations.

 

            On December 20, 2020, 2:05pm EST, I am thinking about legacy, and thinking about how to help nurture, and co-create communities of care for Black people, queer people of color, Caribbean diaspora people. I am thinking about the focus necessary to keep going, gathering. 

 

I would think of mothering.

 

            On December 20, 2020, 2:15pm EST, I am exhaling + letting go.

 

            How would I respond to the idea of radical imagination?

 

I would inhale for 1 2 3 4 5 and on a long exhale, I would let go of holding my butthole and pelvic floor. I would do that again and again and feel into the opening of my jaw, and the softening at the back of my eyeballs.

 

            How would I respond to the idea of radical imagination?

 

I would hold myself, arms criss crossed with each of my hands resting on each of my shoulders. Legs crossed, right over left or left over right, I would sit in a kitchen, in a white metal chair facing out a window, writing, my left ear is feeling the soft warmth of the rising sun.

 

I would repeat the question.

 

How would you respond to the idea of radical imagination?

 

About Fana Fraser:

Fana Fraser is an artist, creative consultant, and full spectrum doula in training at Ancient Song Doula Services. She was born and raised on Iëre, now known as Trinidad and Tobago, and she currently lives in Brooklyn on Lenape land. Fana’s work is rooted in a contemporary Caribbean aesthetic and framed by narratives of eroticism, power, and compassion. Her performance work has been presented at region(es), Issue Project Room, Wassaic Project, Brooklyn Museum, The Knockdown Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, BAAD!, La MaMa Moves!, the CURRENT SESSIONS, Gibney, Trinidad Theatre Workshop, and Emerging Artists Theatre. From 2016-2020 Fana served as Rehearsal Director for Ailey II. She currently works as a facilitator and consultant for South Bronx-based arts organization, Pepatián. Most recently, Fana was shortlisted for the 2020 BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writer’s Prize.

fanafraser.com

Why I Do This

by Okwui Okpokwasili

Breath
The chorus
When we fall and catch each other
Dancers are the best at this
Bearing the weight
With a kind of delight
Bearing the weight of others is a testament to your own strength
And then there is the sublime feeling and form that emerge from moving between bearing weight and being born – aloft-amid-amongst
the sublime in living in the space that is the movement between these two possibilities/positions.

I do this for and in memory of…

Lanky brown girls hunched over and weighed down by nylon backpacks bought on sale at old department stores off Fordham Road, stores like Alexander’s or Modell’s. Girls who knew better but stopped anyway when the guy in the cap looked up at her, fixed her in her spot with his steady gaze, his lips moving as fast as his hands, and swore that she looked lucky. That was the first and last time she played three card monte. She lost five dollars, not a small sum for her, but she had sense enough to hold onto enough change to catch the 22 Bus home. As stupid as she felt, she knew she was lucky. She wouldn’t be able to treat herself to a slice of pizza, soda and some candy, but there would be dinner at home. Girls like her held on to some innocence even if sales clerks gave her the side eye when she walked through department stores. Girls like her who have never sipped alcohol or smoked a spliff but every time they look up into the sky it’s like they’re tripping on psilocybin, making out dinosaurs walking over mountains that turn into running rivers, salmon shooting up geyser like and at angles between forty-five and thirty degrees. Girls like her who know the city but don’t know it and stop and stare and bump into people because the smell of the grilled hot dogs wafting from the vender takes her back to when she was four years old and sitting on the shoulders of her uncle during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade getting an unobstructed view of a mickey mouse float. Sometimes she can be so flooded with sensation that she gets dizzy and wants to cry. But that’s an embarrassing thing to do in public, so she’ll wait until she gets home, lock herself in the one bathroom in the apartment she shares with her family, and then she’ll cry. She has a different sense. Some in the family call her foolish. There are worlds above, over and under this world that she’s only lightly tethered to. She knows how to make wide landscapes out of small corners, to cry in, to laugh in, to imagine.

“All of us know, whether or not we are able to admit it, that mirrors can only lie, that death by drowning is all that awaits on there. It is for this reason that love is so desperately sought and so cunningly avoided. Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” – James Baldwin

I’m falling to my knees these days. This is how my prayer begins. I pray into the crack between boards in the rotting hard wood floor, I pray through the open seams between the peeling paint on the ceiling. I am trying to find the prayer that will make us all holy to ourselves and to each other.

Even though I’ve made the fire escape and the rooftop my studio, my dance begins in an interior terrain. Eyes wide open, I can look back as much as forward, I look down and through.

My mouth is another aperture and tasting gives me all the insight I need. So, if I let my mouth drop open slightly, with each intake of breath, sharp cold air tastes just like ice lightly flaked with dust. It’s not bad, the air is not as polluted as I expected. This is the beginning of my dance on the fire escape. Knees bent, head falling back, mouth loose and ready, and then begin to eat the air. Follow the air making its way down my digestive track from throat to bronchia to lungs. That is a dance for the day.

There are some who know at an early age to avert their eyes from the mirror the world holds up for them to gaze into.

I do this because…

I wonder if the girl dry tripping on ancient terrestrial vertebrates in the clouds realized that she was preparing herself to sketch out a path to her own life, stripped of mirrors, of wit, of knowing how and knowing when? I wonder if she knew she rode on rivers of sensation right into a thicket of memories, some speculative some mostly true?

I do this because…

She is not innocent and doesn’t need to be. But she knows that if she has to be without the flesh of bodies to bump up against, she’ll find them through the iron bars of the fire escape, the blue jay alighting on a branch, the calls for justice ringing across Atlantic Avenue, what sounds like an anguished call to prayer five times a day at the mosque a block away.

Flecks of her skin fall off and drift, ouroboros scales, floating above Atlantic Avenue.

Being consumed is fine as long as she also gets to do the eating.

There is so much world to eat and she has a mouth with which to do it.

About Okwui Okpokwasili:

Okwui Okpokwasili is a Brooklyn-based performance maker. Her work includes two Bessie Award winning productions: Pent-Up: a revenge dance and Bronx Gothic. Other productions include Poor People’s TV Room, and Adaku’s Revolt. Okpokwasili’s recently co-curated the Danspace Project Platform “Utterances From the Chorus”. Her commissions, Residencies and awards: 10th Annual Berlin Biennale Commission, 2018 Doris Duke Artist Award in Contemporary Dance, 2018 USA Artist Fellow, 2018 Princeton Hodder Fellow, 2018 Herb Alpert Award in Dance, LMCC’s Extended Life Program (2013-2016, 2019); The Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ Artist Grant in Dance (2014), MOMA, The Young Vic, Tate Modern. Okpokwasili is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow.

untitled: on mental health and embodied artistry

by J. Bouey

Ain’t it time for the dance field to invest in mental healthcare similarly to how we invest in physical healthcare? While the term healthcare in the United States of America is an ever expanding topic that deserves intense granular analysis to support its reformation towards universality, for the sake of this essay*, I’ll keep the term within the boundaries of dance and how we’ve invested in supporting dance artists’ physical health and underinvested in supporting our mental health.

I would like to take this time to bring your attention to the foundation of western dance as of December 2020. No, not white supremacy (though valid… yes, and). But, to the very floor that dancers have rolled in and out of, jumped on, and rehearsed feats that boggle the minds of physicists around the world. The sprung floor, and it’s monetary value, is very well known in our field. Amy Smith published an article in Dance Teacher Magazine, Your Studio Space: Equipping Your First Dance Studio, in 2016 that listed the cost of a “sprung floor” at $10-$30 per square foot. For an average size dance studio (I’ll use a 20 foot by 30 foot studio for my example) the floor alone would cost between $6,000 and $18,000. When we factor in the expertly informed labor required to install the floor, we will see the cost of the floor exceeding most New York City based dance artists’ yearly income.

As a field, we rarely question the financial investment of a good sprung floor because of its contribution to the field of dance. Students train on these floors, artists rehearse on these floors, and many perform on these floors if the studio space can work as a performance space as well. We don’t question the monetary cost because we fully accept the necessity to have a good sprung floor to protect dancers’ bodies. Some of us refuse to rehearse or perform on floors that are not sprung for this very reason! We also show respect and honor to the floor by taking off our street shoes before stepping on it. We’ll even go as far as to communicate this ritualistic practice of removing one’s shoes to visitors of our sacred creative space.

While the financial investment in a sprung floor is meant to protect the physical body from injuries, we also invest our educational knowledge towards teaching students of dance how to protect their bodies as they train and rehearse, and to treat it like a well tuned instrument. We teach in this way because, as practitioners, we know that broken bones, dislocated joints, bruises, and tears can hinder a dance artist’s ability to fully embody their artistic ideas. Isn’t the whole point of being a dance artist!? But, do we know how interconnected our mental health is to our ability craft an idea?

In many ways, yes we do. We’ve talked about the mind-body connection for a few years as a field (hell, we even use “mindbody” as an operating system to schedule and sell movement classes), and it is embedded in the shared intergenerational knowledge of performers and movement practitioners. Many dance artists have some general understanding that what happens in the mind affects what the body does because it is all working as one system. Many of us living with mental illnesses can attest to the interdependent relationship between the mind and the body because we have experiences where our mental state binds or manipulates our bodies despite our attempts to gain control (i.e., an anxiety attack). While an anxiety attack that causes paralysis or hyperventilation is an example of a medical emergency that requires specific skills and knowledge of the person and affliction to mitigate, for the sake of this comparative essay, I will liken the anxiety attack to a twisted or sprained ankle. Many of us in the field have experienced a sprained or twisted ankle, know how to treat it, and equip studios and stages with first aid kits to treat such an injury should it happen. In the dance field, we do this because it is common. We live in a time now where anxiety attacks, depression, suicidal ideation, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and trauma responses to the effects of covid-19 are now common in our field. This impacts everyone, not just younger generations who have built a culture around naming and seeking support for their mental illness and mental health challenges. We all have mental health to take care of just as we do physical health.

Now, I would be remiss if I did not share how systems of oppression impact and afflict mental health disproportionality depending on how we identify in the united states of america. First, most dancer artists live at or below the poverty line. This includes the professional** dancers too! When I was dancing for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, my pre-tax annual salary for 30 weeks of work was $24,750 and I was able to survive by applying for food stamps/SNAP benefits and going on unemployment during the staggered 22 weeks throughout the year when we were “off”. The rehearsal schedule unfortunately proved too intricate to find sustained part-time work to supplement my company salary. Some of my fellow company members supplemented their income by working part-time shifts before and/or after our six to eight hours of rehearsal. When rent in New York City averages $3,000 per month for one-bedroom apartments, or a room sublets for about $1,000 per month, the financial stress deteriorates the dance artist’s ability to focus on the creative process.

For many dance artists working outside of salaried positions it gets worse. “Freelance” might as well be synonymous with the wild west due to lack of regulations, protections, and resources for dancers to utilize to stay afloat. Many social services for artists aren’t even available to freelance artists because of our dissociation with companies and major industries like Broadway. Come tax season, the flurry of 1099s that hit the mailbox can feel like hell after being reminded that, for a full year, you had to forgo paying taxes so that you could eat and afford shelter. Most dance artists can not financially afford to see a therapist under these circumstances. This is the bulk of our dance community living under these circumstances. Existing at multiple intersections of oppression compounds the stress on mental health.

Black and Indigenous dance artists in the united states of america live our lives in a state of anxiety due to the state sanctioned violence we’ve witnessed and experienced from inception (among a litany of other systemic stressors). The summer of social justice in 2020 has helped make this much more clear to non-Black and non-Indigenous folx. So, if you have questions about the validity of the opening sentence of this paragraph, I invite you to do your googles. We’ve done a hell of a job articulating our dire existence in this country (through art, literature, academic text, scientific journals, and on, and on…), and I will not invite Black and Indigenous folx who find this writing deeper into their own suffering in an attempt to validate a damn thing. Just know that we never stop being Black and/or Indiginous when we are rehearsing or performing. We carry the burden of what that means in every waking moment. Learn about it.

Every dance artist that is not white passing suffers from the systemic oppression of white supremacy, and brings that into the studio with them as well. That oppression manifests in xenophobia and xenophobic remarks while navigating through convoluted governmental systems to work within this country as a dance artist without the risk of deportation or imprsonment looming over their shoulders.

White supremacy also manifests in the lives of trans, gender-non conforming, and gender non-binary artists who are still being misgendered and suffer transphobic remarks and abuse inside and outside of the dance community due to an antiquated and hegemonic binary gender construct that is uncessesarily being held up during auditions and casting processes. Fat dancers are still systemically overlooked, underbooked, and being advised to lose weight if they want the opportunity to be seen on stage doing what their bodies can do at their current size due to the unrealistic body standards that have trickled down from ballet. Also due to that, the dance community is still battling against disordered eating. One could argue that this is our industry’s number one mental illness to combat. Many of our training programs and rehearsal settings are perfect environments to breed body dysmorphia if left unchecked. And, finally, too many dance artists in our community have been sexually assaulted or know someone that has been by another member of the dance community. Unfortunately, most of these perpetrators are not held accountable. Partially because of the public scrutiny victims of sexual assault have undergone when they have taken up the courage to speak out (especially for victims who were assigned male at birth), and partially because of the risk of being blacklisted by the perpetrators who often hold more relative power in our field as gatekeepers and key holders.

As a Black, agender, able-bodied, dance artist living with anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and was raped just under a year ago (at the time of writing this), I can tell you that I have countless experiences where the state of my mental health prohibited my ability to create and perform, just as a broken bone or torn muscle has as well.

However, the disability rights activists have taught me a lot about how to advocate for my needs and assess whether environments are adequately equipped to support people who had similar mental illnesses and traumas as mine. Disability rights activists have been essential in designing the society we live in now by pushing for minimum standards of accessibility care through the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Disabled artists and neurodivergent artists are criminally underrepresented in our dance field and we have a lot of work to do to make our dance field more accessible. Investing in mental healthcare during training, rehearsals, and performance is one way of expanding that accessibility.

Many of us will be returning to the studios and creative processes with new mental health challenges due to covid-19, and some challenges that have been greatly exacerbated during the pandemic. Luckily, we can mitigate this by establishing new studio, rehearsal, and production guidelines that specifically meet our collective mental health needs, like requiring all staff members and students to undergo mental health first aid training. We can also make anxiety de-escalation practices common knowledge. Similarly how we remedy a sprained ankle with the RICE method (rest, ice, compress, and elevate), by putting infographics in each studio near the first aid kits, for example, we can make grounding and mindfulness practices common knowledge. Making resources available for the community and students is also super impactful. Crisis hotlines like the National Suicide Prevention Hotline and local crisis lines (similar to NYC Well) can help dancer artists in crisis and dance artists helping a fellow in crisis as well. While we are at it, let’s redefine our education programs to encourage more research and creative processes on the connection between mental health and embodied artistry. Everyone has mental health to be concerned with, and embedding this awareness into the creative process and performance practices for students can be instrumental in dismantling the stigma of living with mental illnesses.

Implementing these practices and establishing guidelines that support the mental health of all involved helps dismantle stigmas that are major barriers for dance artists, and aspiring dance artists, who live with mental illnesses that are less discussed than anxiety, depression, and disordered eating. There are dance artists living with dissociative identity disorder, borderline personality disorders, schizophrenia, agoraphobia and more that intentionally hide their illnesses out of fear of losing their job or not being hired. The stigmas misinform us all and support the harm we unknowingly inflict on others, and ourselves. By combating these stigmas, we make our field more accessible and welcoming to dance artists living with the more stigmatized illnesses, and make the field a place for them to heal instead of hide themselves from.

It is time that we prioritize care for those who exist at the margins of society and experience oppression at multiple intersections by investing in mental healthcare from an anti-racism perspective. As we do that, we will inevitably take care of those closer to the center as well. Let us destroy mental health stigmas by removing the bricks we have access to, and laying a foundation that allows for future generations to dream of a world we are too traumatized to imagine.
———–
*I wasn’t thinking “essay” when I was writing this. Moreso used this opportunity to speak to the dance field, present and future. So, if these words, grammars, and formatting do not fall into your definition of essay, then… yes, exactly. And, that’s not my intention beloved.
**I do not like the word “professional” because of the elitist and white supramist undertones but, another essay for another time… just know I only used it to communicate to a larger audience. Unfortunately, I vomited in my mouth a bit when I wrote it.

Raja and Maria

ON AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE

Raja: Can I just start by letting you know, one, this is being recorded

Maria: Got it

R: And two, Maria, You are an actual light being in this whole ass dark world.

M: I really appreciate that. It takes one to know one, because you know you are that same kind of creature. Also, thank you for that reflection; I really appreciate that.

R: I, I want to say that one, because it’s true, but two, in just thinking about having this moment with you, I couldn’t help but to think back, to the first time I met you in college and I think my immediate feeling then was also the same. College was strange and college was dark and I just remember meeting you and being like holy shit there is light. There are people who are doing the damn thing. I should say it was so exciting to take a step back and think through that time and the places where we’ve intersected and come back together. So to be able to sit across from you and just say that again and it remain just as true. That’s just incredible.

M: We’re journeying. We are on a journey and it’s sweet, I think, when we get to see each other, partners on the journey. We’re each on our own journey, but it’s also a similar one that intertwines and for me it’s affirming when people who I really respect–when our paths do cross again. It’s like “Oh! Hey friend, you know, we’re still on this journey. Yup me too! Ok, great!” And it’s delightful because we can encourage each other, we can just give a smile. We already know each other, I there’s a sweetness there for me in acknowledging those memories and the continuation.

R:  If I’m speaking honestly I’ll say that sometimes it can be hard to remember what your core values are. And I think, there are totems, you know, sometimes people are totems, and I feel like there are some times that I get really caught up and I’m doing the most or doing this and then I’m like what am I doing this for and then I see these totems. I remember recently, I think it was very early pandemic actually and you were giving a talk on dance NYC, you were moderating,  and it was just something about the way you were moderating this conversation which I had mixed feelings about, but there you were my totem. There was something about listening, just the process of communication which I think we lose from listening, taking a beat, responding, reflecting, offering opinion, like interjecting when necessary, just like literally holding space and doing that. and I was like, Y’all, Maria Bauman out here just literally holding space,

M: Wow! Speaking of space, I’m infatuated with positive space and negative space, you know from that visual artist point of view. And my favorite form is the duet, my favorite dance form. That has, to me, so much to do with the space between us and obviously playing with that. When do we really compress it to build so much tension and when do we really expand it to intimate something about distance or expanse or possibility? And this idea of “holding space” resonates with me because it reminds me that we are tethered no matter how large the space is. When you say “holding space” it reminds me that we are all being held within the same space, elastic though it may be, and I love being connected. Honestly, that’s just part of my blueprint. I love being connected with other people. I sometimes feel like a baby that way, to be honest, like I don’t necessarily have the toughness  that “individualism” asks for and I, I feel good about that actually because that’s not my lineage but…I think that space-holding you’re talking about is that I love being connected with other people. So for me, holding space is sort of like laying out a blanket in the park and saying “Okay! We can all sit on this and be together!” You know?!

R: Right, right. Oh thats a beautiful image…well we sort of just jumped right in [laughs]

M: I’m game! Raja Feather Kelly, anything that you invite me to do I wanna do that with you so I’m like you lead me I’m with you.

R: I love that.  So yeah that was for me. I just I wanted to share that with you because you know who knows when I can see you down again, but now that you’re saying anytime, I might invite you for tea all the time

M: All the time, who are you telling, this is a duet already that we’re having right now and really I’m grateful. I mean I’m sitting in my living room right now by myself, but in a way I’m sitting with you so I’m happy about that.

R: Me too.

R: There’s  a new emergence I think of wanting to get voices in the room, wanting to talk about covid, wanting to talk about disparities and I’m like y’all I’m just I’m not sure if I want to do that. I think it’s difficult for me to talk about being an artist and its relationship to this pandemic without acknowledging just like I’m safe. In respect to what my journey has been as an artist and where I feel like it’s been fair and unfair, you know I think that’s it’s going to be for me a continued lifelong mission of trying to hold my integrity trying to build my community and knowing that things will come and go in waves and that like my job is to like die and know that like perhaps that needle was here when I started and that needle sort of shifted.

M: My God you’ve done so much with being frank and transparent about funding in our field and I’ve really appreciated the ways that you have not felt—well I don’t know how you felt actually— but I’ll just say the ways that you have shown up, really clearly naming your experience, which is many of our experiences. And I know you’ve had shifts in your experience, but I have appreciated, when you talk about moving a needle, I have appreciated your transparency and what seems to me your unwillingness to internalize rejection but rather to externalize it and say this is happening and I feel a type of way and perhaps it’s founded perhaps it’s not, but what I’m not going to do is turn it inward on myself as a reflection of my worthiness. That’s what I’ve experienced or that’s what I imagined from you really sharing your voice and I think that has moved the needle quite a bit.

R: Thank you.

 

…

 

R: What for you is the Impossible Future ?

M: [Pauses] A lot resonates for me in that, I’m grabbing my pillow so I can cuddle. A lot resonates for me in that. I’ve got to say, to bring it home  for me, this idea of an impossible future….. I don’t think it’s impossible but it feels improbable and I love leaning into that which is improbable and unreasonable. That’s an organizing strategy that I’ve really been appreciating, taking that on from MPD150 and Ricardo Levins Morales and other organizers…this idea of ‘let’s dream into the impossible and the unreasonable and the unprecedented as a real organizing strategy,’ and mine…mine really is Black wellness at this point. On all of the levels,  and I’m thinking nitty gritty, just thinking about our statistics when it comes to health outcomes–whether we have healthcare not, whether we have PhDs or elementary school education–our statistics actually defy those categories. It seems to be the most weighty category in the U.S.: whether or not you are Black. Full Stop.  And that has to do with infant mortality rates and blood pressure and fibroids and all different kinds of things, and that has really been drawn to fine a point in my own life recently and I’ve long seen it in the life of my family and so…. yeah I know it’s not impossible, but it feels unrealistic or unreasonable or improbable given that we have not yet eradicated racism, we’re on our way, but I’m really dreaming into Black Wellness and a time when all of my tissues are functioning perfectly. And I’m not talking Afro-futurism, I’m talking about now. I’m going: can we all be unfettered in our bodies now? And to be clear I do not mean a lack of disability. I’m using the word “wellness” rather than “health” on purpose, because I think wellness really encompasses a state of harmony and function that does not have an absolute. It is a state of being-ness I think that we determine you know. “Am I feeling well or am I not?”

R: Right, It has an opportunity to shift. There no endpoint to wellness

M: That’s what I mean, exactly,  there’s not an absolute point that says ‘oh well you’ve reached it or not.’ So, yeah it’s really basic and I want to be thinking unicorns and rainbows, which in a way I am, but to be honest that IS rainbows and unicorns when we look at what’s actually happening now. So that’s a future that I am really excited about. I’m kind of going to compress time and think more Sankofa because it’s a ‘now’ that I want. I feel a real sense of insisting upon that now.  And I agree with you that the Earth is fed up and I also feel that she’s recovering and that heartens me. I read something last night that said, I think in 2020 there was a 7% decrease in carbon monoxide emissions across the globe, I hope I’m getting that correct, I think the Earth has every reason to be angry and grieving, if she is, so… and I also feel that she’s putting us in timeout like ‘y’all sit down you don’t know how to act so y’all are in time out because mama needs…’

R: I’m fed Up with y’all! I’m fed up go sit over there

M: ‘Go lay down somewhere, go sit down somewhere.’ I feel that that’s what earth has said to us and there’s a way that I want to listen. Because capitalism, oohh, she’s rough. Capitalism seems insatiable and I know I’ve internalized it. I mean how could I not? I know I’ve internalized it; I feel it everyday. But I’m heartened by this idea of there’s possibility for repair. So that’s part of it as I think, ‘oh if I get off of this roller coaster or if I get on a small roller coaster,’ maybe I say ‘I want the wind in my hair but not this much…not you breaking my neck. Okay, let me get on a different ride…’

R: It’s the Whiplash…

M: Right! ‘But don’t give me whiplash! Let me go on one that has some gentle exhilaration.’

R: Where does, where does Black Wellness begin?

M: Hmm Well who am I to know first of all, but I want to say…

R: Well, where does your Black Wellness begin?

M: Thank you, that’s what I was going to say. For me, I’m learning that it begins with connection. I’m just learning that. I’m really learning a lot of lessons around how we are socialized to isolate and how I have gotten a whiff of a lesson along the way and really internalized this idea that my worthiness is attached to how cheerful and available I am for other people and so sometimes that has resulted in–when I’m not doing so well I just don’t…you don’t hear from me–and when I’m doing well I’m super available. I’m realizing ‘Oh, Maria, get a little smarter. Reach out no matter what.’ I’m just learning…I’m learning how amazingly generous people are and how we’re so fragile in our humanness and also so mighty. So when I feel a little bit like I’m crawling, or I’m on my knees, or I’m stumbling, lately I’ve been just taking a little risk and still reaching out. And I have just been blown away by encouragement, resources, knowledge, stuff that I need in order to be well. So, I think connection is the beginning point of wellness. And for me, connection feels very Black. That doesn’t say that we don’t need alone time or that there aren’t Black introverts; I’m not talking about that. But it means that we didn’t arrive wherever we are alone. I think that’s true for all of us, but I do think that in Black culture we really underlined that fact.

R: Amen, Amen

M: I don’t want to act as if, or speak of this Blackness is a monolith, cuz we know it is not.

R: It doesn’t sound that way

M: Within Black culture, we are never showing up alone; we just aren’t.

R: That’s where our work begins, and I think that’s the sort of behind that I think, as for me what I feel like a responsible artist is understanding that lineage, being like I’m not necessarily, like making something new, I might be revealing, I might be pulling something forward that started in 1999, or 40 years before that, or a hundred years before, that begot three hundred years before that when we arrived here, right you know, like this imagining of a future impossible.

M: And that’s what I appreciate, is the both/and-ness.
R: Right

M: So in MBDance, I’m known for having said “rugged individualism is a boldface damn lie!”

R: Yeeeeesss!

M: It really is. I mean, it’s a damn boldface lie. I like what you said, “it’s a scam.” It simply has never been true, but certain populations have been socialized to wear that cloak and to kind of show up and go, “I made that!” or allow themselves to be propped up as a singular genius. It’s not true.

R: yeah it only goes but so far

M: I deeply believe that the best art, the best creation arises when it’s got the fingerprints of a lot of divine beings on it. So the collaborators who work with me–I know they’re sacred moonbeams and I know I’m a sacred moonbeam–we are different. We have different blueprints. We signed up, I believe we signed up, and came to this planet to experience different aspects of it. And that keeps me really affiliative, so whether I’m facilitating an experience of a workshop or whether I’m facilitating practice, dance rehearsal, for my own dance company, it’s going to start with a check-in about the whole person, it’s going to include questions about ‘how does this feel to you’. Yeah that’s part of it and I think the undoing racism work that I’m really grateful to be a part of, is all up and through my artistic work as well. Mainly I think…there are a couple of ways, but mainly in that I’m centering us without translation. That feels really important to me, not to center Black queer folks in order to prove how wonderful we are, how brilliant we are, how worthy we are, not to prove–just to center us. Full Stop. That there is a world, and it’s a world that I’m co-creating and many other people are co-creating along with me in their own fields, where we are not tokenized, where we are not “included” and I put that in quotation marks, where we simply ARE.  In my artworks, that is a world that I’m co-creating and adding to and I feel really good about that.

R: Yeah that….it seems so simple, when I’m like [laughs] ….it seems so simple that it’s just it’s…I guess I think about who may read…  Its typical for me  in this moment as the person is like bringing these ideas together, where I’m like it’s all so clear and you know I asked you in the beginning like you know, where does black wellness start and then again in talking about you work  there was something again that you said, you’re like you know when practice begins, I’m checking in about the whole being, everyone, and that…you know that to me I’m like oh that’s where it begins. Where does black wellness begin? It begins with checking-in making sure everybody, you know, how is everybody doing, and who is everybody.

M: And, and I was just going to say ‘including me.’ And I think that’s the lesson. I turned forty during this pandemic and…

R: Congratulations.

M: Thank you, thank you! and on my personal journey on this plant planet, I think that’s one of my lessons that I clearly came here to learn, is that the “everybody” and I’m putting that in quotation marks. When you ask ‘who is everybody?’ it includes me. So I recently shared something pretty huge with the company members and I felt a little out on a limb about it. I thought, ‘Oh gosh, you know this might be kind of weird. Maria’s bringing in her personal stuff,’ or ‘I don’t want to make people feel worried’–because it was some stuff that was vulnerable about me–but I thought, ‘If I say that I’m trying to co-create community, but at night I have no community to go to, then I’m not doing a good job, then I’m not being authentic.’ So I’m trying. And that has been the case in past years: that I’ve held space for others but not had that space for me. So I think I’m reckoning now with saying to myself, ‘Okay you’ve done a good job, Maria…you’ve done a good job embodying your values, but you can do better. Let’s go deeper.’ And so I’m really endeavoring and taking risks to check that communities that I’m a part of co-creating can hold me as well. And what I’m learning is that they can! One of the dancers, the next day after I shared, sent me this beautiful text message and said “Hey, I sat with what you shared with us last night and it really meant a lot to me and therefore I want to share this with you and also here’s a playlist that has been really helping me through some difficult times.” And can I tell you, it brought me to tears when I clicked…I was already blown away by the generosity of that, and then I clicked on the playlist and it was called For Maria, and that just got me. I was like ‘Oh! I’m held. I’m valued.’

R: it’s so hard, so hard because I have just, I have I have… I felt like I spent so much time being like I’m just going to take care of myself as a way to like ground my being so that then, so like now that like I can walk on my two feet I’m like no, I don’t need anything because i might be weakened and then… you know, it’s been a process, that I am in now of like you know, allowing myself to be vulnerable you know it anywhere, anywhere and also allowing myself to not have to practice that power behind closed doors. I can send a nasty email and I can also just, I can do that compassionately, I can do that, you know there’s something about the power of truth that  I’ve taken for granted up until this year of my my life where I’m  like I don’t deserve to be treated this way, or I do  deserve to be treated this way, or you know, I’m not going to compromise or like why does there have to be a compromise, you know things like that, and just being able to hold power in in the truth of like what my purpose is like, I am here to be a contributor to culture, I am here because… I don’t know how to always bring people together, but I know that I want to, and I want them to feel safe, and I want them to be beyond themselves as a daily practice, I know that’s what I want

M: I appreciate this idea of the power of truth. You know the motto of my dance company MBDance is “Sweat your truth!”

R: Sweat it out [Laughs]

M: You know?! [Laughing] That’s the acknowledgement that we each have a specific, individual, different truth and a collective truth and that they’re all sacred. What you said reminds me of A Course in Miracles, which says that the truth is defenseless. I think about that a lot. That then means that we don’t have to stew in our juices as you said, and write the nastiest version of it behind closed doors, because that’s almost as if we’re trying to add power to the truth. But actually the truth is the truth and it doesn’t need any added power. And I think for me–so that’s your version, or has been in the past–my version that I’m trying to let go of is that I have sometimes secret-ed the truth between many many ‘please’s and niceties and ways of making people like me. I have sort of made a truth salad that has a lot of other stuff in it. I think your and my historical responses are two symptoms of the same malady, which is not being believed…not trusting that our truth stands and is honored. I think that what you and I are learning is that the truth is defenseless and so I can just bring my compassionate self, my assertive self, I don’t need to try to make it palatable. And I think what I hear you saying is that you don’t need to add the venom to it. It’s like ‘this is simply the truth, what it is. I do deserve this, we deserve this, what do you need?’

R: Yeah exactly, exactly, what do you need. That comes up alot because that’s what it feels, like if I take my own experience, it’s that it can be challenging to ask yourself that question, right and that’s what…for so long I didn’t ask myself what do I need, you know, maybe somebody else is in that position, where they need to be asked because they haven’t asked themselves, what do you need? And it can be a huge, it could be a powerful just like, you know, way of opening space:  What do you need?

 M: And we are not even always prepared to answer.

R: No!

 

…

 

R: Well it has been an absolute pleasure. An absolute pleasure

M: Raja, I‘m really happy that you invited me. I’m just reminded that, I mean I knew I really liked you alot, but I’m just reminded that as a person I like you! So I feel happy that this was the occasion that I got to spend time with you today.

R: Likewise and congratulations on your marriage. It wasn’t that long ago was it?

M: It wasn’t. We’re only two years married

R: Ok we are just a year.

M: Woot Woot woot! It’s beautiful.

R: It is.I think marriage is really special

M: It is.

R: So congratulations

M: Thank you. Well I’ll stay tuned, but this has been a pleasure.

R: Yes Ok, more soon.

M: Ok, bye! [Holding arms wide as if welcoming an embrace]

R: Thank you

 

 

Maria Bauman-Morales is a Bessie-Award-winning, Brooklyn, NY-based, multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer from Jacksonville, FL. Bauman-Morales is also a sought-after facilitator and speaker on the topics of social justice practices within performing arts, embodied and arts-based leadership development, and racial equity in the arts. She creates bold and honest artworks for her company MBDance based on physical and emotional power, insistence on equity, and intimacy. In particular, Bauman’s site-responsive dance work centers the non-linear and linear stories and bodies of queer people of color in multiple ritual settings. She draws on her study of English literature, capoeira, improvisation, dancing in living rooms and nightclubs, as well as concert dance classes to embody interconnectedness, joy, and tenacity. Bauman-Morales brings the same tenets to organizing to undo racism in the arts and beyond with ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity), the grassroots group she co-founded with Sarita Covington and Nathan Trice. Currently, she is an Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Fellow and a BRIClab resident artist. She has also been Community Action Artist in Residence at Gibney, Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and DiP Artist Resident under the direction of Eva Yaa Asantewaa.

As a cultural organizer, Bauman-Morales partners with various groups to lift up calls for justice via art. She was honored with the 2018 BAX Arts and Artists in Progress Award for “the work you do to undo racism in our daily lives while lifting up the work and lives of your membership.” Bauman-Morales has facilitated community engagement workshops for El Puente, Chorus America, Ramapo College, Rider University, and has helped create cultural campaigns with various locals of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). She’s been a keynote speaker and core facilitator for the 2018 Day of Learning on Equity & Inclusion, Camille A. Brown’s 2016 Black Girl Spectrum Convening and several Cultural Organizing for Community Change symposiums. She’s a Core Trainer with The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, working closely with them on Understanding & Undoing Racism training especially for artists.

Website: www.mbdance.net