W hen the good people at In Dance asked me if I was inter- ested 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, direc- tor, 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 The- ater. And the wondrous composer, bassist, band- leader, 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 cur- rently composing music for The People’s Palace , a site-specific performance installation with Zaccho Dance Theatre.
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.
ous about, what interests me,’ and in trusting what interests me — be it science fiction or rural land- scapes…. 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 rab- bit holes and ask questions. I’m going to quote Chi- nua 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.
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 experi- ence. 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 some- thing that’s beautiful and not have it be a correction to anything.
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.
MF: That is such an interesting way to put it.
ELLEN SEBASTIAN CHANG: I hear you.
ESC: Yes.
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: Sometimes I want beauty to be my only responsibility.
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 keep- ing the right distance so the person in front of you feels safe, sometimes it’s with history itself, and it’s fucking exhausting!
ESC: I always want to create and pay homage to what I’m in love with. I’ll use this as an exam- ple. 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 grand- mother…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: Wow! Wow! Wow!
ESC: So, that, in relationship with Chinua Achebe, reminds me that beauty has always been some- thing 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!
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 under- stand. Many of those narrative stories are writ- ten 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 prob- lem. But for myself, I had to ask, ‘what am I curi-
MF: Especially in my mindset, to be honest with you.
MF: WHAT!!!!?
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 ‘Obli- gation,’ and I’m talking about queer folks, people of color, and there’s something about that word that just pisses people off!
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 oth- ering 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. 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.
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
ELLEN SEBASTIAN CHANG
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In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
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