BY FRANCES PHILLIPS
H ouse/Full of BlackWomen has been built in episodes over a five-year period, sustaining a question posed by Ellen Sebastian Chang and Amara Tabor Smith: “How can we as Black women and girls find a space to breathe and be well within a stable home?”While I had known Ellen since the late 1980s and Amara for a decade, I met their shared project – as I am often introduced to projects – in a grant proposal. It was described as a site-specific ritual performance examining issues of displacement, well-being, and sex trafficking of Black women and girls in Oakland. I’m always interested in artists tackling difficulty and defying cate- gories, and House/Full certainly did that. It wasn’t going to be a single event but sustained over a long time. It wasn’t going to be a piece for a repertoire: likely its sections would be shared once. It wasn’t going to be distinctly contemporary or traditional in form. It wasn’t driven by a single arts organization but porous to contributions by Chapter 510
Ink; Eastside Arts Alliance; Regina’s Door (a boutique dedicated to protecting women from trafficking); and others. It was going to encompass ritual, faith, dance, theater, procession, film, and even sleeping. One artist was not “the lead” – Ellen and Amara described one another as “my art wife.” The piece dissolved boundaries between indoors and outdoors, performance and ceremony, between the ordinary and the tran- scendent; and it combined those who were initiated in a spiritual practice and those who were not. Participants moved in and out of the piece, following a singular and communal path to healing. Can I admit how much this work challenges and compels me? I have seen two of the episodes live and viewed excerpts of oth- ers through documentation. In my memories of sections and excerpts, I feel as if I have dreamed them. I’ve also taken notes. I heard what I heard. My memories, my hearing may be in error. I will tell you about a few episodes.
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In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n amp l i f y u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n a p l i f y
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