Show Dates
WHEN : Sept 5th 8 PM | Sept 14th 6:30 PM | Sept 15th 5:00 PM
WHERE : @ ICEBOX Project Space 1400 N American St. Philadelphia, PA
HOW MUCH : General Admission $25 & PWYC option — $5, $10, $15
How’d we get here?
I curated a virtual space called the Shed Room, inviting black, queer and trans artists to present works in progress. I facilitated a Q&A to offer space for feedback, cross pollination and inspiration. It was an intimate evening that sprouted juicy conversation. I learned a lot about my own process by watching others make work. We talked about process, community and art making in general. Fellow artists continued to affirm the necessity of the offering and its accessibility. Ideas spun.
Featured performers are Mawu Oyesii (narrator), Felisha George, Cyrah L. Ward, Hanifah Griffith, angel edwards, NOVA CYPRESS BLACK and Lee Edwards.
THE SHED ROOM : A VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE
something soft grew out of many inspirations such as,
plush by angel edwards
Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
and conversations about long term care, partnerships, love, breakthroughs and breakups, community, failure and play
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
something soft, is an interactive, improvisational,performance ritual. we utilize installation art, movement and technology to investigate how we soften.
something soft Performance Mix #36 New Dance Alliance
please note that this version of something soft is a solo that is in development. Installation art hasn’t been implemented, but the sound-score you hear was created in collaboration with Felisha George, the audio, engineer and my main collaborator for this work.
something soft Visions presented by Cannonball Festival/ Fringe Arts
this version of something soft is directly impacted by the previous performance. We added a small excerpt and my blue velvet durag became a intriguing prop. Please watch from 27:58 - 37:50.
A NOTE ABOUT THE MUSIC
The sound score is filled with nature scapes of the Costa Rican jungle blended with the sounds of nephews reading. Felisha George layered the music lightly and there is a sense of breath in the string instruments of guitars. There is rarely bass. The first eight minutes of the sound score leans into softer elements. We juxtapose Winston Stewart’s music against these lullabies. Stewart’s track is bass heavy but still soft, rugged and guttural. Somehow the J Dilla inspired rhythms lull us further while igniting us.
Where are we now?
What have we been able to learn?
What are we leaning into?
Seeing live work was inspiring and reflective. I became curious about collaboration, about accessibility, possibility and transformation.
The Trophallaxis Study Group presented work at Vox Populi featuring interactive installations and artworks by Jah Elyse, Marguerite Angelica Monique Hemmings and Winter Rae Schneider.
A Marvelous Entanglement by Isaac Julien documents the life and work of Lina Bo Bardi, an Italian-Brazilian architect.
Let ‘im Move You: This is a Formation by Makini formerly known as Jumatatu M. Poe and Jerome Donte Beacham. This work is a collection of performance and visual works centered around the artists explorations with the J-Sette form.
collaboration - get inside - womb - bath - something with water - blue - velvet - lean in - get swallowed - become - ingest - hunger no longer -
Jah Elyse and I have been in dialogue about building the installation based on a practice of recycling, restoring, renewing and transmuting. Newspaper, paper machete, wire art, unconventional bowls, waterproof cylinders lined with old plastic bags. We inherent the crafting and resourcefulness from ancestors who we know and don’t know. We collect items as one does for altars or parties. We play with fabric and pine cones and old tree bark.
These snapshots document an ongoing foraging practice, largely undertaken with cross-distance collaborator, Temitope Famodu, as we search for wild nourishment wherever we go: walks; beaches; parks; gardens; runs; rivers; scrap, trash, and donation piles. These shells, stones, seeds, flowers, nests, and more hold sand, water, wind, light, each other, possibilities, reminders. They hold a space-time-defying map of dreams and memories leading us again & again to somewhere soft, carrying me now into somewhere soft. This practice predates and outlives. It is open like a river mouth: immense and intimate, wondrously wide. River delta, like Δ means change. Pour in. Drink. Be held. Be nourished. -jah elyse
Jah and I both agree that nature can provide the tactile comforts we desire. Another reminder to me that nature gives in so many ways. My neurodivergent siblings and I find deep pleasure in easeful ways to lull, meditate or ease into methods of care. Nature is sustenance but it is not always accessible.
Can we bring the leaves to you?
… and whatever we bring can we be thoughtful about what we take and perhaps give back? Can we only take what we need?
Movement Investigations
this movement investigation was based on the prompt, ‘just get inside’. I took fleeting moments and stuck with them or abandoned them. I blended my movements and attempted to make shapes. Transitioning myself in and out of play.
THE DREAM
‘get inside’ - ‘a curtain’- ‘and a bath’
GET INSIDE
collaboration - doing it together - listen and lean - find the moist dark place - plant yourself - grow and grow and grow - faith and more faith - and sometimes hopelessness - but always moving - digging
A CURTAIN
a translucent covering has always been my saving grace - veil like - reminds me of transformation - of butterfly wings - of sparkling frog skin - of endings and beginnings - of showers and memories in the tub - of water and movement - of adjusting to - surrender
AND A BATH
just to wash off - because - because - we need to learn how to let go too - and i don’t want this shit anyway
DESCRIPTION
something soft invites you inside for a multimodal performance ritual. We are investigating softness as a movement modality for the black body. This introspective ritual invites its viewers into interstellar dreaming. Installation art in collaboration with Jah Elyse invites you to ‘get inside’ - ‘a curtain’ - ‘and a bath’. Improvisational movement that models a lullaby and movement that everyone can follow along to. Invitations to move, shake, witness and be witnessed are prompted throughout the space. We are transmuting wombs, playing in water and communing with repurposed garbage. Alexis Pauline Gumbs and angel edwards are our guides asking us to remember tenderness, to breath and to be. Projections featuring angel, tsunami, SJ, Lee, Sophiann, Jasper, Gabby and Amethyst are shown throughout the space, through shadows and projections portals are made. A live soloist watching, other times the soloist is moving and existing. This is the best way to encapsulate the vibe. It's a dark moist space that you can get inside of and be held for now and moments after.
TALES
After a conversation with Jah and a plane ride home…
Something soft is inspired by the care I’m trying to extend myself after being bombarded by so much messaging, readings and reflections. This is what I have to say presently about it, about process and about ritual. When me and Jah spoke the other day we talked about this idea of long term care beyond the womb. We came to this understanding that the womb could be viewed from many vantage points. As we talked more considerations of what a womb may be for trans and non-binary folk like ourselves emerged. It got us talking about seeds and plants. Admittedly, Jah could give you more details on these processes. However, I felt moved by these reflections and we began asking ourselves more questions. Modalities of birth can be multifaceted when we observe plants and animals. In what ways could we draw on nature as a guide? The same way Gumbs looks at dolphins and porpoises for inspiration through “deadly systems”. How could we borrow this methodology in our questioning? In this I believe we hope to find gender euphoria and joy, the womb felt like the best place to be or begin, but not somewhere we want to stay in. I want the dark and moist/the be held and curled/covered and cared for. What may a womb do for me now? I imagine what we create is tender and soft. What are our long term care plans for ourselves and each other? What dysphoria, homophobia, racism, colorism, ableism or ageism are we going to brush against on our way to softness? When are we forcing an idea of ‘soft life’ versus when we are living it? Can we identify and distinguish these modes of softness? How can we try to uncover these inquisitions together? Can something soft usher in our collective needs? Can it help us begin to consider? Can it remind us? How can we be willing in such unwilling spaces and places? What does my trans, genderqueer, non-binary, two spirit womb shape into? Can I put my seeds in water? What grows there and how do I tend to it? How do I tend to things that tend to me?
A whole lot of questions that I do not hope to answer, but I hope that in reflection I will get closer to myself and my people.
Questioning softness came from…
Witnessing work where I was cared for (I did not understand this until angel said it recently at a gathering in Philly). But what may it mean to create work where we are cared for? Before this reflection I think watching Tsunami, SJ, angel, Jah and Sophiann’s work felt reminiscent of lessons around softening through telling our stories– being vulnerable, unapologetic, holding collective responsibility and being unafraid to be mundane. angel reminded me of the importance of mundanity, offering up this idea that as black folk we are taught to be spectacular novelties, exceptional and excellent. angel was questioning if we could be spectacular just being. And I learned again that I just wanted to be doing art, I wanted to be dancing and making with folk who cared for me. All the movement artists who have cared for me through their works made me want to lean in. They made me curious. It made me ask questions. It made me invite all these folk in. Let’s make something but at our own pace. How can we do that from all these different places? The pandemic has shown us a bit about working from distances and protecting one another so let’s use that too.
Meet the Artists
Mawu Ama Ma’at G. Oyesii
Mawu Ama Ma’at G. Oyesii is a agender femme based in Philadelphia and beyond. As a choreographer they seek to make visible the black experience through explorations of identity, play and transformation. These modalities are a resource for reclamation and revolution. Their work remains a political statement as an acknowledgement to the social context of being black in America. They are proud to inherit teachings from dance practitioners and scholars such as, Dr. Kariamu Welsh, Silvana Cardell, Lela Aisha Jones, Dr. S. Ama Wray, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Tendayi Kuumba, Karen L. Love and Zakiya Atkinson who have built foundation, inspiration, legacy and roots in all things that be Mawu.
Jah Elyse Sayers
Jah Elyse Sayers (they/them) directs their creative energy toward Black queer and trans liberatory placemaking using research, writing, teaching, building, and artmaking. They have shown work at Vox Populi (Philadelphia) and metaDEN (NYC), and you can find their writing in Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies, BRICLab Essays, The Trophallaxis Study Group, Deem Journal, and Society & Space Magazine.
Felisha George
New Jersey native, Felisha George (they,she), is a recording artist, composer, performer, and conjurer of rhythmic color. They are a manifestation of boundless rhythm and melody in its rawest form and it lives as their source of communication, love and liberation. Felisha can be described as, “an agent of their own transformation and evolution”, an embodied learner and a spirit honoring lineage. They create allusive duality and soulful flows; a pure rooted story teller. You can find their freshman album, Wash Your Soul on all streaming platforms.
Final thoughts and reflections
As the presentation date nears I find myself in a sense of deep tranquility. While in Senegal I learned that marinating an idea will help to formulate the deepest connections. We have a script, some ideas, some small things we played with, some bigger things we built, but it is still unset. This too is apart of the process. The deep marinating so that when we’re ready we can just throw that ting in the pot. Make a tasty meal.