A response that has everything and nothing to do with making performance
Can you hear me?
My quarantine partner, my husband, is a white man. He tells me he does not know if white people know how to suffer or sacrifice collectively.
My phone buzzes with messages and DMs from white friends, colleagues, and acquaintances I rarely speak to.
“Just checking in”
“How are you?”
“I love you”
“I am sorry this is happening”
“As a white woman, what can I do?”
I knew then that I would have to stop talking to white people. As in, I need to stop intentionally talking to white people for a month.
At least for a while.
Why were they calling me now?
This is not the first time a Black person has been viciously murdered by police. This is not the first time Black people have taken to the streets, demanding justice. But now my phone was crowded with casual declarations of love and long apologies from well meaning white folks.
In our quarantine bubble, stocked with rice and beans, too much pasta, and copious amounts of red wine, we improvise a sense of safety. Our jobs moved from the outside world to the comforts of our home in Oklahoma City, and we know we are privileged, to be home, to be working. I roll up the rug in my living room, prop my laptop on a pile of books and blast “Panama Mwen Tonbe” (an old Haitian folk song) loud enough for my students to hear over Zoom. Swinging my arms outward, I demonstrate spins and footwork while dodging my cat Jack at every turn. I get accustomed to being in Zooms and fumbling with the mute icon as we ask each other,
“Can you hear me?”
The other part of my career that relies on performing artists coming together and creating something in real-time, that relies on audiences sharing the same space, that relies on that energy which follows us from the show and spills into the bar down the street –that is gone. Perhaps momentarily, but it’s been swept up as a casualty of a non-discerning pandemic.
Even so, there’s no time to mourn that loss, because thousands of people are dying every day from this virus, and without so much as a dirge, the Second Lines in New Orleans are forced into silence when they are needed most. My NY Times alert says Black people and native people in the US are dying at a shockingly disproportionate rate; there were dozens of decomposing bodies found in unrefrigerated trucks outside of a Brooklyn funeral home.
What the actual fuck?!!
I retreat deeper into the bubble. My body seeking out the Second Lines that are too quiet.
It’s Saturday night; 90s dancehall legends Beanie Man and Bounty Killer are battling live on Instagram series Verzuz. I run through the house doing the bogle, leaning all the way back, fingers gliding through the air, slicing through the patois. My body is alive and vibrating. I am transported to the crowded basement parties of my youth in Queens, NY, back when our sweaty bodies were allowed to touch, before we knew Beanie and Bounty would become our problematic faves.
What has changed?
I retreat to the Black women artists, educators, elders, mamas, and organizers in my life, and we discuss, we leave moments for quiet, we let our anger unfurl, we write, we meditate, we dance, we hold space for others, we strategize for a future that includes us at the center.
In the morning, I water my tomatoes and later watch my friends live-stream their performances from home. I check in on my producing partners to make sure they are applying for unemployment.
They are.
I check in on my family; they are mostly fine, except my brother, his new wife, and six-month-old baby all have COVID, and it’s bad.
My sister makes a family group chat for daily health checks, and it’s quickly populated by the aunties with herbal COVID remedies and inspirational quotes superimposed on roses.
I retreat to the Black women artists, educators, elders, mamas, and organizers in my life, and we discuss, we leave moments for quiet, we let our anger unfurl, we write, we meditate, we dance, we hold space for others, we strategize for a future that includes us at the center.
In the morning, I water my tomatoes and later watch my friends live-stream their performances from home. I check in on my producing partners to make sure they are applying for unemployment.
They are.
I check in on my family; they are mostly fine, except my brother, his new wife, and six-month-old baby all have COVID, and it’s bad.
My sister makes a family group chat for daily health checks, and it’s quickly populated by the aunties with herbal COVID remedies and inspirational quotes superimposed on roses.
I don’t mind.
We are going to need all of the aunties and their inspirational quotes.
We are going to need all of the aunties and their inspirational quotes.
We’re trying to survive a pandemic
in the midst of a racist epidemic,
and now an uprising, 400 years in the making.
in the midst of a racist epidemic,
and now an uprising, 400 years in the making.
Are you ready to improvise without me showing you the footwork?
Are you ready to sacrifice without my body on the line?
Are you willing to create a new tongue, so that we may collectively speak and live freely?
Edited by Haydee Souffrant