dancer educator choreographer black american griot
Kenna
Voice of Culture
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November 2013
August 2013
July 2013
April 2013
March 2013
December 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
Divide and Conquer/Strength in Unity
TAKK CI RIP
Keepin' it real...
you're a what?
Overnight Review - SuperGroup with Rachel Jendrzejewski & Leslie O’Neill
Trashing the Space/Clearing the Space
pay what i owe
emancipation
Notes for Salon Saloon
Goal:
There were three cows that lived in a field, a red and white cow, a brown cow and a black cow. They did everything together all day long, especially at night because there was a rumor about a wolf in the area. But they had not seen a wolf so they didn't know exactly what to be scared of. One day the wolf walked by the field and saw the cows but they were always together so he didn't have a chance.
There were a bunch of cows in a field, all different colors - red and brown and black with white spots and white with red noses and all white and tan. Some of the cows were never satisfied and always worrying and causing problems. Word got around among the predator message boards.
There were three black cows and one white cow in a field, and they all got along until the rumors of the lion started circulating. One of the black cows got the idea that the white cow made them an easy target for the lion who hunts at night. So they began to argue.
A hungry tiger searched through the forest for easy prey. She kept coming upon groups of animals but had no luck. The monkeys helped each other into the trees, higher than she could climb. The tortoises retreated into their shells where her claws had no purchase. Even the mice and rabbits were able to scamper into holes faster than she could trap them, stomping the ground as an alarm for everyone to retreat. Finally she can upon a herd of wild cows, scattered far apart from one another. This herd was full of greedy cows who refused to share grazing space with each other. Now, without a sound, the hungry she tiger ate her fill, picking off two or three and polishing them off in a far away bush.
Kap.Fumvuti sent the Takk Team this picture recently - I know she betta bring her a$$ back to Minneapolis by Sunday 11/25.
My first blog post on mn artists . org went up recently, read it here: http://blogs.walkerart.org/mnartists/2013/11/07/a-fresh-way-to-picturedance/
I'm a little nervous about starting to write about things that go down in this town and have it distributed on a respectable blog - I'm gonna have to be about what I talk about...
good thing I'm an oral historian :)
and I have a sweet editor in Susannah McNeely Schouweiler - so geeked to have a professional coat-puller on my team!
you're an auctioneer?
wow that is an extremely scary profession to hear about. why, you say? can you think of any reason why the auctioneer might be a scary profession for a black american woman to think about? can you give me some insight as to why this profession still exists? what do we need to auction off in this day and age? oh, antiques and art and cars and properties and...fundraisers????
oh, you perform auctions for fundraisers? wow that is a crazy dichotomy to think about. what kind of fundraisers? oh, like community organizations and schools and churches and orphanages, i see. i get how auctions work, you call out the item for sale and people keep trying to out bid each other in order to win the item. these funds go to the organization - makes a lot of sense. i see how rich people want to kind of show off and let everyone know how much they are down for a cause by throwing money at it. i get the spectacle of giving money makes a star out of the giver so that begets more giving by more people. i know how it feels to not be rich standing in a crowd full of rich people bidding at an auction, where you feel like you can’t scratch or move or look at the auctioneer lest you end up owing a bunch of loot for a timeshare in Jamaica. My kids are the recipients of that good financial aid that comes from a good auction, and i have performed at these events to get people all hyped up and ready to bid and to celebrate their generosity. i get it.
but can anyone understand how it might feel to be a Black American Griot, asked to bring my company of artists to perform at an auction? can anyone feel me on the way that the sound of the auctioneers voice “..do i hear 500, 500! for this fine...” hits my ear and goes directly to the pit of my stomach and makes me understand the term “cold sweat”? I have to breathe and calm myself down and remind myself that this is for the orphans of South Africa, the less fortunate among us, for my kids private school education.
i look at the well meaning white people setting this stuff up and i’m grateful and thankful that it seems like they are using their privilege to change things, to bring things into balance. this is what we want right? so why do i have to be complaining about the fact that its an auction? an auctioneer is a perfectly reasonable profession to have, right? i should probably just get over the way it makes me feel...
except that i am a Griot and so the story of why the sound of that gavel “SOLD!” makes me want to run as if I heard a gunshot is so very important. listen to Oscar Brown, Jr’s ‘ Bid Em In .’ and ask yourself why would anyone record a song like that? why would a Black man, an artist, record a song that is essentially and literally a young girl being sold off at a slave auction? my answer: MY presence on this stolen ground is a direct result of the ancestors who survived the ordeals of slavery and ILL BE DAMMED if i am EVER going to forget the depth of their love and sacrifice. YOU BETTA RECOGNIZE!!!! anything that reminds me of them and their struggle will NEVER be whitewashed in my mind.
So, i'll do your fundraiser but next time can we please make it a “party with a purpose” like T. Mychael Rambo did? There are creative ways to inspire public giving - look at churches - and I think MC is an honorable job too. Kinda like a Griot in more than a few ways.
Peace and Love world, we gon’ figure it out.
I walked in with my homegirl at 7:55 to directions - instructions. Choose a group, follow the movement and try to repeat the words you hear. I kicked off my sandals and got to work - trying to flock and mirror and echo/respond. Being a dancer in this community means it's not that big a risk to copy some homies on the Southern stage, so I tried hard to follow my directions. Still, I cannot remember one phrase or word that I repeated. Very challenging activity, but me and my homegirl* appreciated the outlet for anxious energy. I think it was Jeffrey who finally told me "ok have a seat." We grabbed our stuff that we had flung down and by the time we found a seat, there was more work happening on stage. I realized that the curtain talk was being given and I had no time to read my program or even orient myself. This was a good place to be as I entered the world of it’s [all] highly personal .
SuperGroup has a dance film where I remember them being very tiny. I felt shrunken down to the size needed to build a tiny shelf and then shot inside of the collective mind of the group like InnerSpace. Once inside the mind, I'm getting buffeted from place to place, text firing at me like synapse in the brain. Bits and pieces jump out and stay out 'we do what we can,' 'sometimes we don't,' 'this is what we do.' I keep bouncing back and forth between following the text thread like a conversation and just letting the cacophony of voices wash over me like a soundscape. Ah white art. My homegirl said the piece felt very white, like culturally white. I'm always searching for the content I can identify with in white art, because I have a lot of white dance/art homies. Like white noise though, this is kind of relaxing, but like eavesdropping through the cubicles at work, this is kind of disturbing. I'm trying to grasp what these words are about - are these empty platitudes, like super general astrology readings? Are they deep insights? Or are they just every possible qualified sentence that can exist?
It is the movement that makes people laugh, draws us in. The snarky gossip, the bored housewife, stoner, wanderer, captain. I always say that I don't like unison too much, so this piece really put that preference to the test. There were so few moments of unified movement , everything was so individualized. I dug using my binocs to zero in on one person at a time. The rare moments of sync were strong and well oiled. I used my binocs like a telescope to make everybody tiny. I liked the way the ensemble would seem to click into place and then just as easily break back into themselves - moving independently but not in isolation. There was a kinetic feeling of connection and moving in concert, even though nobody was doing even close to the same thing. And this group was seriously super. They spoke and orated in accord, while moving, singing, dancing - it even got choral at one moment. And the jumpsuits... the jumpsuits are amazing.
Fortress started with a world created for and by kids. Laura Selle V and Erika Hansen really managed to convince me of their childlike mentality through movement. So much so that I became unnerved by the possibilities. There were more than a few treacherous moments - movement-wise. There were precarious positions and super-charged couplings that spoke to me of violence. There was such a physical sense of foreboding, my homegirl described it as 'heavy.' The physicality reminded me of some less embodied people, and also young people who don't know their own strength, who are hard on their shoes, who are gangly and unsteady on their feet. My homegirl doesn't like when adults play kids on stage, and I might be with her on this point. Or maybe I was just unnerved by the way Laura and Erika took it to the darkside on so many occasions.
The environment made me uncomfortable to start - two girls whispering inside a tent. These girls' friendship started to remind me of the friend I had who called me a n------ one time. We were pretty close but she still took it there. There was a dark edge to the way these two girls did everything, and I began to get a sense of the secret world of childhood that grown-ups are not a part of. Now we all know it exists because we were all children once, yet the dark corners get blown out in this work. I was getting the feeling that these girls were powerful in different ways. One girl was more classic - strong and daring and bossy. The other girl was deeper and had complex ideas and twisted emotions, she was subtle with her power. Now why did these girls feel like they were so connected and had to drag each other in and out of dark places? And like all kids, they were attracted to the dark and the light at the same time. They wanted to be scared and comforted all at the same time. There was much unknown in this piece, and I felt like I didn't get it. Or I thought I was getting something and then something threw me off that track near the end...
*my homegirl: an amalgam of all the homegirls i talked to throughout the night.
SuperGroup with Rachel Jendrzejewski & Leslie O’Neill
July 11–13
SuperGroup
SuperGroup is an artistic collaboration between Jeffrey Wells, Sam Johnson, and Erin Search-Wells. Combining text with movement, their works challenge audiences to “dream, imagine new realities, think inventively, and make connections between broadly disparate ideas.”
it’s [all] highly personal , SuperGroup’s latest interdisciplinary work in collaboration with playwright Rachel Jendrzejewski, explores the subtle changes that shape us and the contradictory human need for ritual and risk. Combining text and movement, the performance layers abstract and symbolic gestures with weaving narratives, multiplying patterns, and elusive signals to tell the complex story of everyday life.
Leslie O’Neill
An accomplished performer and a 2010 recipient of a McKnight Fellowship for Dancers, Leslie O’Neill captivates audiences with astounding grace and a commanding stage presence. As a choreographer, she has been working primarily in solo form, creating such pieces as Trigger , which was mentioned in the Star Tribune ’s “Top 5 Dance Events of 2009.” O’Neill is currently a member of Zenon Dance Company and was nominated for a 2009 Sage Award for her performances with Black Label Movement and Zenon.
Fortress is a duet featuring Laura Selle Virtucio and Erika Hansen in which private histories take the form of a third character in their relationship. The players hold onto secrets that are transparent to the audience, while the setting and their interactions establish motivations and divisions that influence each of their moments together.
Young women trashing spaces.
Oya the warrior woman...wind, change, marketplace.
Young women trashing spaces with their unbridled passions, with their overwhelming desire to chime in, with their refusal to follow directions.
Young women trashing their own spaces like black people rioting. I understand the sentiment, just why and where you're putting it?
Young women trashing spaces to make a space of their own. Old women need to clear some space. The underbrush is fertile but the canopy mature shuts out the light for the tender ones to grow. It's a mixed message.
Old women trashing spaces trying desperately to hang on, not to slip and fall and tumble down that steep slope. Grabbing and scrabbling like chickens in the yard. Dust clouds rising. Not realizing we're dislodging the roots from their ground.
Old women trashing spaces breaking lines. Crashing through walls. Putting our fist through the wall not just to demonstrate power but to get through. To reach through and touch you on the other side. And sometime we be fighting trying to get all our arms through that little ole hole. Make it bigger.
Young women clearing space ringing that bell.
Old women sweep the yard and pattern.
Breaking off, shake it off.
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twice recently people have said to me "i don't care what nobody says..." before giving me a complimentary remark. another person apologetically told me that i can appear cold even though i am one of the least phony people they know. i've also been told "i just wish people could see that you are a good person." man what th'
i got some figgerin' to do
I cannot believe that I just thought of this that this thought just occurred to me.
black people never really took our freedom.
with this emancipation proclamation some version of freedom was bestowed upon us -
photo: Bill Cottman
we had grassroots freedom movements
ashe to harriet tubman and the underground railroad, ashe to nat turner, ashe to the panthers and all those ancestors
but i'm looking with envy at my african peeps who actually rose up and overthrew the colonizers, and claimed their own independence
the civil rights movement - i gotta say ashe - but i still don't like the feeling of asking for something that should be recognized
now im getting confused with the mental murky-ness of feeling free and being free and why i have to have someone else's acknowledgment of my humanity.
well when the boot is on my neck i'm am gonna need to you to move your foot - that's some acknowledgement that needs to be demanded...
but now that the boot is off, or it's supposedly off
how do i feel?
i feel like i'm constantly searching for a day to call freedom day. independence day is not for me. juneteenth is still a bit dubious. emancipation proclamation day is too fraught with other political realities.
what's the black liberte? when is my freedom day?
Make up a title and a one line trailer for this film
Pick one moment in the film and answer these three questions: what did you notice? how did you feel? what questions does it raise?
I have two distinct dance lives.
My West African dance work represents a traditional space, grounded in cultural knowledge and physical technique, yet connected to the community.
My contemporary dance work represents a space that is about investigation through movement and gaining new faculties from new experiences.
In this moment I am rebelling against the proscenium stage.
In honor of Laurie Carlos, Sharon Bridgforth and Thelonious Monk, I say “fuck the audience!”
I am seeking, and continually finding new ways of ‘performance’ that honor the oral tradition.
The culture of dance that I come from springs from a place of circles, a place of participation in the art, a place where the movement comes from multiple sources.
Taka ci rip! is a wrestling bakk from Senegal
I’m doing an experimental new process that involves rehearsing and performing outside in order to break the proscenium setup
remove the expectation to be a passive watcher
themes of sports and relationships
audience as sportscaster/color commentary/analysis
sand shifts/like the relationship between a mother and daughter/sometimes we slip in and out of friendships/we feel the sand moving under our feet/as our toes grip so we can keep moving forward/dancing in one place for too long digs a deep hole/so we use our feet to fill it in/or move to a fresh spot/move your feet/is that they scream at the girls on the volleyball court/keep moving so you are ready to meet the ball/a moving target is harder to catch/its so hard to understand these kids because they are never the same - each time you meet them/they have grown/the markers have moved/the tide went out/the sand shifts
What information did we get from that improv?
Takk the process begins July 22
3-6pm at Theodore Wirth Beach and Volleyball courts July 22-August 3
sometime in the afternoon of August 3 at the Walker Art Center Scullpture Garden for Momentum in the Garden
Takk the Movie screening sometime in late August at the Juxta Artists Co-op - maybe out back in the DARK Cart!
kennacottman.com
Goal: to take one thing and post on my blog each day
Goal: don’t yell at them
Goal: i’m talking to myself.
Goal: make a decision
Goal: figure out how ‘they’ do it.