Soul flows like water/ in three takes
above pic
the arm and jewlery of joi m. sears
taken at a gumbo yaya sista circle
Soul flows like water/ in three takes
The three presentations last Monday seem to be concerned with soul. We can think of soul as a omnipresent essence that can't be bound by any liminal space, "crawl space", or what Marcus Wallace defines as the "scrawl space". We can think of soul as practice. I argue, soul practice/praxis/performance of essence that unravels, decontextualizes, destabalizes and counters definition, gaze and category. Maybe soul speaks forward to concepts of diaspora, interdisciplinarity, assemblage, intertextuality and intersectionality.
Amiri Baraka, in all his flawed brilliance and beauty, writes in Blues People "The spirits do not descend without music". We can take a moment to think about how Ayanna William's MA Project thinks about how the spirit/soul/"re"memory/body are inextricably tied together through sonic practices. If sound accesses and translates the languages of the gods, then we must consider the intimate relationship the singer/performer is creating through her vocal practice. In some cases what we hear is a spiritual/blues/jazz/ or some genre-bending amalgamation, but what is Ayanna hearing? What is Ayanna experiencing? What are the poetics of corporeal/sonic/soul translation? Ayanna's project maybe an exploration of glossolalia if we are to understand the term to loosely be translated as "speaking in tongues" in the Pentecostal tradition. But there is more. Disambiguation, as it is otherwise described, is also believed to be the true language of the soul that establishes a direct mainline with the creator.
With this in mind, Ayanna access a/effectual traces of memory or what Morrison theorizes as rememory in her performance and scholarly project. We are co-participants in so much as we are experiencing Ayanna's journey through specific corporeal and sonic sites that have informed and influenced the presence of spirit or soul in her life.
Earlier I wrote that soul perhaps is related in some manner to diaspora. As I think about Cyrena's project I am drawn to consider how soul might be embodied and practiced through movement. Really I want to ask Cyrena if she feels as if she embodies diasporic grains of Argentina. In thinking about what Dr. Renee Alexander practices as critical autoethnography, I want to know where the biography/coming to/of movement narrative ends and where the critical project begins. I wonder if it is necessary to separate it out because soul like diaspora flows like water.
Body/Memory/Motion/Movement/Resisting Stasis/Resisting Boundary/Resisting Skin...I think Cyrena's project may speak to a poetics of relating. In this sense, a poetics of relating is all about how we rub up against each other. Extremely sensual and sensory. Which makes sense because Cyrena is talking about movement. The movement of bodies across boundaries, the movement of communities, the movement of cultures, the movement of gazes, the movement of rhythms.
Wikipedia teaches, "The "milonguero" style is characterized by a very close embrace, small steps, and syncopated rhythmic footwork". The bodies together work a language they create through planned and improvised steps, perhaps. Again I offer, here movement is another attempt at translating a metaphysical experience. Are bodies entralled in the Tango aesthetic performing another glossolalic paradigm? We see extension. We see embrace. We see pause and grasp and dip. But what do we experience? I would agrue a working of soul or spirit is happening right before our e.y.e.
A Few Notes on Gumbo YaYa/or this is why we speak in tongues
After speaking to the sistas last week we have decided to include a media component that will assist the performers in contextualizing the exerpted work I/we will show. The media component will include foundational quotes on spirituality and womanism as we have been working through it. While I feel real conversations about process and spiritual work and art need to happen in substantive ways, I recognize that I quite often speak in tongues. There are layers upon layers that I would love to unravel with PS colleagues, faculty and staff but quite honestly those who want to be in those types of communities, scholarly or otherwise, have taken meassures to construct such spaces. Intention/energy/essence and application of Gumbo YaYa is larger than the individual.
Ebony Noelle Golden, MFA
MA Candidate- Performance Studies
Gumbo YaYa/ or this is why we speak in tongues
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
Theories of Performance: I like the idea that performance happens all around us. This concept is similar to William Shakespeare's poem "As You Like It" where he writes "All the world's a stage and all the men and women are merely players." Performance is used as a form of communication between performers and their audience, where not only performers are players, but the audience too is a participant. Just as there is an expectation of performers, there is also an expectation of the audience. Both are needed to make a performance work. -Susana
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Sunday, January 10, 2010 at 10:59:00 PM EST