Devolve To Evolve AAConcert

Devolve to Evolve
Group Project Members: Sam Olayiwola, Bria Bennett, Ursula Walker, Jessica Steedley, Paige Walker, Shakila Powell , Julia Aycock, Kimari Brand
As defined on page 613 of Theorizing the Post Soul Aesthetic: An Introduction

"I see the cultural mulatto archetype, then, in all its messy, hazy, difficult manifestations, as one crucial "point" in the triangular post-soul matrix. But merely identifying authors and their characters as cultural mulattos does not go nearly far enough. The question becomes, then, what do these cultural mulattos do? What is their cultural work? These artists and texts trouble blackness, they worry blackness; they stir it up, touch it, feel it out, and hold it up for examination in ways that depart significantly from previous and necessary preoccupations with struggling for political freedom, or with an attempt to establish and sustain a coherent black identity." (Ashe, 614)
it's an outside (class) source
Watch Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpkd6AXsYgY&feature=youtu.be

In this project we explored the cultural ideology of afrocentrism as it relates to "The New Black" theory. This investigation connects to the historical continuum of Black Dance by exploring contemporary, hip hop, social, African tribal and freestyle dance. We would like to show that despite appropriation of traditionally black movement, that same embodiment of movement is possible in the opposite respect. We pieced our work through-out time, not necessarily in linear order during the performance, this is for the sake of redesignating our bodies as vehicles for self-expression and empowerment, despite the suppression and confinement that we have faced individually and collectively, both physically and mentally. By centering the notion of "New Black" in Africanist post-soul aesthetics, as described by Betram D Ashe:
As for the post-soul aesthetic itself? It is a school. And it is the signal artistic and literary school that has gained currency since the Civil Rights movement. Certainly, scattered texts exist that were published before this "post" era that vaguely or distinctly resemble post-soul aesthetic texts, but it seems to me there is a reason these artists emerged in this post-Civil Rights movement era. I hope the development of fluid-yet-distinct conventions will assist African Americanists in identifying and comparing and talking about these texts?as a school?in all their complicated, wide-ranging, messy glory. My conception of the above post-soul matrix, then, ultimately suggests that to be identified as "post-soul" an artist who was born or came of age after the post-Civil Rights movement will have produced a text or body of work that grapples with the cultural mulatto archetype, and/or executed signal "blaxploration," and/or employed allusion-disruption strategies to achieve a "troubling" of blackness…. By exploring "common themes and artistic values" which isn't necessarily a "false totalizing of generation of intellectuals"(Ashe, 620).

Each performer's relationship to black identity and culture was highlighted by investigating how the non-black bodies relate to and embody blackness, and how the black body embraces traditional and nontraditional black concert dances. We aimed to approach this work through collaborative kinetic storytelling as a testimony of our combined identities and selective Epic

Memory in order to tell a "great and interesting story"(Steinbeck via Ashe, 2007) that would speak objectively to not only us as performers, but the audience as well to add to the continuum of black dance and conversations about "the new black". The elements of our dance are based in our emotion and mental standing around African American historical realities, which make it "great and interesting" as John Steinbeck would state. Being that our group was the only one with a male and a white body, there was diversity in our unity that was of representational service to the basic cultural competition of society.

This work was created to be read from left to right. The positioning the black bodies on a color scale from lightest to darkest first and foremost speaks to the current issue of colorism and white privilege. We introduce this piece with symbolic movement strategies created by our Nigerian male choreographer, Sam, which focuses on the hands. We hold our Pinkies up as a symbol for European standards, (white people), civilizationism, (cultural appropriation), and drinking tea (as a play on the historic Republican tea party movement whose conservative position devalued and discouraged the political mobility of black people, which in turn is reflected by the displaced positioning of our own bodies). The breath is a continuous theme throughout our piece that speaks to the popular issue of racial terrorism imposed on black male bodies, like Eric Garner #icantbreathe, and escaping subjection to police brutality.
Beyonce's "Heaven" guides our movement to multiple failed attempts at civilizationism, via arabesque. Sam then points us all to Jessica, our white female choreographer, who then co-teaches a ballet class to Jervy Hou's "A Short Beautiful Piano Piece" and reinforces restricting our movement and correcting our form, which symbolizes the historic condition of black bodies that are subjected to meet the standards of not only an anti-black/racist concert

dance style, but a mainstream transnational societal norm. In contrast, this dance is also an unprecedented transition from our previous depiction of the transethnic - life saving feature of our previous movement by speaking to the African Diasporic/ African American socio-historical realities and lifeways. Sam positioned at the end of the line, to the audience, but the front of us gestures our supporting the concept of cultural lineage and continuity.
The female butt is part of a gendered discourse, with sexually charged energy surrounding the female fanny in general and the black bottom in particular, not only in dance, but also in daily life.
Fear and restraint of buttocks power, especially the dancing buttocks, is a fundamental component in Christianity's dialectic on the corporeal capacity for sin. In an essentialist fashion the early church differentiated itself from "pagan" practice by its radical stance regarding the (dancing) body. Using evidence from cave and pottery art, Jean-Luc Henning, in his eloquent and witty volume on the buttocks, traces the use of the rear end as a principal instrument in the expressive dance back to Dionysian feasts. He describes dancing maenads, whose "wild fervour allowed the buttocks to arch a long way back in their raging ecstasy." The curved back and protruding fanny were associated with abandon, pleasure, desire, unbridled physical freedom. Henning continues, focusing on one female dancer depicted in a cave south of Pompeii. (In this short chapter, "Dancing," he doesn't discuss the male rear end, confirming my argument about the gendered nature of the topic.) This one woman is completely naked, shown from the back… and she has a fantastic bottom, one of the most beautiful bottoms in the world, [a] stormy, quivering buttocks.. As she dances her veil describes an all powerful rainbow around her, tracing a line reminiscent of the cleft between the buttocks." For Henning, this energy is reproduced in twentieth-century art works like Henri Matisse's Dance (1910), wherein "buttocks direct their aerodynamic fuselage everywhere." He asserts, "Emotion from dancing is certainly the most pleasant movement felt by the buttocks, the most vibrant, the most irresistable."
It was this energy that had to be reined in and harnessed in order to construct a "civilized" European body.
In this savage-versus-cultivated dialect the buttocks symbolize the historical dichotomy between Africanist and Europeanist aesthetic principles… The Africanist value placed on the democratic autonomy of body parts stands in sharp contrast to the Europeanist value on unity and line (meaning straight line) working toward one objective. "In traditional European dance aesthetics, the torso must be held upright for correct, classic form; the erect spine is the center - the hierarchical ruler - from which all movement is generated. It functions as a single unit. The straight,uninflected torso indicated elegance or royalty and acts as the absolute monarch, dominating the dancing body." This vertically aligned spine is the first principle of Europeanist dance, and its line is dependent upon erasing those protuberances of the natural body - namely the three "b's": buttocks, belly, and breasts. In contrast, the Africanist dance aesthetic favors flexible, bent-legged postures with the component parts of the torso independently articulated forward...' (Gottschild, 147)




Julia, Paige, Ursula and Kimari represent central cultural mulatto archetypes that collectively grow disruptive through the first class using the Middle finger to symbolize a "black play don't give a shit what you think"... type of resistance art (Parks, 578) as Kimari grows disruptive within the strict class rules she breaks off to Juvenile's "Back That Azz Up," signaling the middle finger with her right hand and thumbs up with her left hand to begin a "postliberated" #TwerkoutFitness class representing agency and resistance to the former class respectability politics (Ashe, 612). Sam and Jessica's late adaption to the new school speaks to the revolution of an anti-black patriarchal status quo. Julia enters the class literally "assed out" and backwards to Nicki Minaj and Rae Sremmurd's "Blow some Mo" which symbolizes the Banana-Republic relationship North America has to the Afro-Caribbean. The "stripper kick" foot dance done to rotate Kimari and Julia's position is a creolized approach to (hypersexual) consumer culture that symbolizing the removal of slavery shackles and misogynist, racist, and homosexual stereotypes. We then begin to Samba and Bachata dance, which specifically highlights Julia's Panamanian heritage and shows Diasporic movement.
We then transition to a more communal creolization of our dance, backing it up with our thumbs up to symbolize acceptance, a good job, and embracement to Kirk Franklin's "Stomp - New Orleans Bounce remix" to initiate the sacred and spiritual aspect our dance that merge's hip hop and gospel created by our black female choreographer, Bria. The partner transition,

alternating between the shooters & hands up gestures to Kirk Franklin's "Revolution" is symbolic to our internal battle with ourselves, each other and with society, which can be interpreted as within our circle. We face inwards and back up to gauge each individual's position in the conflict and then proceed to merge the traditional and nontraditional concert dance moves. We conclude with our united movement to a poetic piece on Rhythm by Ursula.





[Rhythm]
Rhythm all around
Rhythm in the sound of your heart beating loud as this green clouds
These green clouds enhance the sound of your heart beating loud,
Can you hear them now?
These rhythms keep us from drowning
Ring louder than bells of liberty
These rhythms speak to the soul
Hold the key to our harmony
They feel so sweet, won't you just follow me
Resist the urge to think, let the sounds moves your feet



Works Cited:
Ashe, B. D. (2007) 'Theorizing the Post-Soul Aesthetic: An Introduction',African American Review, 41(4), doi: 10.2307/25426980. Pages: 612. 614.
Parks, Suzan-Lori. "New black math." Theatre Journal (2005): 576-583.

Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. The black dancing body: A geography from coon to cool. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Page 147.

DeFrantz, Thomas. "Simmering passivity: The black male body in concert dance." Moving words: Re-writing dance (1996): 107-120.

Jowitt, Deborah. "Beyond Description: Writing beneath the surface." Moving History/Dancing Culture: A Dance History Reader (2001): 7-11.

Batty Moves Dance influences (in-class video)
Alvin Ailey's Revelations influences (in-class video)

Music Composition by artist of color:
Heaven, Beyonce, 2013 (with static)
"A Short Beautiful Piano Piece", Jervy Hou, 2010
Back that Ass Up, Juvenile,
Blow some mo, ' Nicki Minaj & Rae Sremmurd
Come get her, Rae Sremmurd
Stomp, Kirk Franklin Bounce Remix
Revolution - Kirk Franklin
Ursula Creative writing piece on Rhythm