Part of #DignityInProcess, North | South is a series of interactive installations and performances utilizing ancestral ceremony, connection to the natural elements, and original choreography to examine how exhaustion and endurance shape the pedagogy of Afro-diasporic activism. How does trauma manifest in the Black body as we struggle with an innate knowing that our liberation cannot be divorced from the earth? Black evolution emerges as we challenge structures that deplete natural resources even while being pressed against historical wounds of slavery that relate land with physical extortion. Recognizing a cultural reference of freedom being found in migration to the industrial North, we ask our collective body to remember it's roots in red ancestral soil. Movement shaped through the writings and stories passed down through elder/ wisdom keeper, Margaret Benson Thompson; bodies sweat, feet pound, and tongues pray in this Afro-futurist ritual of rhythm and soul. This performance ritual traveled to the North (New York) as well as the South (New Orleans) summer of 2015 and evolved through community participation.
Performed at SomArts, San Francisco; City Bird Gallery, New York; Café Istanbul, New Orleans and in Congo Square as part of the 10 Year Commemoration of Hurricane Katrina. Sponsored by New Orleans Loving Festival, Cafe Istanbul, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, Congo Square Preservation Society, Press Street's Antenna Gallery, Gulf Coast Rising, the New Orleans Musicians Assistance Foundation, www.myheartsleeve.com and Dancing Grounds.