three
Remember When
love letters to loved ones
3 decades
remembering
this is for you
Canon of Community

epigraph.

“The very serious function of racism… is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being… None of that is necessary.”

Toni Morrison, A Humanist View ^[1]

Inspired by the practice of not explaining or proving one’s (non-white) self over and over again, I would like my contribution to be empowerment in practice. I will focus primarily on accounts that center and connect Black and brown artists, de-center white supremacist culture, and exclude any explicit reference to whiteness. I want to talk to and about communities to which I belong and cherish, not as any kind of virtue signaling or defense, but as a celebration of liberating and formative moments I am grateful to have experienced.

i. to dazaun 

“existence”
performers: dazaun soleyn. natalia. claire. gio cruz. me.
choreographer: dazaun soleyn.
audience: our friends. us. bay area dance communities.

We had our first rehearsal in San Francisco at ODC Dance Commons. The small room on the right with that burnt-mustard tan marley. I remember walking in and seeing the four other dancers you casted. Nat. Gio. Claire. You. Strokes of shades of brown and black and smooth and deep. I remember laughing at something Gio said. Nat was doing bodywork on Claire. You put on some house. We met each other through movement. Our color filled the space, and by the time we left, the space had changed.

I never told you, but when I went home that first day, I cried. Yours was the first project I was hired for in who-the-fuck-knows-how-long-probably-like-decades that had a completely Black and brown cast with a Black choreographer and a Black sound designer.

We forget how heavy our armor is until we can take it off. We forget we have it on at all.

In rehearsals, you played Nina. Black Coffee. Danny Daze. Oh, to hear music that felt good to hear! To be in a studio that felt more like a home. No over-intellectualizing the purpose of sound. No smug practice of de-stabilization exercises against or in lieu of the rhythm in order to “get to something ‘new’ or ‘interesting.’” Just the beat and our bodies. And house. And a feeling. That feeling.

When it came time for the performances, you made pre-show feel like a party. Backstage, Claire, Gio, Nat, and I were stretching and making Boomerangs of ourselves being cute. Meanwhile, Beyoncé’s “Deja Vu” filled Dance Mission Theater as you welcomed audience members to dance with you onstage. And then it was no longer a stage but a dance floor slowly swelling with two-steppers and groovers. The room got warmer. People who came to the show were our friends or friends of friends or strangers who didn’t feel strange. There was no space to ‘other’ us because you had already filled it with so much us.

Also, yes to that pre-show playlist.

Speaking of music, can we talk about that first section in the piece? Whew. Shout to Chris for that score. You, Claire, Nat, and I were lying down topless, our stomachs to the floor. Gio, standing, facing upstage. The first sound was a repeating high-pitched note that pierced the space and activated a sway in Gio. Then a deep pulse entered, full and steady. Increasing in volume but slightly muffled as if it were coming from down in a basement. The bass somehow beneath the ground our ears were pressed against. Our breaths, Gio’s jack. His bounce. Our backs. Then slowly from his even, edgeless, looped undulations came bursts of expansive, syncopated movement. Sometimes it was a thrown limb that evolved into a ripple through his spine, or a sharp turn led by a look and followed by his bladed hands cutting through space then stopping suddenly. Wrists flexed. Suspended. Open hips to a wave to a stop then a go. Stop. Throw. Breathe. Stay. Bounce. Go.