I was invited to respond to the soundworks of Bianca Mońa. Audre Lorde has taught me, “For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.”

Bianca’s sound offerings invites us to listen deeply to language and sound that can propel us into action.  It is an incredibly resonant sonic landscape with sermon-like accuracy.  This will change your world, at least for a moment. The following is a response to this work using my tools as a dance artist, aunty, and deep listener.  Allow it to help you lean a little bit closer.

Pearl Noire the Experience

Switching.I know switching. I too was called out for switching as a young Black femme.In the Umfundalai technique codified by Dr. Kariamu Welsh, there is a portion of class called the “Walk Strong”.  Inspired by her time in Jamaica participating and observing women walking through markets with a regal carriage of the torso and a necessary sway of the hips, walking strong allows your pelvis to move. It’s a variation of switching, but Dr. Welsh knew to encourage the movement of the pelvis encourages life.  Again, where there is movement, there is life, and you better live.

Liana explains

In this work, Liana speaks truth. Truth on truth. As I listen to Liana explain.  My mind is transported to Carl Paris’ definition of spirit as it functions in Black dance traditions. “... In African diaspora religion, culture, and performance, spirit functions as embodied knowledge, and contributes to and underlies meaning on deeply metaphysical, cognitive, and somatic planes (Daniel, Dancing Wisdom). Thus, undergirding performance, spirit stirs creative, psychic, and liberative energies, which can manifest themselves through communal lived experiences as well as spontaneous, ecstatic, and kinetic “mounting” of the body and soul, as in “getting the spirit” or “getting happy” (Gottschild, Black Dancing Body)”.

A good deep breath moves me. Expands me up and down and front to back. My breath lovingly moves my guts out of the way like an aunty telling you to stand up so an elder can sit down.  My breath shifts my insides so that spirit (inspiration) can come in.

Soma’s hands

I started moving from the space behind my heart. A cosmic cloud of sound circling my line of sight and then between my ears.

Soft belly allows the flesh to reverberate because where there is movement, there is life. Allow it. Extra. More. Extra.  More flesh gives more opportunity to move, expand, in this world. And Lorde knows we need more of you.
Forward front right calls my attention.

Dear one, There is an opening that I would like to tell you about.  It's a portal that is circular. It is a wheel of fortunate fortune. This portal lovingly laughs at you when you rush.  It knows that the shit doesn’t start until you arrive.  She’s close to your kidneys and whispers to them every once in a while.

Resources

• Lorde, Audre. “Poetry is Not a Luxury”. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Crossing Press, 1984.

• Paris, Carl. “Reading ‘Spirit’ and the Dancing Body of  Black Performance Theory, Edited by Defrantz, Thomas and Gonzalez, Anita. Duke University Press, 2014, pp. 99-114.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Angie Pittman is a New York-based dance artist, maker, and educator.  Her work has been performed at The Kitchen, Gibney Dance, BAAD!, Movement Research at Judson Church, Triskelion Arts, STooPS, The Domestic Performance Agency, The KnockDown Center, The Invisible Dog(Catch 73), The Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project, and Roulette.  She holds a MFA in Dance and Choreography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a graduate minor in African American Studies and is a certified Professional teacher of the Umfundalai technique. 

Her choreographic work has been supported by Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant and residencies through Tofte Lake Center, Movement Research, New Dance Alliance Black Artists Space to Create, and Djerrassi. Angie’s work resides in a space that investigates how the body moves through ballad, groove, sparkle, spirit, spirituals, ancestry, vulnerability, and power. As an educator, she has taught at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Movement Research, MoMA, Marymount Manhattan College and starting in the Fall, will be an Assistant Arts Professor of Dance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.