loving urself is art / resistance is loving urself

by Kiani 11 Comments

This weekend, I was thumbing through ‘Three Pieces’ by Ntozake Shange and decided to focus on a play I have been half-halfheartedly reading for the past couple of months– “a photograph: lovers in motion.” This post is not meant to be a full grasp of the work, but simply a meditation on some of the themes that have resonated with me as a student in this class.

At its core, the work tackles what it means to make art, what it means to survive, and the intersections of these processes. The lives, love, and art of Sean, Michael, Nevada, Earl, and Claire intermingle in this play set in San Francisco, California in presumably the late 1970s. Sean, a budding and brooding photographer and artists, is at the heart of the love and the art in this piece. He’s fawned over by strong, beautiful, floating, dancing black women Michael, Nevada, and Claire.

Michael, Nevada, and Claire are at Sean’s every whim. They marvel at the pain, joy, and sensuality Sean captures in his photographs and breathes into his many sexual and romantic relationships. Because he is an artist, because he creates, because he wears every fiber of his pain on his visage, Sean can do no wrong. Sean can capture the most gruesome and exploitative of images because he is an artist. Sean can lie with any woman he chooses because he is hurting and of that hurt he makes art.

Michael speaks about this kind of hurt and the love she holds for it:

i loved yr bitterness & hankered after that space in you where you are outta control/ where you cannot touch or you wd kill me/ or somebody else who loved you. (pg. 64 ‘Three Pieces’ by Ntozake Shange)

The love that Michael speaks of is a love of pain and struggle. Simply, a love for a tormented soul. A torment only art can cure, perhaps. A torment only an artist can bear so ungraciously.

But what of Michael’s dancing, and Claire’s modeling, and Nevada’s being? Are these not instances of art and of survival? Are they not artful in their being? Why are not they, too, artists?

Michael says about herself:

i am space & winds
like a soft rain or a torrent of dust/ i can move
be free in time/ a moment is mine always
i am not like a flower at all
tho i can bloom & be a wisp of sunlight
i’m a rustling of dead leaves
collections of ol women by the weddin
the legs of a cotton club queen
& so familiar with tears
all this is mine/ so long as i breathe/ i’m gonna dance
for all of us/ everybody dead/ everybody busy
everybody too burdened to jump thru a nite
a hot & bluesy jump in the guts of ourselves
a dance is like a dream/ i can always remember
make it come again … i can make it come again (pg. 77)

Michael is aware of her art– her survival, but unwilling to call herself an artist.

Shange speaks of a space inhabited by some of these characters:

another area/ used by all characters except sean and michael/ is a plain black space. this area becomes wherever & whatever earl, claire & nevada need it to be. (pg. 57)

Though this quote comes from the stage directions, it’s indicative of the space these women and Earl occupy. An artful and creatively loaded space. Wherever and whatever they need it to be. And to that I ask… who gets to be an artist?

In reading ‘a photograph: lovers in motion’, I was forced to consider the space that Ntozake Shange, herself, occupied during the Black Arts Movement. In her addresses to the class, she remarked more than once that her work was a response to male-dominated Black Arts Movement. It was her mission to reveal herself as a feminine and distinctly woman creator and artist. I confidently call Ntozake Shange an artist. I wonder if the men of the Black Arts Movement call her an artist? I wonder how many women and girls and black people and people of color won’t call themselves artists because they do not see people like them creating things and calling it art. I wonder how many women, girl, black, and people of color artists still don’t feel the right to feel alive through their creativity. Still feel like it is somehow invalid and incorrect to make things for and about oneself.

Through the character of Michael, Shange says about art:

it’s love. it’s fighting to give something/ it’s giving yrself to someone/ who loves you… letting everybody in & giving up what is most treasured (pg. 85)

Comments ( 11 )

  1. Amanda
    Wow, what a beautiful post Kiani! I feel as though the class talked a bit about some of your questions on masculine recognition of women artist during the Black Arts Movement and I'm interested to hear what folks have to say about that in class. Also, your question of who gets to be an artist was really salient for me and I feel you answer this yourself in your post--an artist being anyone who is skilled in the art of survival. This week I've begun sketching, looking at paint supplies and I'm forming a shopping cart/new budget to submit to Prof. Hall.
  2. Dania
    Update: This past week I visited the Shange archives and found some photos that I will be using. Also, I was able to refine/finalize my proposal.
  3. Nadia
    This week I spoke with my Afro Cuban dance instructor about my ideas for my performance piece and continued to work on choreography. I also requested Dr. Valdes' book "Oshun's Daughters" from Borrow Direct and sorted out my travel for my trip to the Audre Lorde archives over Spring Break.
  4. Melissa
    This week I scanned images that I hope to use for my project. Like Nadia, I am starting to think more intentionally about choreography and performance as part of my project and spent 1.5 hours on Saturday working on movement that I would like to incorporate in my performance.
  5. Tiana Reid
    Thanks for your post, Kiani. Drawing on the masculinist BAM, I sometimes wonder what it is exactly about being or being named as an artist that is valorizing. What does it do for the subject raised to that position? What happens when we say that so-and-so was not only, say, a mother, but she was also an artist? What world are we trying to construct? Shange surely lives her artistic freedom out loud, and embodies a particular kind of romantic model, whether or not we want to call it, as Harryette Mullen does, bohemian. I am also reminded of Audre Lorde's "Poetry is Not a Luxury," and the image of writing between work shifts, while the kids are asleep, writing in snatches before bed. This kind of feminized socially reproductive labor is not always recognized as labor (should it be?) but the pauses aren't recognized as art either (and is art labor?)...
  6. Michelle
    This past week - I reached out to Che Gossett from the BCRW to talk about feminisms in the 70s. I also began planning the collaborative zine gatherings I hope to begin hosting next week!
  7. Yemi
    Kiani. Thank you for this. Your post speaks to the importance of naming and self-identification. What is the process of transition when one can see themselves as a creator? Is there a such thing as true creation? I wonder what was barring the women from occupying a space where they could claim their art is valid. That their vision is valid? Perhaps this also has to do with gender distinctions... This week I visited the NOLA & The Louisiana State Museum to look at some of the photos we discussed during our first visit to the ICP. Many of the images we viewed were displayed in the museum, specifically the images of Thomas Neff on Surviving Hurricane Katrina. It was awesome to view a physical display of images with text and see how this translated to some of the Katrina exhibits I had seen online: http://louisianastatemuseum.org/museums/the-presbytere/ http://www.neworleansonline.com/news/2010/Nov/katrina.html Seeing the online versions contrasted with the actual museum site helped me figure out how to structure my online presentation for the Shange project. I also contacted a few people I'd like to interview.
  8. Clarke
    This week I started drafting my project introduction and came up with a much more intriguing and focused research question.
  9. Sophia
    I didn't do a lot this break, but I did schedule a archive visit and the Harlem semester tour!
  10. Nicole
    Over break I went to the NYPL of Performing Arts and looked at the programs from the Sounds in Motion company.
  11. Danielle
    This week I worked on Dyana Williams's transcript.

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