Header Image - The Worlds of Ntozake Shange
The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Tag Archives

2 Articles

Feminizm Ve Tarih — Historical Narratives From New York to Eastern Anatolia

by Eliana 0 Comments

When evaluating my own roots, as Shange often pushes me to, I turn to the Turkish academic Ayşe Gül Altınay. Professor Altınay, a personal feminist exemplar, was recently arrested and sentenced to two years in prison after signing a petition criticizing the Turkish government on behalf of the Academics For Peace Group. This serves as a case study in governmental treatment of pedagogy worldwide, and how American challenges of criminalizing, not just bodies, but ideas, are not uniquely American. Today, American discussions of the federal government dictating which news is “fake” and “real” are deeply intertwined with conversations on the mass incarceration, as political power structures force marginalized communities deeper into society’s margins. One can criminalize opposition and create bureaucratic barriers between a writer and publisher, but one cannot stop individuals from sharing their ideas to counter hegemony. 

Last Fall, Professor Altınay gave a lecture on “Bridging Academia and Activism Through Gender Studies,” where she both gave an overview of the feminist movement in Turkey and reflected on her own work as a scholar of gender and sexuality studies in Turkey. The history of female-identified Turkish activists fighting for change is being gradually erased over time, and one can view the treatment of their history as seemingly disposable in the eyes of the government and educators. Gender and Sexuality scholars such as Professor Altınay have been discovering pre-existing Kurdish and Armenian women’s organizations from the times of the Turkish feminist movement, which were excluded from the mainstream documentation of the movement. 

“Why am I compelled to write? Because the writing saves me from this complacency I fear. Because I have no choice. Because I must keep the spirit of my revolt and myself alive. Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appease my appetites and hunger. I write to record what others erase when I speak, to rewrite the stories others have miswritten about me, about you.” – Gloria Anzaldúa

For Anzaldúa and Altınay, words represent a lifeline. For those fighting tirelessly amidst systemic oppression, writing one’s own history is essential to survival. Complacency emerges when the Third World Woman is spoken for, as these narratives represent the sanctity of her own voice. Through their fierce attempts to safeguard the written word, from eastern Anatolia to New York City, writers like Altınay and Anzaldúa work to reshape and reclaim historical narratives.

Shange says Dance! Shange says Write! Keep on pushing on

by Yemi 1 Comment

When Ntozake Shange came to class we had the privilege of the archivist, the scholar, and the creator all in one room. We had someone to guide us through the materials, we had the written work, we had our own motivation to learn, but most importantly we had the living spring, the touchstone to which we could understand, the body to which we could trace back years of experience and extrapolate an abundance of meaning. With this dynamic it seemed like we could solve all problems and address all nuances of the black experience that may have once slipped by us.

Ntozake Shange in front of Barnard gates (10/23/15)

Ntozake Shange in front of Barnard gates (10/23/15)

… (Reflections) … (continue) … (below) …

Much of Shange’s defiance of the Black Arts Movement was because it was for “macho males.” In a similar way she went to alternative dance teachers spaces and because she wanted to learn a dance “other than yoruba.” How did Shange choose which movements to be a part of? Which dance to dance? Was the nature of her defiance simply to move against the grain in every way? I had always wondered about the strategy of rejection and how refusal would effect politics and thus effect history. Shange answered my questions and unearthed the meaning behind her actions by explaining: “When you accept something/ don’t accept, it controls the historical narrative.”

Refusing the Black Arts Movement was a fight for women to not only be considered, but to be recognized as essential to the progress of any black agenda. Learning dances outside of Yoruba, meant that countries which fell outside the demarcations of West Africa could be represented in America and more importantly in the New World, which housed many nations and black aesthetics, that Shange was creating.

The purpose of arts, dance and writing, is to use individual creativity to get to a place where “we [the black collective] can restructure and reconstitute the universe” to be one that is inclusive of us. That is why Shange challenges African Americans to pick up another language, so we are not defaulting to the language of the oppressor. “When you take control of the language, you take control of your life.”

The Spyra piece describes Shange’s Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter and the way in which purposefully using language is an act of distancing one’s self from the historical narrative of slavery and the chains that identify the black body and black life as without form or distinction: “there’s no words for us (Spyra, 765).” In the same way that language breaks the historical narrative, so does dance. Though Shange distances herself from Yoruba dance because it only upholds one African cultural group, the fact that the dance appears in Black American culture is a victory. The distance between continent of origin and the diaspora is closing. The gap of okra and greens becomes tighter. The arts bridges continents and claims a trajectory of history that was stolen. In this video Shange defines black dance as “how we remember what cannot be said.”