Finding, Rubbing, Tasting, and Using the Salt. of Black Women

Abstract

My senior project's focus would've been on the literal and metaphorical meanings of the intersectional identity of black women in the 21st Century. The project would have been staged as a "choreopoem". The literal construction of this performance piece comes from the roots of the word, "choreo" meaning dance, and "poem" meaning poetry. I've chose the poetry of "Salt." by Nayyirah Waheed to voice this narrative. Her allusions to nature and the ironic burn of her words, she provided the perfect canvas for me to paint with my performance. With my extensive background in dance, I've taken the liberty and constructed the choreography of the pieces myself. There are a total of 3 individual pieces representing 3 of the main themes with in the poetry: Nature, Momma Said..., and Straight From the Horse's Mouth. Waheed uses nature to allude to the pure beauty, fluidity, and roughness of black femininity. I planned to use my choreography to combine movements and words to form a work that gave the identity of black femininity an outlet of expression. Within my journey, here at SUNY Purchase, my professors as well as my peers have come to guess my background in dance without me having to say a word. My first experience with this happened in my Fundamentals of acting class with Sophia Skiles. She instructed us to do a walking exercise, where we just walked and our peers made assumptions on why we walked that way. My classmate and professor came to the conclusion that I "had to be dancer". Majority of the classes I've taken are movement based as well, and with that, my professors have always pushed me to follow my instinct. I decided to use the four years of encouragement in my plans for my senior project. In the Spring of 2018, that semester I took the class Women in Performance. The professor, Bess Rowen, introduced the class to the choreopoem "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf". I had seen the Tyler Perry adaptation of the production and assumed it was the same, but after actually reading the script, I came to realize that this work was much different than I assumed.