A GROWN MAN CRYING IN PUBLIC

Posted on | September 16, 2008 | No Comments

 

FIRST OFF:  Love, love, love to: rolando, jennifer, sparlha, tyrone, ayinde, jamel, atiba, cj, jullien, julia, caitlin, and kelli for reaching out!

Cincinnati continued…

HURRICANE SEASON is a pretty hi-tech multi-media piece.  It has visual collages, and audio testimonials interspersed with Climbing PoeTree’s poems, full-bodied Cat’s Cradle, and stick dancing.  It’s all perfectly timed.  And when/if there are any technical difficulties, it is extremely difficult to hold up the show.  Therefore, when the projector begins overheating, and screen goes blank during the show in Cincinnati – I can feel Naima & Alixa’s anxiety as I stand in the back of Bi-Okoto Dance and Drum Theater.  

For those of you who haven’t seen it, HURRICANE SEASON, is a call for transformation – for self, for community, for humanity.  Pre-intermission is heavy – with a focus on environmental injustice, policing and criminalization, and land rights & displacement.  Post-intermission is focused on solutions people and communities world-wide have created and practiced.  So when during intermission a young man who had helped us to unload and build the set has what appears to be an emotional break down, Pippi comforts him.  He was guided outside and offered water.  He threw the cup back as if a beer mug in a saloon, but instead of chugging, the water pours out the corners of his mouth and down his clothes.  Pippi later says, “When you see a grown man crying in public, you’ve gotta take notice.”  She later goes on, “Man, I need training for how to deal with folks in crisis and with mental health issues – I’m a magnet for them!!!”  Tetris recounts, “That poor man…”

At the completion of the show, members of the audience have candles lit and I ask them to make a wish.  I urge folks to take their time and formulate a wish that would be significant for them to make, urgent, meaningful and to avoid rushing through it.  Once I blew out my candle I watched as each person blew theirs out, silently praying that it not occur to them as an unimportant exercise, but the first action in what I hope will be a life of acting after professing intention.  And ultimately, we were left with three flames still burning, spread through the room.  It was three women – each representing for me a generation.  And elder sat in the front.  She had paid what is the maximum amount asked of folks to donate – twenty dollars.  She had purchased merchandise.  She had signed the mailing list.  She had come from the suggestion of a friend in California.  And her eyes were open, watching as the wax melted down the sides of her candle.  The second was our host, Suriah, a twenty-something new mother, committed to organizing.  Her eyes were closed and she held her candle’s base with both hands.  The third, a nine year old girl.  She had asked about the set, the bus, and was visibly excited before the show.  As each of their flames lit up their face, and others remained virtually in darkness, tears began to form at the rim of my eyes.  “Of course,” I think, and smile, “of course it’d be this way.”  What feels like an uncomfortable silence is bearable when the elder blows out her candle.  When Suriah blows hers out, I turn to the little girl with a smile on my face.  She has her eyes closed, then opens them and looks to the ceiling.  Then she looks around and closes her eyes again – almost afraid to see if others were looking at her.  And I breathe a breath of strength, directing it to her.  She opens her eyes, blows – darkness.

The next day, before going back to Bi-Okoto to break down the set, Huey, Pippi and I watch early episodes from a season of In Living Color.  I was one of those kids who loved to watch the Fly Girls, thought Fire Marshall Bill was hilarious, learned what I thought was a Jamaican accent from “Ay Mon”, and for whom “Men on Film” was a guilty pleasure.  And though watching it on Hakiym and Suriah’s floor was surprisingly far from humorous, the pride I had while watching Keenan Ivory Wayans come out at the start of the show with a big smile on his face – as if to say “Hell yeah I have a show and I pray that y’all love it!” – remained the same.  It made me think of how proud I always am when brothers and sisters succeed in accomplishing their dreams – but specifically when artists, social architects, and cultural ambassadors “do the damn thing!”  And again, I am reminded of my own contradictions and the messages I send to the youth that are watching me.  Am I a good example?  Am I on the right path?…

Speaking of contradictions – we have this running joke on the tour.  Huey’s creation of course.  If you are on a blind date, or a first date, and either they don’t look the way you thought or it’s just not going so well, you can always all of a sudden fake a peanut allergy.  Begin a fake shallow breathing and say, “Oh my goodness, do you smell peanuts?  There has to be peanuts in here or something made with it!  I am deathly allergic to peanuts!  I have to go… no no, I don’t need help getting home… I can’t talk about …” and start a fake shortness of breath, and run out.  It’s so hilarious when something is happening we don’t like or are uninterested in and someone breaks out saying, “Uh oh… I… think… I… smell peanuts!” and run like hell.  I have done it once when Huey started playing Fela Kuti as we began breaking down the set – she is always playing Fela when we have to do that manual labor and I told her she is going to make it so that every time I hear Fela I start looking for grunt work. (lol)

The set includes these bamboo stalks that are 8′ long and 5″ in diameter.  You can carry 3 max at a time – and you have to have skills and strength to pull that off.  Each has a name etched into it to identify its role, its place in HURRICANE SEASON.  Some hold screens, some are the base of the water zampona, candler holder, and cloud chamber, one holds the projector.  I would smile each time I was asked to hand someone James Baldwin or Harriet Tubman.  On our bus ride to Yellow Springs – a rest stop for some days – I asked Naima (Mama Lou) to share all of their names.  They are James Baldwin, Harriet Tubman, Frida Kahlo, Audre Lorde, Janet Cyril, Sitting Bull, Eunice Brie (Yvonne Etaghene’s recently passed g-ma), Nina Simone, Octavia Butler, and Sojourner Truth.  So ILL!!!  Naming- words in general – are suddenly illuminated for me, and I begin pondering how our next destination came to be known as Yellow Springs.

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