Project Check In 1- Jessica

Which text have you found most compelling and/or would like to examine further?

I found the narrative of Henry Box Brown the most compelling text so far, particularly the debate surrounding its authorship. Such debates make me question the ways in which white authors were, to some extent, in control of black artifice and performance, but also the ways in which black performers subverted such control. I think it would be interesting to examine further the changes he made in the alternate version of the text and think about the importance of such changes in terms of performance. But also, to consider who is the author of this performance?

Which concepts/theories (i.e. liminality, mastery of form, etc.) do you find most intriguing?

I find the concept of liminality most intriguing. This was sparked initially in Brown’s narrative through the box and how that in itself is a liminal space. I think it would be really interesting to look at what the liminal space does for black artifice and performance specifically, what liminality means on the performative stage and whether that differs from liminality within the text or indeed whether the text can perform. I was also hugely intrigued by the concept of the peristrephic revolutions and the ways in which this was a somewhat liminal space radically changing perspective.

What kind of performance and/or art are you most interested in? Why?

I have to say I am most interested in words. I think I resonate with reading the literal text, but also with songs because even then I can hone in on the lyrics themselves. I think in the context of this course, this could be useful in terms of examining the ways in which the words themselves perform. For example, the way in which I might read something and not understand it the way I would if I heard it in the context of a song or a speech, by its original author. However, I think it is also important to think about what each new performance of a text or song does, linking to Roland Barthes ideas about ‘The Death of the Author’.

List two research/discussion questions generated by the course materials and/or our class discussions.

1. What does liminality mean on the performative stage? Is it different or similar to liminality within the text? What did the peristrephic revolution mean for the liminal space in the black expressive tradition.
2. To what extent does the text itself perform, both in its original conception and its consequent iterations and reinterpretations?

Provide two quotes from any text on the syllabus that in your opinion exemplify the relationship between art and artifice in the black expressive tradition.

Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself 1816 –

 “they robbed me of myself before I could know the nature of their wicked arts, and ever afterwards–until I forcibly wrenched myself from their hands–did they retain their stolen property.”

I think this quote exemplifies the relationship between art and artifice in the black expressive tradition in a complex way. The fact that Brown refers to them as ‘wicked arts’ in itself seems to reflect the perhaps painful relationship that the black expressive tradition has with art and artifice. I also think it’s interesting that he notes he has to forcibly remove himself from their hands, in order that they don’t “retain their stolen property”. However, I think this is complicated by the fact that Box Brown didn’t actually write this version, as a result his expressive art is still stolen in this sense.

Fred Moten (2007) Preface for a solo by Miles Davis, Women & Performance: a

journal of feminist theory-

“it could be said that the black radical tradition, on the one hand, reproduces the political and philosophical paradoxes of Kantian regulation and, on the other hand, constitutes a resistance that anticipates and makes possible Kantian regulation by way of the instrumentalization to which such resistance is submitted and which it refuses.”

I think similarly this quote reflects the complexity between art and artifice and the black expressive tradition. The black expressive tradition is not simply one thing, whilst some pieces of art can be described as a mastery of form, others can be described as a deformation or mastery or indeed both simultaneously. As such, the black expressive tradition both reproduces and resists in the way Moten describes, through art and artifice.

Provide two quotes from black-authored texts other than the ones on the syllabus that in your opinion exemplify the relationship between art and artifice in the black expressive tradition.

Dave- Black

“Black is so confusin’, ’cause the culture? They’re in love with it
They take our features when they want and have their fun with it
Never seem to help with all the things we know would come with it
Loud in our laughter, silent in our sufferin’”

This line is taken from the song Black on UK artist Dave’s debut album. I found this line particularly interesting in relation to art and artifice because I felt it exemplified some of the conversation’s we had surrounding Miley Cyrus and her VMA performance as well as the fitness twerking videos i.e. “the culture” being appropriated, and “fun” being had with it, as though a mockery without actually understanding the art in the way it was originally intended.

Whaley, Deborah Elizabeth (2007) “Black Expressive Art, Resistant Cultural Politics, and the [Re] Performance of Patriotism,” Trotter

“black expressive art is a critical tool in evaluating the uneasy tenets of cultural politics and the necessity for historically marginalized groups to reperform their patriotism as a process of asserting and demonstrating their rightful place in the nation.”

I thought this quote wads particularly interesting as I think it perhaps forces us to think about what the black expressive tradition is forcing us to do or think about and why art and artifice is important in understanding this.

Imagine you are an AP English teacher, and you want to teach your high school seniors about black performance. However your principal and the parents will not allow you to use any texts other than printed narratives (i.e. no videos, music clips, no guests, no field trips, etc.). Draft a lesson plan for how you might go about accomplishing your goal without the aid of anything but copies of the printed text.

I think I would want to get the students to perform the text. I would split the students into 3 groups before the class and assign each group one of the texts we have examined on the course. Whether this be a song, narrative or speech, I would ask them to go home and individually consider how they would perform the text and practice it. When they come to class, I would split them into groups of 3s each with a different text and get them to each perform their text to their small group. I would then switch out a person in each group and get the students to think about some different questions. For example:

– If you had one word to describe the emotion you felt as “insert name” performed that text, what would you choose?

– What were the similarities and differences you noticed in how the same text was performed by different people?

 I would keep going around until each student has heard multiple iterations of each different texts and taken note on what I’ve asked and then regroup as a class to discuss their answers to the different questions posed. I would hope that in doing this exercise I am getting the students to think about how a text is performed, why it is performed that way and what a performer can bring to a text that you might not perceive in your reading of that text.