artistic bravery and claiming (family) history

a post in two parts...

this past week was that bizarre and creepy holiday of thanksgiving. and i sucked up my vacation time in the city, filling my week with family, friends, movies, and trips to see music, theater, and an art exhibit.

Kara Walker,
from The Emancipation Approximation,
1999 - 2000.

so this post will be a rambling of my thoughts on the movies "Amandla: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony" and "Everything is Illuminated", and the Kara Walker exhibit "My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love" at the Whitney Museum, the bilingual (english-yiddish) cabaret "Kleynkunst" at the manhattan JCC, and Matana Roberts' performance of her piece "Mississippi Moonchile" at the BlueNote. that's the order i saw them in so i will write in that order. and somehow they're all related to my thoughts on how we claim (or don't claim) histories. ready for a VERY LONG post?



"Amandla" is a documentary about South Africa's anti-apartheid music. i spent five weeks in Capetown, South Africa in july of 2005. this movie made me miss the place and mostly the people i met there. i was visiting on a human-rights academic program but by the second night together, the group of students was singing, dancing and teaching each other protest songs from our different countries (the students were mostly from the U.S., S.A., and Zimbabwe, but also other African countries.) i was thrilled-- i had in fact been set on traveling to SA someday when, several years before, i had the amazing opportunity to sing in my high school choir with Hugh Masekela. South Africa has a rich musical history and i was pleased to watch, dance to, and create so much music while there. the film's footage of people protesting and singing, and interviews with important musicians like Masekela and Miriam Makeba was inspiring and also brought back memories of my own experiences (like witnessing my friends and other people singing and dancing at a demonstration in Cape Town protesting high unemployment rates; this protest felt more powerful than any i had ever been to in the u.s.)

i could go on and on about these experiences but the bottom line is the way that they made me think about the power of music. and i began to compare the role of music in SA to music in this country. i can think of somewhat parallel american musical situations (music of the civil rights era and other "folk music" of the 60s perhaps), but what is the equivalent now? and where has this music gone now? who remembers it? when this group of american students and african students got together and started singing, we americans had a hard time finding songs of substance that we all knew. we could kind of remember the words to the early-90s Toni Braxton hit "unbreak my heart" but could we all sing "we shall overcome"? and here i was (having grown up at a socialist-jewish summer-camp) suggesting we sing "if you miss me at the back of the bus" and thinking, but not even bothering to suggest, some yiddish songs. no one knew them. i felt, well, culture-less. what is this evasive thing called "culture" and how's an american supposed to stake a claim to any of it!?

these comparisons between S.A. and the U.S. were not limited to musical histories. traveling and being "somewhere else" made me realize how little i know about my own country, state, or city. i was learning about housing issues, for example, but how much did i know about housing laws in america? i began to think about the common white college-student "adventure" of going abroad to "find myself". the point is, "Amandla" reminded me of this tension that exists for me; i am trying to learn about what is local, personal, immediate, part of my past, while feeling connected to cultures that are not "mine" while acknowledging my own subjectivity and the danger of idealizing and other-izing. and nothing is clear-cut. for example, south african protest music is influenced by jazz and other american musics. i may claim everything and nothing then?



and then, the next evening, i watched "Everything is Illuminated" which is based on a novel (which i have read) by Johnathan Safran-Foer. it is partially the story of an american man's journey to the ukraine to search for the woman who saved his grandfather from the nazis. my family is eastern-european jewish too (though i am mostly third generation brooklyn jew.) and i have thought that at some time in my life i might take a trip to poland to find the places that my ancestors (with some reluctance and fear due to antisemitism?) called home. but i haven't thought seriously about this in a while. and watching this movie i thought, what do i know of poland!? very very little. and while i have thought a fair bit about being jewish in the past, not so much lately.

i think it's because i only really realized i was white when i got to college. in the liberal communities where i was raised, i was taught to admire folks who struggled to fight their own oppressions. and i wanted to think of myself as part of these groups. so better to think of myself as a woman or a jew, but not a white person, understand? but in the world i live in, for the most part, jews are white folks. and college was my first experience in a private (rural) school and so my first time studying in such a white-occupied institution. when i watched how students of color, even if they grew up several blocks away from me, had a different experience than me at the same college, my own whiteness registered in a way it hadn't before. many conversations, readings, thinking, anti-racism meetings, musical experiences and a trip to south africa later, i've spent more time in the past few years contemplating my own whiteness than my jewishness (though certainly they are not mutually exclusive.) and i want to continue to think about this. because white privilege means that thinking about race is a choice.

and another thing, i have read so much, been exposed to so many images of the holocaust. they begin to lose impact. it's scary how desensitized we become. and i've been frustrated by how in my studies of history, the holocaust of world war II is often taught as the genocide, trivializing other peoples who have been massacred. (why do we rank oppressions?) and i've gained a certain amount of ambivalence about my jewish identity based on my grandmother's manipulative ploys to send me to israel. and my fear of and anger at the israeli government.

but losing your own culture is a violent thing. and for some reason, this movie reminded me that this violence is part of my own history as well. the literal violence of genocide, and the violence of re-writing history, and of assimilation. my folks made serious attempts to raise me with a sense of jewish identity. but what do i know of poland? what do i know of yiddish?-- a few words, a few stories, a few songs? how much is feeling truly connected to the past? how much is enough? what responsibility do i have to hold information about "my people" and our history? does this knowledge become lost if i do not seek it out?



history dissappears due to the very fact of it's own violence. and its own relevance to the present. who wants to remember these things? who can bear this collective memory? these questions are related to the Kara Walker exhibit i saw as well.

"The artist is best known for exploring the raw intersection of race, gender, and sexuality through her iconic, silhouetted figures. Walker unleashes the traditionally proper Victorian medium of the silhouette directly onto the walls of the gallery, creating a theatrical space in which her unruly cut-paper characters fornicate and inflict violence on one another." (this is a bit of her bio from the pbs website. also read a really interesting interview with her here.)

and what can i say about her work? it is engrossing, disturbing, violent, historical, fantastical... the provocative imagery is freeing-- it opens a conversation by making public what is usually shut away, but at the same time the sheer pain and violence of these images are debilitating and silencing. walking through the show was emotionally exhausting. Walker seems to be addressing some of my above questions about an individual's responsibility to give voice to pasts that is forgotten. she stretches the space between history and fantasy, public and private, personal and political. she forces viewers to watch the reality and the metaphor of race and gender relations as played out mostly through sex.

making this artwork seems a dangerous act. Kara Walker's work has been very controversial. and one piece in the exhibit was a series of framed pages spread across the width of a wall. they were journal entries of sorts; brief sketches and short writings. they were her own reactions to her critics. i was struck by the publicizing of her own fear and ambivalence about the work she makes and how her own racial identity relates to it. she seems unafraid to place herself in her work. her name appears in titles of pieces, you can see her hands and sometimes her face as she moves the silhouette puppets in her video work... and one get the sense she is overtaken by her own artwork and the manic perversion it illustrates. in several places, she writes about a dream she had were she and another black female friend seek vengeance by raping a KKK man. she has entered her work and her work has entered her deep down to her sleeping life.

or maybe it's not that her work has entered her life, but that her work, while on the surface it appears to be some combination of history and fantasy, is already about the real and the present. because racial power dynamics still act out in sexual and violent ways. and because the danger of forgetting the past of course, is that then we cannot address it's place in the present. the danger of seeing this artwork as pure history (read:fact) or pure personal experience (read: emotion) is that we, the viewers, do not see ourselves in it.

but i do see myself in Walker's work, in literal and figurative ways. her pieces with projections are displayed in such a way that you cannot help but pass in front of the projectors and see your own shadow on the wall next to the painted silhouettes. taking in her work is more active than your average art exhibit because of the content. one cannot help but feel like a voyeur. and doesn't a voyeur gain some responsibility for what is seen? and the title of the exhibit "My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love" comes from a written address she makes to white folks. and so how can an audience not feel involved? but the museum is a strange space. and there were all these (mostly white) people milling around in silence. one man stood for a good five minutes in front of a projector, oblivious to his own shadow taking over the very wall he looked at.

i want to think more about re-contextualizing history. Kara Walker's use of historical documents, images, and even songs (in some video work) made me think about some recent experiences i've had combining music with images. in a music class we've been experimenting with improvising to film. and one day the teacher brought in "Birth of a Nation" and, with difficulty, we played along to it. the music we made was clearly very different from the original music and, well, much creepier. it made me wonder if this could be a musical equivalent to Kara Walker's artwork. what would it be like to compose music to accompany historical imagery? perhaps there is a commentary here that is of a different value than verbal or written commentary?

but again, how do we take this on? when imagery is so emotional and grotesque, creativity can be stifled. in the same class, we did some improvisations to work by a local video artist. a few of her pieces were about self-mutilation and there were images of her own scabbed wrists from where she had cut them and also images of her sewing thread directly into the skin on her hands. beyond being squeamish, these visuals triggered some disturbing memories for me. several of my close friends were "cutters" when we were in high school. i began looking at these images and thinking about my friends, thinking about our helplessness and our attempts to help each other anyway. and all the young women who cut themselves because they feel so out of control. and i couldn't play anything. i couldn't make any music. it was too much. so what do you do if you want to tap into these loaded, personal experiences? how do you make that into art; maintain the personal connection and be outside of it enough to be a commentator? how does Kara Walker do it?

shit-deflection and the erotic as power

last week, i had a gig with a professor of mine. i was on bass, my friend and fellow student on drums, and the teacher on piano. we played his music, some improvisations, and the standard "autumn leaves" at a cafe. i was honored to be playing with him, even though the gig was weird-- we played following a rather horrible, pretentious poet, and then a belly dancer (the audience members with their mouths hanging out like they were in a strip club.) but the show went well. i think. i'm trying lately not to judge my own playing but just keep on.

but here's the point... afterwards i was throwing away my paper tea cup. there was a middle-aged white man, sitting on a couch in a black hat. he was beckoning towards me. so i went up to him and he said "you sounded great." "thanks," i said "i wasn't sure if you were motioning for me to come or not." "i wasn't," he said. "but not only did you sound great, you looked great with that instrument." i was shocked. i walked away mumbling to myself. then i was shocked for being shocked, pissed for being pissed.

this is not the first time i've gotten comments like this. it's part of the bag of people's reactions to female bassists, i suppose. a similar story: after a gig a few weeks ago, i struck up a conversation with some guy. he was singing along in russian with the recorded music between bands. i asked him about it. then he said "it's great to watch women playing music." (i was playing in a band with 3 women, one man. an unusual situation for me.) "to watch them, or to listen to them?" i asked. he didn't pick up on my offer for him to save his ass. he reiterated that the watching part came first. and i walked away again.

and yet i still don't know what to say back to these men. this guy at the cafe (who was old enough to be my father) and his insignificant comment struck a nerve. i felt helpless. retort-less. i glared at him as i carried music stands to the car. i wanted to expose him to the people that he sat with (his family, i assumed). expose him as what? i wanted to teach him a lesson, to let him know that women don't need approval for their physical appearance. i play for people to enjoy my music not my body. that i hope (perhaps naively?) that when i stepped onto the stage people will respond to me differently than when i walk down the street.

as we were packing up the car, i told my drummer-friend about what had happened. and that i was now in a bad mood. he was sympathetic, he's a good listener. but he told me that i need a better shit-deflector. later, talking to my mother on the phone, she agreed. "you're a performer," she said, "you're going to get this stuff all the time. people carry their shit everywhere and they are going to offer it to you. you can't take it from them."

and the fact is, there's bigger shit, right? there are more offensive things that have been said to me. there are more difficult decades i could have been born a female jazz musician. (what about Billy Tipton, born Dorothy Tipton-- a pianist who began presenting as male in the 1930s to avoid discrimination.... read more here)

and i'm just saying, i'm not easy target. i'm argumentative. i carry a big instrument, my head is shaved! i have been the only woman musician in the jazz department at my college. (aside from a fabulous teacher, thank the lord! more on her later.) and generally, no one messes with me. in fact, i feel very much a part of the jazz community here at school. after 4 years, we have a little sweet dysfunctional family.

but this is what it's like having a body. no one needs to say things really, just being in an all-male space makes my breasts feel bigger, makes skirts feel girlier. my thighs, my butt take on new meaning in these spaces. sometimes, bending over to unzip my bass case, i wonder if there's something provocative about this motion. i am even a bit embarrassed writing this here. because i'm not a self-conscious person and also, i love my curves! but this is having a body. men get to be neutral. sometimes i want that luxury.

and just a few days ago i had a fascinating and honest conversation with another male musician-friend of mine. he mentioned that when he first met me, he thought i was gay. this does not surprise me or bother me, but i was curious about where this idea came from. with further probing he explained that i had seemed non-sexual at the time (there was an implication that he feels differently now, and i've wondered at times if there is in fact sexual tension between us.) 0ver the course of the conversation about my place in the school jazz department, he also referred to me as "a big sister" and "one of the guys." are these my options? are these the limited ways i may be viewed as a woman?

what do i do with this knowledge? i am uncomfortable with being non-sexual (as may be implied by being a mother, sister, or "one of the guys") and i am also uncomfortable being sexualized (ie. having strangers comment on my appearance on stage.) do i see myself or others as fluctuating between similar extremes? am i too concerned with dichotomies? how can we be comfortable with the fact that our mothers and our sisters have sex? that our colleagues and creative collaborators may also be attractive?

improving my shit-deflector is the easier part. (though still difficult for a righteously indignant person like myself!) the harder part is allowing myself to be at once intellectual/ rational and creative/ emotional; honor both my body and my mind when there are so many forces that tell me they are mutually exclusive. i turn to Audre Lorde's essay "Uses of the Erotic as Power": (here are a few excerpts, but the whole essay gives me chills and you can find it here)

"There are many kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives.

We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused, and devalued within western society. On the one hand, the superficially erotic has been encouraged as a sign of female inferiority; on the other hand, women have been made to suffer and to feel both contemptible and suspect by virtue of its existence.

It is a short step from there to the false belief that only by the suppression of the erotic within our lives and consciousness can women be truly strong. But that strength is illusory, for it is fashioned within the context of male models of power..."

"The erotic is a measure between our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self-respect we can require no less of ourselves..."

"Of course, women so empowered are dangerous. So we are taught to separate the erotic from most vital areas of our lives other than sex. And the lack of concern for the erotic root and satisfactions of our work is felt in our disaffection from so much of what we do. For instance, how often do we truly love our work even at its most difficult?..."

"The erotic functions for me in several ways, and the first is in providing the power which comes from sharing deeply any pursuit with another person. The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.

Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy, in the way my body stretches to music and opens into response, harkening to its deepest rhythms so every level upon which I sense also opens to the erotically satisfying experience whether it is dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, or examining an idea..."

i regularly play music with the same guy who told me about his impressions of me in the department. and in the same conversation, we spoke of the band we play in and the openness of all the musicians in it. we spoke of the musical intimacy of this group, something you hope to reach when improvising with others. i want to honor this-- the love, emotion, and desire i put into the music i truly care about, into practicing, composing, and performing it; and that i hopefully share with the musicians i play with, and the audience i play for. and i want to possess the power of sensation on my own terms; more deeply and personally than anyone else's first impression of me.