We're environmentalists, you know, and it's not that we're like, okay, we have to save the, get the plastic, like, yes, do the plastic thing, you know, all of the recycling, all of that, but like, what is the duty to our space around us, our human to human engagement, our human to trees, to water, to bird, you know, like, that's, environmentalism for us. - Orlando

Show Notes Episode 08: Black on Earth

In this special episode to kick off 2024 and the second season of the podcast, Norah Zuniga Shaw hosts a conversation with Orlando Zane Hunter Jr. and Ricarrdo Valentine, co-creators of Brother(hood) Dance! Orlando and Ricarrdo highlight the role of dance as a powerful tool for storytelling, community engagement, and environmental activism. The discussion centers around their creative work, which integrates performance, agriculture, and technology to address social and ecological justice issues and envision livable futures. Orlando and Ricarrdo emphasize their commitment to informing audiences about sociopolitical and environmental injustices from a global perspective. The conversation touches on their rootedness in community including their approach to entering new communities with care. They share experiences of engaging with agricultural spaces, promoting dance as an integral part of agricultural practice, and encouraging communities, especially Black communities, to reconnect with farming traditions.

The podcast delves into the significance of rest in performance and agricultural work alike, the reclaiming of nature as a Black space, and the importance of acknowledging the historical trauma associated with land and labor. Ricarrdo also shares personal reflections on health, HIV, and his evolving relationship with nature, emphasizing the interconnectedness of personal well-being and environmental stewardship. The conversation touches on the cyclical nature of struggle and the need for collective action to break oppressive cycles and the importance of ethical engagement with technology in creating spaces for healing and transformation.

The artists and host sing together and invite audiences into singing new songs linked to old wisdom. Brother(hood) Dance!’s new project, Black on Earth, is featured and the artists share the ways in which it expands on previous work, integrating technology and organic interfaces to tell stories and foster connections with the land. The conversation ends with reflections on the power of art to evoke emotions, challenge narratives, and inspire collective action.

Links:

Wexner Center for the Arts feature on Brother(hood) Dance!

Brother(hood) Dance! Website

Environmental Professionals Network features Brother(hood) Dance!

Visual artists Amy Youngs and Candace Thompson work closely with ecology and technology to create communal, joyful, and loved filled connections to each other and the more-than-human world with whom we share the planet. Respond to the uncertainty we are experiencing on a planetary scale by becoming deeply embedded in your local community and aware of the plant life around you as you forage for food in your neighborhoods throughout the changing seasons of the year.

Faustin Linyekula is as an important international artist, he's also the founder of Studio Kabakao, a space for young artists in Kisangani and from the African continent to work in collaboration with communities on issues of sustainability and environment. 

Learn more:

My Body My Archive, watch Faustin Linyekula live at the Tate Modern

https://vimeo.com/399196063

NZ Festival of the Arts: Talanoa Mao conference

https://www.festival.nz/events/talanoa-mau/

In Search of Dinozord performance by Faustin Linyekula

https://www.festival.nz/events/all/search-dinozord/

Faustin Linyekula Biography, University of the Arts

https://www.uarts.edu/node/11791

Interview with Brenda Dixon Gottschild

https://walkerart.org/magazine/my-africa-is-always-in-the-becoming-outside-t

NYTimes article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/arts/dance/faustin-linyekula-crossing-the-line-congo.html?smid=pin-share

Cover Photo adapted from NYTimes image by George Etheredge (link above).

Andre M. Zachery is the Artistic Director of Renegade Performance Group https://www.renegadepg.com/ and can be found on Instagram @amzrpg

Crystal Perkins can be found @cmichelledance and has a beautiful TEDx talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q572zp9EWs

Andre mentions the choreographer Bebe Miller. You can learn more about her here: https://bebemillercompany.org/

He also talks about Kodwo Eshun, Reggie Wilson, and his work in Afrofuturism, and I mention a couple of favorite feminist Afrofuturist writers, here’s a few helpful links:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/118144.Kodwo_Eshun

https://fringearts.com/2016/09/01/citizen-reading-list-provided-reggie-wilson/

https://blacfoundation.org/deep-meaning-of-kongo-cosmogram/

https://www.renegadepg.com/the-afrofuturism-series.html

https://nkjemisin.com/

https://www.octaviabutler.com/

Crystal Perkins mentions the poetry and practices of Sunni Patterson

https://sunnipatterson.com/

Conversation Date and Location
August 30, 2019 at The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Social Media
www.instagram.com/cowitchcraftofferings/
www.michaeljmorris.co/

Show Notes
Michael uses they/them pronouns and references several beautiful resources that have come in the podcast many times and others that may be new for listeners. Here are a few links to get you started reading and viewing:
From Duke University Press a discussion of: Anthropocene, Capitaloscene, and Chthulucene
Read and listen to:
Ursula K. LeGuin www.ursulakleguin.com/
Angela Davis www.democracynow.org/2020/6/12/ange…istoric_moment
bell hooks www.bellhooksinstitute.com/
Alexis Pauline Gumbs www.alexispauline.com/
Deleuze and Guattari write about lines of flight and rhizomes in A Thousand Plateaus and other texts
Dori Midnight: dorimidnight.com/about/
Donna Haraway and the documentary on her life and work: vimeo.com/253307449
Learn more about Michael Morris and Kelly Klein’s “Dancing Body Magic” workshop which premiered with the Livable Futures community.

A correction from Michael:
Hi everyone. This is Michael. I have a quick addendum to this episode. In our discussion of magic, in my enthusiasm, I misattributed a definition of magic to Doreen Valiente that was actually given to us by Dion Fortune and popularized by Starhawk. Dion Fortune said that magic is the art of changing consciousness at will. Fortune was a British occultist and ceremonial magician who was very influential on later 20th century witches and occultists. Because I consider citation and attribution to be part of a feminist praxis, especially when crediting the work of women who often go uncredited, it felt important to add this note, and I am grateful for Norah including it.
So, thank you for listening and be well.

Conversation Date and Location
February 2020. Tāmakimakaurau/Auckland, Aoteoroa/New Zealand.

Show Notes
Alys refers to her longtime collaborator Val Smith frequently and they have some amazing projects that are worth checking out:
news.aut.ac.nz/news/val-smith-na…undation-laureate
@valvalvalsmithsmithsmith

Alys also talks about her project El Otro País Que Eres created in collaboration with artists Macarena Campbell, Máximo Corvalán-Pincheira and Eduardo Cerón Tillería.

She refers to “new materialism” and the work of Jane Bennet on vibrant matter and enchantment, here’s a book to get you started if you’re excited about these ideas: www.goodreads.com/book/show/7547895-vibrant-matter

And we talk briefly about adrienne maree brown’s book Pleasure Activism and Emergent Strategy:
www.goodreads.com/book/show/296339…mergent-strategy
www.goodreads.com/book/show/405496…leasure-activism

And here are some links for more about Auckland, New Zealand/Aoteoroa:
www.creative.auckland.ac.nz/people/a-longley
maoridictionary.co.nz/
www.kaitiakitanga.org/ (safeguarding our future)

And links to find out more about Alys and her projects:
tisch.nyu.edu/performance-studie…stic-research-in-a

Fluid City: alyslongleymoving.com/past-projects/fluid-city/

Mistranslation Laboratory: alyslongleymoving.com/past-projects/…on-laboratory/

Conversation Date and Location
October 31, 2019. Columbus, Ohio on the campus of The Ohio State University

Social Media: (Instagram handles)
Complex Movements @cmplxmvmnts is a Detroit-based artist collective composed of @westiv, @jeedo47, @invincibleDET, @sagesense, @L05_and @_fakejones

SHOW NOTES
Works referenced often in the show include:
Beware of the Dandelions an existing piece and Tower and Dungeon, a new piece by Complex Movements based on the book Tower and Dungeon: A Study of Place and Power in American Culture by Dr. [Gloria] House (aka Mama Aneb).

Listen to Dr. House’s keynote lecture. Find out more about Complex Movements through the Allied Media Projects website: alliedmedia.org/projects/complex-movements.

Complex Movements was at The Ohio State University for a one week artistic residency funded by Livable Futures with funding from the Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Themes and supported by the facilities and interdisciplinary research staff, faculty, and students at the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD).

An activist, writer and dancer from Waimea, Hawaiʻi, Emalani Case is deeply engaged in issues of indigenous rights and representation, dietary colonialism, and environmental and social justice. Her current research focuses on Hawaiian articulations of identity and nationalism, sovereignty, and decolonising indigenous minds and bodies. She is a lecturer in Pacific Studies at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand/Aoteoroa.

Read more about her here: 

people.wgtn.ac.nz/emalani.case
Read about the event we attended together in February 2020: Talanoa Mao, New Zealand Festival of the Arts: www.festival.nz/events/all/talano…mau-we-need-talk/

SHOW NOTES:
Recorded February 2020 in Wellington, New Zealand:
Emalani shares the Samoan concept of Va:
openrepository.aut.ac.nz/handle/10292/366
She references the work of:
Epeli Hau`ofa (1939-2009)
creativetalanoa.com/2012/06/07/insp…t-epeli-hauofa/
Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada, “We Live in the Future. Come Join Us”
hehiale.com/2015/04/03/we-live-…uture-come-join-us/
dlnr.hawaii.gov/mk/files/2017/02/…m-exhibit-J-9.pdf
And talks about the importance of the Kalo/Taro Plant
www.farmtokeiki.org/taro-kalo/