BLACK MANIFESTO!
Aftermaths - Resource Pack
Episode 6
You say art, I say heART! Exists in the margins - outside of the frame - the freedom of the non-canon.
Introduction
A collection of material to compliment episode 6 of Black Manifesto! Aftermaths “You say art, I say heART! Exists in the margins - outside of the frame - the freedom of the non-canon.” to support creative thinking, learning and unlearning.
Black Manifesto! Aftermaths recognise not just a moment in time, but a continued need to keep action and activism alive. In this podcast, hosted by Pawlet Brookes and created by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, Black women from around the world respond to nora’s provocations, addressing how we shape a new world in which Black women are seen and heard.
Produced with support from Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. This podcast series was edited by LikeMind Media with research from Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage.
I think the canon exists, but it doesn’t define us. We were something before it.
- Andrea Woods Valdés
Reading and Resources
Woods, A. (2024) wimmin@work 2024 highlights! [YouTube video] available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqnF-Mvnur4
Duke Trinity College of Arts and Sciences (n d ) The Black Parades: African Diaspora Parade Culture and Radical Resistance. [online]. Available at: https://theaterstudies.duke.edu/courses/black-parades-african-diasporaparade-culture-and-radical-resistance
Gumbs, A P (2020) Undrowned Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals. Chico: AK Press.
McKittrick, K. (2006) Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Ogunleye, T. (1997) 'African American Folklore: Its Role in Reconstructing African American History' Journal of Black Studies, 27/4, pp. 435-455
SOULOWORKS/Andrea E. Woods & Dancers. (2024) Artistic Bio. [online]. Available at: https://www souloworks com/artistic-director-bio
Woods Valdés, A. E. (2023) Dancing Woman(ist)/Black Feminist Aesthetics: An Embodied Epistemology of Sweat and Spirit. Doctor of Philosophy level. Texas Woman’s University.
Wynter, S. (2003) Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Toward the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation – An Argument. Vol.3. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press
Transcript
Pawlet Brookes 00:00
Music, Welcome to Black Manifesto! Part Two - Aftermaths. nora chipuamire envisages 10 more commandments of the Black Manifesto that recognises not just a moment in time, but a continued need to keep action and activism alive. In this podcast, hosted by myself, Pawlet Brookes, and created by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, Black women from around the world respond to nora's provocations, addressing how we shape a new world in which Black women are seen and heard. The guests on this podcast share their reflections unapologetically So please be aware of strong language and references to personal struggles and traumas. In this episode, Andrea Woods Valdés contextualises the sixth commandment: You say art, I say heART! Exists in the margins - outside of the frame - the freedom of the non-canon. Welcome, Andrea. I'd really appreciate if you could just give us a little bit more information and tell us who you are and what you do.
Andrea Woods Valdés 01:18
Great I'm Andrea E Woods Valdés, originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, lived most of my adult creative life in New York, particularly in Brooklyn. Now I live in North Carolina, Durham, where my family ancestors are from, the burial ground of my enslaved ancestors is in western North Carolina So, this is kind of a home, homecoming for me, after many years. I am a dancer, choreographer, educator, also a musician, and I work in video, and the priorities in my work centralise bringing spaces for Black women to do their work, for Black audiences, to see ourselves reflected back in the audience and in the community, and to work from that place of enrichment.
Pawlet Brookes 02:17
What does artistic freedom mean to you?
Andrea Woods Valdés 02:22
I love this question I love this question because our work comes with content and issues, but we also want to get down to the nitty gritty about being in the studio, being together and sort of locking horns and tussling it out with what, what kind of work we want to do
For me, artistic freedom is about choices. I think when you work at a company, you see the director's vision And I love doing that I loved being a dancing dancer and, and, and having someone sort of bring me along and even use me as part of the vision, but when you're in the room alone, you want to be able to make choices and not second guess yourself, and that kind of emancipation comes, for me, it comes with time and being able to cross the boundaries. To you, you use the word canon, to break up the canon, or to reconceive the canon, or to eliminate the canon, to say, I'm not even operating by that by a system of pre-designated rules. So, for instance, for me, I have been playing percussion since the 90s, I play shakere. I started playing with Madeleine Yayodele Nelson from Women of the Calabash, and that was my Sunday thing to do away from dance that was like, it doesn't use the same guide post, and it's communal. And we were mostly women singing, playing shakere
And then I would do modern dance, and they were two separate worlds, and I decided, in my own work, I want to bring that communal spirit into my own work So, I started teaching my dancers to play shakere. I started playing shakere in my own pieces, I just gave myself that kind of liberation. And didn't question it, which takes courage. You know, takes courage One of the things in the manifesto is about sharing wisdom And so, I decided I'm drawing on the wisdom from my family, from the other women who inspire me, from the other Diasporic art forms, and I'm not sticking to the canon that I was trained in. I appreciate it, and I honour it, modern, postmodern dance, primarily in America. But then do my evening Afro Cuban classes. It was like living in too many separate categories So, for me, that's, that's part of artistic freedom
Pawlet Brookes 05:03
So, following on from the fact that you touched upon the canon, what would you define as the dance canon, and in what ways does your work push the boundaries of the potential of choreography and performance?
Andrea Woods Valdés 05:20
You know, it's funny, because even the idea of a manifesto, I'm kind of anti-canon, antimanifesto, anti-lock it down I wouldn't say I'm anti-establishment, because I work in the establishment and I love organisation. I think we need that. We need our institutions and organisations, but being I guess, coming from dance in my community and my home, and then going through the university system and dancing in New York, which like blows your mind when you get there, it like breaks all the rules, but then you, I started teaching in the university system, so it's kind of like back to a format, a framework, a schedule So, the Canon for me originally was Martha Graham. That's all I could see. I could eat, drink, sleep. All I wanted to do was contract, contract, contract, until I could, you know, would pass out And then somewhere along the way, other ideas and other movement sensibilities resurfaced. They were already in me, but they resurfaced, and I thought there's something in me that needs to be expressed, and if I don't move away from, from this kind of order. And I, I was at Ailey for a little while, and I also didn't quite fit into the, the order and the dress and the behaviour. And I was thinking. I was a thinking dancer. Was a feeling dancer I wasn't just doing dancer, and I was a creative spirit So, I think the canon is the schools of dance that really help us get set up. I don't think there's a problem with that I don't think there's I'm not anti-technique I love it I love it I'm actually a very disciplined kind of person. I love having that ritual. It's almost it's spiritual to me, class. But I think we have to all look deeper and go into that place where no one can get to that's, that's personal That's profound, that even questions the rules you're supposed to follow, or we won't evolve. So, I think the canon exists, but it doesn't define us. We were something before it We were both something before institutionalised, at the Academy We were social beings. We were birthday parties and graduations and anniversaries, you know, dances and we were celebrating the earth. So, I don't think that comes with a kind of rule book to it. It comes with maybe asking us to listen to our environment, to listen to one another and see one another. I think that's how you create your framework, by really responding and listening
Pawlet Brookes 08:35
So, you created this framework with responding and listening, but your work also centres around the intersection of folklore, identity and representation. Could you share a little bit more about this and why it's important, especially for Black women, to take control of their own aesthetic sort of agency in dance spaces?
Andrea Woods Valdés 08:57
Yeah, just once again, I love these questions. You get it right, getting right down into it. Not like, can you do the splits, or how long have you been dancing? Yeah, so I have to give a shout out to people like Diane McIntyre and Blondell Cummings, who showed me that Black women's stories count. And right now, that seems like okay, you know, we get that But I came along I came to New York in the 80s, worked in a company, worked with Bill T. Jones through the early, mid-90s, and in a, I guess, postmodern, modern atmosphere in New York, our voices weren't that prevalent. I was seeing people like Aziza, Marlies Yearby, of course, Urban Bush Women, Jawole and the people like nora, who came out of Urban Bush Women and still feeling like. Like, our identity was some like, exceptional or extra add on to, to dance so seeing Diane McIntyre make stories and use the blues and talk about the, the fruit truck, the watermelon truck that comes up, you know, to, to where you run out everybody with a bag to buy peaches and these kinds of things that blew my mind and that opened up the world for me to talk about my family in Pennsylvania, my mother's roots, and so finding my, my identity, It was like I can't skip over all of that, and also love and want to be in the African Diaspora without saying, You know what? This is the African Diaspora rice and beans and peach cobbler and the funky chicken Is the African Diaspora doing the bump, you know, at my whatever ninth birthday party, I gotta bring this along. So that's worked it. That's when I say folklore. I'm not really going, like, back to the roots of which we could, we could do ring shout, and we could bring that along That's, that's, that's, that's part of it But I guess the, the 70s, 80s, 90s, I can't leave that behind, because that, you know, my grandmother and grandfather loved the big bands, and I didn't know that until I was an adult, that swing music I know that I love jazz. My father loved jazz. We have a whole collection. I just, my mother gave me some of his albums. He passed away in 2013 and I have sassy Sarah Vaughn. And he, I used to think he made me cassettes to go away to college I had cassettes I had I had Olatunji, Drums Of Passion. You know, I had Harry Belafonte. I had my cassette collection And so that kind of identity is embedded in my work, and I have to do that to honour my ancestors. I have to do that to honour my mother and father and my roots from Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, as well as how New York, profoundly, you know, opened up what Diaspora means And include my own community in that
Pawlet Brookes 12:26
I'm just going to continue with the whole thing of introducing your whole community, and within that you created wimmin@work, an intergenerational space to acknowledge the creativity of Black women and girls from the past, present and future. How has this then evolved over the years?
Andrea Woods Valdés 12:46
Yeah. wimmin@work started out as a performance. It felt like, here comes Women's History Month. And I didn't have a gig. You know, we usually get Black History Month. Women's History now June Like adding in Juneteenth But those of us who are cultural activists, we're working all year long. We're not just doing special occasions. So, I didn't have anything coming up, and I said, I really want to acknowledge women, Black women, and those of us in the community who are doing work. So that's it's started like that, and it's been, I've been doing it since 2016 we had our, I think seventh. I'm losing track of the number of years because we did one, we skipped one in Covid, and then we did a virtual year, which even my mom was in Philly online, doing Krav Maga and step dancing online. So, but wimmen@work has evolved to be also a presenting and not so much producing, but a presenting entity. So, I want to make a platform for other women to do what they do. I'm not trying to shape a movement or only be with likeminded dancers, choreographers, writers. I would rather be in the company of this like cross pollination, multinational, cross national, interdisciplinary. I want to be with the seven-year olds, who one of the girls in one of the pieces, like, she jumped off of a chair, like, kind of like, did a split jump in the air, and then came down on one leg in attitude. And I was like, what? Whoa! That woman is That woman is working! So, so I want to be around this kind of spark of energy from young people. I want to be around women older than me that I can pause and listen to and feel the vitality in their lives and be inspired by it. I want to be around my peer group, and I want to be around younger people who are really on the path to their art, but I actually have something I can share and say to them, and they're listening. Uh, but I don't always want to be in the position of mentor I want to be able to look at people like yourself producing and saying how? I mean, we had this conversation in Leicester. How can you do all these things at the same time? How can you edit, produce, make sure the videos get done you're on site with the, you know, how do you do all these things? So, I need my mentors and peers too, and that's what wimmin@work has evolved into. So, when I do a workshop, I do it under the umbrella of wimmin@work presents, so that I can keep pollinating and keep evolving. What, what it, what it means. But the interdisciplinary part of it and the intergenerational part of it are vital I have to keep, keep those young kids near me, and I have to also always have my mentors ahead of and alongside me
Pawlet Brookes 15:58
You touched upon, you know these intergenerational conversations, but how does intergenerational conversations and performance and practice allow us to move more freely outside of the dance canon?
Andrea Woods Valdés 16:12
Yeah, that's such a good, good question So, some of it goes back to defining our sources and resources. And at a certain point, maybe it's college, and when you're working on a master's degree, you want to know the canon, so to speak. You want to be able to see the, the writers and the works that are held up in dance, and want to be able to recognise them, but you also want to be able to recognise yourself. And when that doesn't happen, I decide, well, I need new resources These resources are not complete, and I find that in Black literature, Black art, Black food, of course, Black dance on stage, away from the stage, Black spirituality, different forms of music, so sort of rewriting the script of where, where what you're sourcing and where you're sourcing it from And we have to be very bold and provocative about that. When I when I listen to nora recite the 10, that 10 Commandments, that's L’Antoinette Stine's the 10 manifesto points It's the boldness, and it's very provocative, and you have to take a stand. You can't listen to that and be passive. You have to determine, well, where do I stand within that and, and where would I push back, or where would I get up? You know, get up next to it and say, yes, that, you know, we can't go. We can't move forward without, without these points. You know, we can't move forward Don't sleep on Africa We can't move forward without making sure that that's in front of us. So, but also this kind of compassion, caring that the work gets done, caring that we have these spaces to breathe in That's part of what wimmin@work is, too You shouldn't be grinding yourself into the work so much that you come home and you feel nothing. You feel, you don't feel inspired. You feel like you just wasted yourself for everyone else, you should feel or I should feel rejuvenated I should feel like there's more I want to give you tomorrow, because I'm so, so elated, I'm so emancipated, like I'm, I'm coming back for you tomorrow That that's the kind of working methodology I want to have. I don't want to be the isolated downtrodden like I sacrificed everything for everyone and now I'm like, mean and resentful. I want to be joyous and provocative and compassionate
Pawlet Brookes 19:17
So, in providing these spaces, is there anything that you've learned about yourself as a practitioner and as a Black woman.
Andrea Woods Valdés 19:26
yeah, I've learned never to underestimate us and never to try to second guess us We will always be throwing in that curve when I spent time in Cuba doing my second master's degree at between SUNY Buffalo and the University of Havana, and I, I, I thought I was going to find Black women who I had been familiar with that I didn't it wasn't totally new relationships, and I thought I knew what kind of conversations we've had, we're going to have Have, and the conversations were so full of self-definition, affirmation, vision, and there wasn't this kind of uncertainty, an uncertainty, or is that someone was holding women back now, now having resources and being able to actually with the materials to get things done, that's a struggle. But what, so, what I learned from this, this work and the relationships I build, is that most of us have a very clear vision of what we're doing. We're not kidding around We know where we come from, and we know where we're going
Now, getting it done is the task at hand that in each of our environments, but not to not to underestimate Black women We, we really have a strong vision, if you're looking for like, to be benevolent, like, oh, what can we do? Like, that's not really what we need support is one thing, but kind of like placating or benevolence, or as if we don't already have the answers So, I think what I've learned is also the listening, listening to my peers, listening to Black women, not to assume, because I'm a Black woman, that I know their angle on things or their obstacles I think that's important, especially coming from the US that from a certain kind of privileged nationality, that we also learn to see people centralised in their lives, and not to think that that my life, or modern dance in America, is like the central way to conceptualise dance I see you laughing because it's not, but that's you know, that's you have to, you have to really work to break free of that and to not be shocked, like, Oh my goodness It's not shocking It's not it's not an exception Our work is exceptional, but it's not an exception, and you have to do the work of finding this other, like mind blowing astronomical, like cosmic entity of Black women's creativity. You have to do that work because it's all around us Its’ all around us
Pawlet Brookes 22:43
So, given that, why is it important? Because I think you're touching on this to exist outside of the frame, and in what ways do you hope to continue doing this?
Andrea Woods Valdés 22:57
So, this one was a hard one for me, existing outside of the frame So, one of the things I think about is the need for belonging. I don't think that's a bad thing. I think if it holds you up because you don't feel like you belong, that's a bad thing But looking for camaraderie, sisterhood, fellowship, community, that is the frame. Now, if you see yourself as outside of that, there's some work to be done, you know, maybe that's why it's important for me to also, even when I look at the US, the women that I look for and, and that I'm connected to, I make sure that I work and move outside the university setting, because that's a mindset, that's a certain mindset, and make sure that I try to find, you know, these kind of artificial but real categories of class, nationality, race, even within race, we have versions of what we feel is our race. And so, it depends on how you conceptualise the framework I like to conceptualise the framework as the place where I already belong from, the place of belonging, not the place I'm trying to, like get into so I'm not outside the or on the margin, trying to translate myself into somebody else's version of humanity I already feel like I'm centred because of the people I surround myself with and because of the people I'm interested in So that I, that's a It's an interesting concept Think thinking of that And I've, you know, struggled with that, and I said, Okay, well, maybe I'm going to de-canonise the framework.
Pawlet Brookes 25:11
We go and feeling centred and being not on the periphery But you know, you're not in the margins. You're centred, you’re whole and you start to reflect on recent years, and we've seen more and more young people, though, becoming disillusioned by the state of the arts So how can we use art and performance to inspire them to challenge their emotions, creatively and more specifically, how can we inspire this in Black women, artists?
Andrea Woods Valdés 25:46
Yes, so, sharing the wisdom is big on my list, from the manifesto, from my life, from my, my life experience, I probably air on the side of optimism. I get that from my mother. She is very pro young Black people You say something negative, and she will come back at you with 10 points of achievements from the young Black people around her, and teaching in the university gives me a chance to feel the pulse of a certain category, a certain group of young people This doesn't represent everyone, but I feel like they're actually very optimistic. And sometimes I say, Oh, they're so naive. Just wait till they see what's coming You know, but they're living through Black Lives Matter on the front, on the front lines, some of them, they're living through the social media, like seeing people killed in the streets, seeing the immediate aftermath of Breonna Taylor, who would think someone could burst into your door and shoot you down in your own home, they're confronted with a kind of visceral sound and image version of violence on Black bodies that I didn't have. We had a newspaper and the radio and we had mouth, you know, word mouth communication, which is just as visceral, but I didn't have, I couldn't open up my phone in the middle of the day and see something as devastating as that So, I find them very resilient, the fact that they still want to make art, that they come to class, that they go see art, that they do other things in their life. I find them very resilient and inspiring. But their struggle is real, and I think it takes its, its toll on their spirit So, one of the things that we can do, that I like to do, is remind people that I'm a spiritual being, that prayer is the opening and the closing of my day Every day, I'm not out here on my own I'm not just winging it. I'm not making it up as I go along. There's a there's a there's a plan or a road or a path that I'm trying to follow that is my, my spiritual place, my spiritual and essence and behaviour, and I want them to know that I don't want to, I don't want it to be like, What's the magic word? What? What is it? You know? So, I think that's something we can bring to them They can get other things from books and the internet and things But we as human beings and as people who care about the humanities can show up for them and be present and remind them that there's something much, much greater, but there's something also so essential and so special in their being And the world has to know it They have to bring it. They have to bring it forward. So, I get inspired by them. I haven't seen too many people or that, or maybe I'm not noticing it, who have given up hope, young people, there's more coming for them, you know. And they've also Covid. Some of them were in, you know, if I teach in university level, they were in high school and Covid
I could barely deal with it as a, as a grown woman with a computer and the Internet and, you know, but they were in high school, and they had to figure out how to be re-socialised when, you know, 2022 when we started coming back together. So, they keep me going, and I intend for them to keep doing that. I intend to keep checking in, checking in with them I taught a class called The Black Parades: African Diaspora Parade Culture and Radical Resistance. And the students in the class brought so much to it. It's, it was cross listed It's between dance and African, African American studies So, I get students who aren't necessarily dancers all the, and I'm looking at parade, processions, marches from an embodied place. What do, what do bodies in space do? How do, how do people react when they see us on mass walking down, you know, Grand Army Plaza in New York at the Caribbean festival? What, what do people, you know, who we seeing on the side-lines, who's, who's cheering us on, who's joining in And the students in the course bring things that I wasn't really moving toward in the class. They bring sorority life into it, Greek life, they bring church into it. They bring political protest into it. So, I know that they're, they're thinking these things through They're, they're really doing the, the hard, contemplative work that you have to do against the quickness of social media and the superficiality of some of the things that that come along
Pawlet Brookes 31:49
Okay and then finally, the theme of this year's Black Manifesto! Is Aftermaths. So, thinking about the last few years, what lessons can you share about growth after adversity?
Andrea Woods Valdés 32:05
That's a good one That's a good question Growth after adversity, I think most, most people, would agree that your life is like a roller coaster ride. It peaks and spikes and then drops and dips, and sometimes they're longer, passages between the highs and the lows, and then you get a loop de loop, like you're going backwards when you try to go forward, or you're suspended somewhere. So, it's not a straight, straightforward ride and growth. I this, this what I'll still have to be I'll be thinking about after our conversation, because one of the things I wanted, and I think I am able to do, is be at a place where I can change the conversation. I have some bitter mitt bitterness and resentment about how in dance the conversation is always the same, how in higher education, the hiring process is always the same. The framework is there, and you have to work around it. So, I made up my mind that part of my task is to change the conversation, get people to the table who ordinarily everyone wouldn't have to even discuss. And sometimes I can do that, and sometimes I feel fail at that, and it feels like a personal failure, and it, it has a radical effect on me, and I have to take time to step away and come back and say, we have more work to do So, my way into overcoming adversity is always back through the work. I think if I get caught in the issues and the perceptions outside of me, it slows me down, and when I go back through the work, when I go into the studio, when I pick up my instruments, when I read Alexis Pauline Gumbs or Sylvia Wynter or L’Antoinette Stines, or Catherine McKittrick when I talk to my mom every Sunday night at 8pm like going back through the work, back through my life, I could come out on the other side.
So, some of that means sticking close to home, and some of that means finding the resources in Black life that lift you up, finding those resources and embracing the fact that the, the not to speak with the voice of doom, but the next thing is right around the corner, if. The next roadblock, the next obstacle, is right around the corner. So, we want to we want to be fortified We want to be healthy We want to be able to, to sing through adversity. We don't want to give up our voices or let them be silenced. And I think the radical nature of the aftermath being part of that is, is that's part of our legacy We know that as Black people, that's not new. That's, that's part of our legacy.
Pawlet Brookes 35:42
Andrea, thank you so much. In the next episode, we'll explore the commandment: Time zones, geographies and other monuments - DEFY them, can't you? Thank you for listening, you can read more about the Black Manifesto! in BlackInk, published by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage. BlackInk is an annual magazine bringing together artists from across the African, African Caribbean Diaspora and indigenous communities to discuss Black arts heritage and cultural politics.
The next roadblock, the next obstacle, is right around the corner. So, we want to we want to be fortified. We want to be healthy. We want to be able to, to sing through adversity. We don't want to give up our voices or let them be silenced.
- Andrea Woods Valdés
