What Else Can There Be? Black Play / Cultural (Dis)Locations

What Else Can There Be?  Black Play / Cultural (Dis)Locations

How do we play ourselves into existence?  What games and codes define diasporic cultures? Are there unique rituals and rites of passage that African-descended peoples “waterboard” from generation to generation? And what frequency is found that connects the music, the word play, the dance and the moving image(s)?  Is there a locus that defies the temporality of any particular era (or genre)?  In this interdisciplinary panel, each member will expose and interrogate a particular universe of Black Play in its fullest sense.  Dr. Marta-Effinger Crichlow’s full-length documentary-in-progress LITTLE SALLIE WALKER examines the ways in which Black girls learn to survive and thrive through their childhood games. (www.littlesalliewalker.com) Her subjects range in age from 8 to 80, all traversing a landscape that must be made safe for the girls by the girls themselves.  (Near us, for us, by us about us?)  She will present a clip and a talk that delineates the journey she herself took–with her daughter–to unravel the mysteries of the seemingly simplistic play that taught life lessons in every skip of the rope.  DeAngela Duff follows the “Play(fulness)” that leads to the music of “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince” and underscores the improvisational nature of his creative oeuvre. She is an acknowledged expert on his development, and sheds new light on the ways in which the wunderkind forged a life out of seemingly contrary impulses (https://www.polishedsolid.com/).  Aku Kadogo, one of the original colored girls in ntozake shange’s classic work and current chair of the Theater Program at Spelman College, has spent a lifetime working with theatre artists, choreographers and directors internationally–in Korea, with indigenous companies in Australia, on Broadway “hits,” and and with the Black Arts-inspired Concept East Theatre in Detroit — and for this panel she grounds her exegesis in the works of Detroit playwright, novelist and Wayne State University professor Bill Harris.  (http://www.akukadogo.com/About.html) Veteran broadcaster Dyana Williams and acclaimed director Brennan Williams, explore how music, dance and having fun, permeate Black social occasions and bind us in playful, giddy joy. The Williams team will delineate how music, lyrics, dance, and social gatherings, soothe, galvanize, and elevate Black folk’s spirits. Seemingly disparate strains of inquiry will be woven into a coherent, sophisticated journey through the black (play)ground.


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