love conjure/blues
love conjure/blues considers a range of possibilities of gender expression and sexuality within a rural, Black working class context. It articulates African-American sensibilities, history and oral traditions. Exploring the ways that we have survived; knowing the middle passage, slavery, jim crow and lynching. The piece is a reflection of the ways that Black people have used artistic expression to transmit stories of survival. love conjure/blues re-imagines the traditional role of the Griot. Asserts queer as sacred. Claims the blues as ritual-in concert with Ancient practices and new creations. In The love conjure/blues Text Installation, the past the present the future the living and the dead co-exist together weaving dreams/Prayers/Love expressed.
Read Sample
the Houma the swamp the woods yonder
the Fon the Ibo the Yoruba the Wolof/tied lashed
lashed/opened
still fight.
the Houma with Tunica Choctaw Chickasaw
here before the before
know night and moon hear trees and earth
drumming drumming
hold on
drumming drumming
on the way
drumming drumming
the Houma the swamp the woods yonder the moon they signal with drum
untie the Fon the Ibo the Yoruba the Wolof
clean swab wrap quick here here here
up swamp through woods past yonder fly
not seen.
the Houma the Fon the Ibo the Yoruba the Woloffree
free more.
sun spoon moon make rain
the Houma the Fon the Ibo the Yoruba the Wolof the swamp the woods yonder the
moon they signal with drum
raise trees kiss earth
open pens break doors use
stones and blades arrows and fists
fight
free more.
and so and so and so again
moon rise sun sleep
more here here here
free.
go back
free more.
over over
they childrens they childrens they
children carry they story
in cloth
in feet
with hairwhen laugh
with drum
Praise memory
Praise the people
drum bend holla dance shout laugh free far away back a woods yonder
free
free more.
drum bend holla dance shout laugh free far away back a woods yonder
free
free more
drum bend holla dance shout laugh free far away back a woods yonder
free
free more
free.
drum bend holla dance shout laugh free far away back a woods yonder
free
free more
free.
Cast Requirements
3 women
2 men
Publisher
love conjure/blues is published by RedBone Press. 2004.
The love conjure/blues Text Installation script will be published in an upcoming Northwestern University Press anthology titled, solo black woman performance. Eds. E. Patrick Johnson and Ramon Rivera-Servera. Funded in part with a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The book includes writing about love conjure/blues by scholar Sandra Richards. More about The love conjure/blues Text Installation.
Press
“Once you stepped over the circle of salt, sand, and tiny gems that encircles the stage space to find your seat in the center, you were part of this story: finding love in the cracks, refusing to be beaten, coming together to cry, laugh, and – at the climax – rising from your seat with the folks of Figua’s Flavas and the other bodies in the room, to dance.”
—Abe Louise Young, Austin Chronicle.
Production and Development History
Productions:
The South Dallas Cultural Center (2008); Northwestern University Black & Latino Queer Performance Festival (2008);
The Off Center in Austin, Texas (2007); University of Texas, Austin (2004).
Readings: Performing Blackness Series, Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, University of Texas, Austin (2004).