I know that you all have said the thing we really
want is to receive questions from the audience.
And again, that feels like that same engagement.
We're going to keep this piece going.
We're all a part of it.
And so with that, thank you, and questions.
I actually want to say, too, before we take questions
that one of the-- thank you, TC.
It was awesome.
One of the things that--
this is a part of the performance,
and we might use your questions or comments
in the next performance, so--
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, [INAUDIBLE].
Beware.
You've been warned.
No, no, no.
We won't use yours.
[LAUGHTER]
I can't see.
[INAUDIBLE]
Yeah, no.
Are you twins?
It's--
Are you all twins?
[LAUGHTER]
You can answer this.
Yes.
The Twilight Zone?
No, we are.
Triplets.
Yes.
Is this The Twilight Zone?
Or The Outer Limits?
Rawhide?
What is The Outer Limits?
Yeah, I don't know that show.
Is that another thing?
The Twilight Zone.
It was kind of like The Twilight Zone.
It's kind of like The Twilight Zone?
The Little Rascals?
Spanky?
Who?
[INAUDIBLE] Spank--
[LAUGHTER]
[INAUDIBLE]
Oh, Yeah.
Oh.
All of you.
Oh.
Wu-tang?
Or Darla.
You're definitely Darla.
[LAUGHTER]
Yes.
Spanky.
Darla, Spanky.
And I don't remember who they are.
Oh, you get to choose.
That's because Bill Cosby took it off the air
because he didn't like the images.
I don't agree with him, because he didn't do a class critique,
because The Little Rascals critiqued class all the time.
You know, Wally-- he went around.
He jumped out of the chauffeur's car,
went to hang out with The Mule, and he said,
I want to go away to the real kids play.
Anyway.
Thank you, [INAUDIBLE].
How did you find each other and your form?
Cave Canem.
Seriously?
Yeah.
Is where we met.
Well, I think we all met individually-- well, pairs--
before Cave Canem, but that's where we came together.
I don't know.
How did we find our form?
What's Cave Canem?
[LAUGHTER]
What's Cave Canem?
[LAUGHTER]
That's right.
If you have a question in the middle of an answer,
just scream it out.
[LAUGHTER]
We went down-- it's a retreat founded
by-- a retreat for African-American poets founded
by Cornelius Eady and Toi Derricotte in 1996.
We started our stuff in 1999 there, together.
I mean, it's a long story and a short story.
I'll try to spell the shorter version of the story, OK?
So Duriel and I actually knew each other from New York.
We were in a strange workshop together
in someone's apartment for a while that we started.
I won't say what the name of it was.
And then Ronaldo and I met a year later, or a couple
of years later, at Cave Canem, and then Duriel
came to Cave Canem the next year.
And actually, what happened is that we kind of
felt like we're coming to Cave Canem because it's a place--
a safe space for African-American poets.
There's a certain kind of similarity in the--
how do I say this?
There was a certain kind of similarity
in the approach to telling stories of Black identity.
And we kind of fell outside of that similarity,
and that's how we came together.
And we just started talking and hanging out and talking
about different tropes of Blackness
and using that in poetry, how useful that is or not,
and what happens when you don't do that.
That was a long time ago.
We can barely remember, which-- it was like 15 years ago.
And how old are we?
I'm 25.
[LAUGHTER]
It was a long time ago.
Yeah.
And does that answer your question enough?
The question of form is interesting, too, though.
How did we find our form?
I mean, it's still evolving.
I think that's one question.
I think that's why we work together
to try to work out the form, and the relationship
to that question is never ending for us.
You know how do we mine identity or self representation, self
fashioning, race, class, all those things.
And I also would add that there are
other kinds of intersections.
You know, I hadn't known Dawn, but I knew of Duriel,
because Duriel was a year ahead of me at NYU,
and I'd seen her name at that time at NYU.
It was a sort of revolving door, where maybe it's
still the case.
But, you know, Duriel was the only Black [INAUDIBLE]..
Then [? John ?] [? Keane ?] and then [INAUDIBLE] and then me,
or whatever.
So there's always that one person that's looking at--
what is the arc something or other?
Archangel.
I said, who's Duriel Harris?
And then I-- and suddenly, we met.
And then-- so there's that kind of--
so in one way, I was trying to work out
what my form was as a poet in this program.
And before I knew Duriel, I think I had a--
I don't know.
Maybe I was a little jealous.
I was like, who is Duriel?
She got more money than I did.
I didn't get anything.
She got funding.
That was, like, one of the things.
I was like, why wasn't I a New York Times fellow?
[LAUGHTER]
I should be a New York Times fellow.
Why don't I win this fellowships?
I'm always like, yeah, right.
I mean, I was getting that kind of thing, you know?
But it is nice to be able to have
a pool next to your gigantic room
and to have basalmic caviar at the Ritz [INAUDIBLE]..
[LAUGHTER]
So I'd gladly give that everything up,
just because at the end, anyways, it doesn't matter,
you know what I mean?
So it all-- so we met in that [INAUDIBLE]..
Pellets.
Yeah, they were balsamic vinaigrette pellets
that were supposed to look like caviar.
They did look like caviar.
Yeah, that was the whole-- they didn't call them pellets,
they called them caviar--
balsamic vinaigrette caviar.
That's how we met.
That's how we found our form.
We were gorging on caviar.
[LAUGHTER]
Who's eating that caviar?
Who brought the roe?
And Dawn said, "I brought the roe."
We did stream out of the building, thought, didn't we?
Stream out of the building and say, what the fuck
are they talking about?
Do you have a cigarette?
What's your name?
Let's get out of here.
What the fuck are they doing?
That must have been you two.
We were-- this was nice.
Actually, you often revise the story.
Let's see.
You tell stories of us running out of circles,
screaming hysterically.
We did.
Did we?
Yes.
We did.
We were-- both of us were running.
[INAUDIBLE]
[LAUGHTER]
And I was just [INAUDIBLE].
One question.
I do have a question.
Do you need a mic?
And-- gracias.
I did love the whole piece.
But one thing that--
I mean, if I started to speak about all the things
that I loved, we would be here an hour.
So I'll shortened it to the one that struck me most.
It's beyond the use of poetry, the language, the space,
and basically the whole thing.
The relationship between who you are not
and the mask being who you are.
And you could like to speak about those masks?
I don't know the relationship.
The relationship between the mask and the self--
is that who one thinks one is and the kind
of projection of the self on the mask or something like that?
Well, when you speak to people that are ancient people who
live in oral cultures, they say that the mask is not
to be seen, but to be seen from.
So when you started wearing the masks, both in the forms,
and you wear them in many forms in complete negative,
in distorted color, you use it in yourselves.
So the relationship between who you are, who you are not,
who the mask is, who is looking at what--
I want to hear anything that you have to say about that mask.
I mean, the way that I think about the use of a mask--
and I think this might differ for each of us in some ways--
like, the mask that we choose at some moment
in the performance--
I really love the ape mask.
I used to, actually, when I was in graduate school,
sometimes put on an ape mask and wear it into the corner deli.
But I like-- one of the reasons I
think it challenges people is because
of the projection of the simian on the African-American body,
right?
So what happens when one presents that in this space?
What is it that one experiences?
I'm curious-- I always want to know what the audience is
experiencing in that moment.
For me, it's multilayered in that way.
There's the projection of it by another,
and then there's the putting it on and wearing it
as a projection, but also as a kind of possibility,
also as some kind of playfulness,
some kind of humor.
There's a lot of humor embedded, I think,
in the wearing of the mask, as much as it's
a kind of distortion for me.
I think what's coming to mind for me right now is
an experience of dissociation that I have often have,
and it's related not only to a kind of personal relationship
with trauma, but also the trauma of racialization.
And Ginger and just kind of being in a body
and being seen and kind of negotiating that, even
with seeing myself sitting in the mirror.
So something that happened to me this time
that I was particularly aware of when putting on the mask,
it brought-- it was kind of like the experience I
have when I look in a mirror, where I just kind of catch
myself or the face that it is that people
see when they say that they are seeing me,
or they believe that they're seeing me.
And I had that kind of experience,
especially the first time that I put
on the mask, where it was like, I'm
putting on a mask over a mask--
a mask over the body, which is the rind, and thinking
about the relationship between the rind
that I can't throw off no matter how hard I try,
rind, it sometimes rides me, That others, and then even
myself, spend time reading and interpreting instead
of sometimes just being in.
And so that's kind of where I went with it.
Yeah, it's really important.
I think the masks are, just in terms of composition,
the compositional and material dimensions of the work--
you know, I'm really interested in the ways in which plastic
feels, sweat and condensation changes the color, mood.
Some of the things that we directed-- on the beach,
for instance, I don't know if you remember some of the stuff
where the mask--
one form looks another way if the light
turns a particular way so the camera does something.
So I think it's also, for me, this larger question
of composition, compositional space, and duration,
in the sense of thinking of a way
to move a performance from one element
to another with just the materiality of it.
And it's just-- and also those masks sort of fall
into our hand--
I mean, I used to go shopping and suddenly these masks
are on sale somewhere, and they're outrageously insane.
Or I pull them from wherever, but, you know,
they're great to carry.
And sometimes we'll sit--
one time when we were filming a video,
we sat at a hotel bar and shot footage,
and the level of terror.
I mean, are you going to rob us?
Are you going to rob us?
We're working.
We're shooting a video.
You know, so that experience of what
it's like to have a martini at a bar-- lift up the mask
and then shoot it.
I love all that stuff-- that dimension, the composition.
One more question, I think.
Or comment.
First of all, I want to say thanks for the LL.
It's always good to [INAUDIBLE] dirty.
What?
[LAUGHTER]
And I just want to--
I was struck by how curiously intimate the performance is.
I feel like I'm entering into a space almost like a voyeur,
to some extent.
And I was wondering how you think about your work
as a collective-- the intimacy of it?
And how you think about the audience and your relationship
with us and vise versa?
We were actually talking about this today with TC.
And we were talking about what it takes to produce the work.
And in some ways, it takes hours and hours
of just kind of hanging out together and playing.
There's a lot of playful process in the work.
I mean, we spent the past three days basically figuring out
what we wanted to do, how we wanted
to bring this particular site into the work-- we try to make
every work site-specific.
So thank you to Claudia and Cecilia and Christine for--
you didn't let us borrow your work.
We just saw the video.
[LAUGHTER]
[INAUDIBLE] stuff.
What?
They were great.
Yeah.
So I mean it's really--
and we've been working together for years.
And so people often say that about the intimacy--
we can't necessarily see it, but we feel it.
We feel each other's bodies on the stage.
But I think that intimacy is actually
produced, in part, from the work that we do on-site
when we do a performance.
What was the second part of your question?
[INAUDIBLE] your relationship with [INAUDIBLE]..
Relationship with the audience?
Yeah, I mean, again, I think it's sort of structurally
specific to the room, right?
I mean just knowing--
and it's good to know that this is the kind of room,
and to imagine what vantage point is here.
And I think in some ways, it's always--
maybe not just the people looking,
but the kinds of questions that we interpose.
I mean, I don't know that the breaks and the sequences where
we mix some of the conversation in with the natural-- well,
they're natural anyway-- but the other animals that were making
noises.
So the interruptions were ways in which
we were trying to post very specific questions.
So I mean, there's also this question of intimacy
by way of rigor, of trying to figure out,
what do we want to work out?
What questions can we think of that are projections?
But also-- I don't know, maybe that's why
I feel, in a way, the strongest about--
that there is a certain kind of felt intellection or something
that's also happening.
Because this technology is really very difficult
to hold on to, so you want a body or some kind
of feeling around it.
because otherwise, it can mean a whole other thing.
Yeah, for me, I guess I'm just thinking about--
to go along with that, as far as intimacy
is concerned, that the possibility I've encountered,
and the opportunity that we have--
Oh my god.
Yeah.
No, I mean, the idea of us being together in this space
and really thinking about how to make the most of that time
that we had together.
So both of us being able to be here
and you guys being willing to have your bodies here and be
present, and the possibility that a full kind of presence
and mockery brings, and the playfulness of that--
the playfulness being generative--
and all of this possibility.
I mean, that's afforded, I think, by us
and you allowing for that intimacy.
Like if you close yourself off, then
that's the end of the possibility.
So it's part of the rigor, the questions, and the time
that we need to spend with one another and the amenities
that we need as well, in order to think and breathe and eat.
What if-- will you break up, like the Supremes, and one
of you become the lead?
No, I don't think so.
We might.
I don't know.
[LAUGHTER]
[INAUDIBLE] Diana Ross songs.
No, but technically, you guys are a supergroup,
because you already had individual careers.
You're just forming a case-- kind of like Dub-C, Mack-10,
and Ice Cube.
That's what I said.
That's what I'm saying.
Exactly.
Right.
Thank you for your questions and comments.
[APPLAUSE]