CREATING THE SHOW |
Adapting the book
The idea for Black, And... came from a university assessment prompt where I was asked to create a performance on identity. I found this to be difficult, considering the number of communities I belonged to. I wanted to talk about everything! I became so immensely frustrated with explaining my reasons for this show that I once yelled out loud at a lecturer that I "want[ed] to yell about black women for an hour". And, the show was born.
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"Poems For Growing""Poems For Growing" (coming this summer 2019) is the debut chapbook of emerging poet Jay Délise. With her roots firmly in the slam poetry scene, the book uses sharp and hard-hitting poems to give voice to the perils of being queer and black in the predominately white suburbs of Monmouth County New Jersey.
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Rehearsal"Rehearsals began in a small black box at my university at the time. I could only book the space for an hour during the week, so I started sneaking in for 6+ hours on the weekends. I started doing this so much, that the security guard started leaving the room open on Friday, because he knew I was coming. That black box was where Black, And... was born."
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StagingStaging began with the help of one of my lecturers, Dr. Pamela Barnes. We looked at different ways to tell this story through all types of media. I took the interviews of some of the most influential black women in my life, as well as some more well known voices to construct the space in which this story could live. Here it became more than just a show about black women, it became a platform for us to advocate for ourselves and challenge the preconceived notions of our womanhood that plague us.
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