Nicosia Shakes
Any student who has taken a class with me knows that my research, art, scholarship and activism inform my teaching. I am, and have always been a diehard fan of theatre, TV, film and music, whose idea of a perfect time is watching a good play, concert, film or TV show — often more than once. Since I was a teenager, I’ve also been very active in theatre and educational conversations around race and gender. It therefore makes sense that my first book project would reflect my love for the performing arts and commitment to racial and gender justice. Tentatively titled Gender, Race and Performance Space: Theatre and Women’s Activism in Jamaica and South Africa, the book analyzes how women in these two countries and across the world are using theatre to inspire social change.
As everyone knows, there has been a global rejuvenation of women-led activisms, facilitated partly by the widening of opportunities to mobilize through social media. In the past ten years, there have been numerous women-led marches and campaigns around the world, and the creation of many feminist and other women-centered social media hashtags and websites. Most of these have focused on ending sexual violence and attaining reproductive justice.
Much less-known than these marches and social media activisms are the long-existing projects being undertaken by women-led grassroots organizations in black-majority countries. My book focuses on four of these organizations: Sistren Theatre Collective, which was founded in 1977 in Kingston, Jamaica; The Mothertongue Project, which began in 1999 in Cape Town, South Africa; Letters from the Dead, a transnational project about violence in the Americas, started by Jamaicans in 2007 and Olive Tree Theatre, established in 2013 by a black South African woman in the township of Alexandra.
Sistren, The Mothertongue, Letters from the Dead and Olive Tree are creating some of the most brilliant performances I have ever seen, while mobilizing communities against violence in different forms, gender and sexual discrimination and economic inequalities. Like the original Me Too movement, created in the U.S. in 2006 by Tarana Burke, they are part of the wider global network that has produced the more recent, trendier elements of women- led social movements in the 21st century.
I wanted to write this book for three reasons. The first is my lifelong interest in the use of theatre and performance as activism, and specifically the innovations of Africana/black people within this artform. The second is the immense violence perpetrated against Africana people globally in which gender-based violence and reproductive and sexual oppression feature prominently. The third is the need to acknowledge Africana women’s agency in confronting these oppressive systems.
At present, I am a member of the coalition of activists who are demanding that the Jamaican government repeal the country’s old colonial anti-choice laws and make abortion legal, affordable and easily accessible. My involvement in this coalition emerged partly out of the relationships I formed while doing research for my book. One of the groups I study, Sistren Theatre Collective performed a pro-choice play in the Jamaican Houses of Parliament in 2009, making them the first group of activists to present a play instead of a speech to the government. 11 years after this play and the movement that created it, the struggle continues, but has gained new momentum. Gender, Race and Performance Space highlights this difficult, lengthy and sometimes dangerous work involved in advocating for the rights of black people, women, LGBTQ+ people and the poor. Ultimately, the book asserts that gender, sexual and economic justice are indispensable to black freedom — and human freedom in general.