#capfringe

Here/Hear premiers this Saturday, July 11th at the Capital Fringe Fest

We run with some pretty brave folks. People who wake up every morning and step into the world not knowing how or if they’ll come back again. People who expect transformation and who impatiently hasten its many arrivals. Two such souls opened up about their first foray into theater, Here/Hear, which premiers this Saturday at the Capital Fringe Fest.

The creators describe the production as “a shared vulnerability exploration drawn from Black experiences within Washington, DC.” They expect to explore “the curative resonance of bearing witness and being witnessed” by creating a collective performance space for self-identified Black people in the audience. Ah, the art and danger of specificity.

The genesis of Hear/Here is the story of Richael, self-described street shaman and Voice Curator of Conjure Freedom Collective, teaming up with Ladan Siad, photographer, graphic artist and Creative Director of POCStudios ( @pocstudios). To hear them tell it, there was instant synergy and eventually, Here/Hear floated to the top of their mutual creative bucket list.  Here’s what they have to say about Here/Hear:

The Here/Hear Team: Ladan (L) and Richael (R) with Capital Fringe Advisor.

GSF: So, how did you two meet?

Ladan: You introduced us but, you knew that already.

GSF: Haha, so Good Sense Farm is one of the co-producers? Nice.

Ladan: Yep.

GSF: In promoting this piece, you’re asking would-be audience members some very personal questions, mind if I put you in the hot seat to answer them yourselves?

Richael & Ladan: Sure, as long as you do too.

GSF: Sure thing. Let’s go.

Who’s got what you need?

Richael : Quirky Black elder-stewards. They have wide open secrets that can help me make sense of this enchanted place called Chocolate City.

Ladan: Black people who are able to reflect our stories and resist erasure using their creativity. When I first moved back to DC, I heard about DC being Chocolate City, a bastion for black  people and culture and I was so excited. One of the first things I saw was young black queer couple who were being affectionate and I was like, ‘ Yes! This is what I came to DC for.’

GSF: Somewhere out there, there’s a home for weirdos and street scientists who like food and hard-won rest.

How has here changed?

Ladan: I always refer to DC and the blackest and the queerest city I have ever been to in terms of history and culture and even though I have seen an active plan to try and stamp that out it still flourishes and I am glad to be witnessing and being apart of that creativity.  

Richael: DC, over my lifetime, feels more like a verb than a noun.

GSF: Here is opening up, little by little.

What spaces are sacred to you?

Richael: Graveyards, front porches, alleys and Rock Creek Park.

Ladan: The places that have been the most sacred to me is when people have opened up themselves to me. In DC my chosen family has showed up on dance floors, late night conversation on worn out couches and cuddle sessions in single twin beds.

GSF: My edible front yard. The air under a tarp. The bottom wall of comb. Sites of contamination, places humid with life and dying.

GSF: I’ll be honest when I hear the words “vulnerability” and “exploration” together, I notice a visceral reaction right here [*touches gut*]. Call it the times we live in but how do you reconcile a call for vulnerability with Black people in the audience and what’s going on in the world right now?

Ladan: That’s a hard question. I don’t think we’re trying to reconcile it. We are holding space for the tension there. We don’t really know what to expect and, in that respect, we are asking people to take a risk.

Richael: Oh,I believe that most Black folks have vulnerability in their names. The experience, for Black folks, may be more about bearing witness to one another as we undergo what’s going on in the world. Vulnerability is necessarily a part of witness because we have to deeply see each other in ways that touches our own guts. Here/Hear asks if there’s any other way we want to move through this particular moment?

GSF: What are your highest hopes for this production?

Ladan: I hope that it resonates with people and it holds true to the experience of people who have trusted their stories with us.

Richael: In its highest form the experience is a love practice. Choosing to show up in the Mystery, eyes and heart wide open, willing to be transformed, and doing it all over again.

GSF: Here, Hear. We often judge mycelium by their bravery. The adventurous ones get selected to run the petri dish gauntlet over and over, through harsh conditions and limited resources. It builds character and, in theory, activates the genetic code for their extraordinary survival. The results that matter to the consumers are that it shaves time off the farm to table relay but, I can’t help but think of the motivations behind this mirroring the pluck it takes to live life like some of us do.

Here/Hear has already made me think differently about the cost and opportunities inherent in a level of specificity that selects for the brave ones but leaves others behind--about our relationship to keeping things as they were or opening up to transformation. Now to clone a mushroom that opens hearts and makes structural oppression impossible.