This weekend, @fiafny's Crossing the Line Festival presents the New York premiere of Corbeaux (Crows), a new dance performance by Moroccan choreographer Bouchra Ouizguen.Â
Corbeaux (Crows) is a hypnotic, site-specific living sculpture that interrupts and transforms public spaces. Dark silhouettes of women emerge from the shadows and silently fan out across the Beaux-Arts Court. Forming alchemical arrangements, they move again and again, erupting into an immersive chorus of piercing sounds and rhythmic cries, making all notions of time and space disappear. Performances will take place Saturday, Sep 30, from 12 and 4pm, and Sunday, Oct 1, at 3pm. Free with Museum admission.
Corbeaux (Crows) Š Hasnae El Ouarga courtesy of Compagnie O. (Photo: Hasnae El Ouarga)
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No more than two minutes into her performance of #PUNK, Nora Chipaumire approached an older, white woman standing in the audience and screamed squarely in her face, âI am a rock and roll nigger!â The slur silenced the room. The womanâs wide open eyes met Chipaumireâs stare. She didnât blink until Chipaumire had turned around fully and was facing the opposite direction.
I knew those words. Theyâre from the song, âRock and Roll Nigger,â written by Patti Smith for her 1978 album Easter. The program for #PUNK had promised a âraw performance combining elements of dance and theaterâ in which Chipaumire âriffed on an iconic Patti Smith lyric,â and this phrase were the lyrics, the only lyrics, sheâd chosen. By the end of the performance, Chipaumire had screamed, sung or whispered, âI am a rock and roll niggerâ more than 25 times.
Nearly 40 years ago, when Patti Smith declared herself to be a ârock and roll nigger,â she was using the phrase as a synonym for a cultural outsider. It was a play on Norman Mailerâs âThe White Negro,â which identified a tendency in hip, white artists to adopt the rebelliousness, machismo, and sexual liberation that Mailer problematically associated with African Americans. When his essay was first published in Dissent Magazine in 1957, it was considered divisive and controversial. And when Smith reintroduced the idea in 1978, it was received even more bitterly because unlike Mailer, Smith was self-identifying as a âwhite Negroâ or a ârock and roll nigger.â Punk rockâs mad scientist caused an explosion.
The songâs barked-out lyrics define a ârock and roll niggerâ as a black sheep or anybody who lives outside of conformist society, and by that reckoning, Patti Smith is indeed one. Sheâs long opposed the status quo. But considering the wordâs etymology and its cultural context, both in the past and today âits contempt and intent to harm -- Smith was making a gross and reckless mischaracterization. As Dave Marsh wrote in his Rolling Stone review of Easter in 1978, ââRock and Roll Niggerâ is an unpalatable chant because Smith doesn't understand the word's connotation, which is not outlawry but a particularly vicious kind of subjugation and humiliation that's antithetical to her motive.â
But Nora Chipaumire does. Because itâs been used against her. When Chipaumire screams, âI am a rock and roll niggerâ and bangs her chest, she is giving up, in a sense, on changing the way the Western world frames her. âGo back to Africa, niggerâ Chipaumire chants next, imitating the insults sheâs heard. What a twisted luxury it was for Smith to be able to use the term âniggerâ ironically, I think to myself during the performance. Meanwhile, each time Chipaumire bellows âI am a rock and roll niggerâ across the audience, her whole body reacts violently. In one moment, she balls her fists and covers her eyes with them, then thrusts her hips forwards and backwards repeatedly before collapsing to the ground. âI am a rock and roll nigger,â she whispers weakly from somewhere inside her collapsed, coiled body.
In reference to the infamous phrase, Smith has been quoted many times as saying, âThe song title is a redefining of an archaic slang term as a badge for those contributing on the fringe of society.â But the term was never hers to redefine. Nor is the word, âniggerâ simply âarchaic slang.â Itâs an alive-and-kicking slur meant to insult a specific group of people to which Smith doesnât belong. Noble as her intentions may have been, Smith couldnât have defanged the word âniggerâ because sheâd never felt its bite.
For Chipaumire, the situation is reversed. âGo back to Africa, nigger,â said someone to her at some point. How do you bounce back from that kind of blow? In the final moments of the performance she imitates the insult again. âGo back to Africa, go back to Africa,â she says, eyes closed, headed tilted toward the floor. Then she responds: âIâm going to go back to Africa and give a damn about my past.â She draws her shoulders back and pulls her arms out to her sides. âAnd Iâm gonna give a damn about my future.â Then she opens her mouth until the audience can see her tonsils and roars one last time, âI am a rock and roll nigger!â before jumping offstage and falling facedown onto the floor below.
In the silence before the applause starts, I wonder, Is she still stuck underneath the phrase or was she able pin it to the ground? Is being a ârock and roll niggerâ insulting or empowering? Chipaumire doesnât answer this question for the audience. Instead, she leaves us in awe of the phraseâs weight. She wrestled with it for nearly an hour. At times she seemed to celebrate being a ârock and roll nigger.â She marched and strutted across the stage, wearing the phrase as the proud badge Patti Smith intended it to be. In other moments, she shuddered as she shouted the words. She expressed due ambivalence about a phrase that Smith, in a rare, erroneous moment, created and used flippantly. She spit out Smithâs lyric for good.
