“We have been taught systems where accolades and certain praises coming from a particular space is worth more than my black sister saying to me that your work is profound to me and every day it shifts my soul. I have had to teach myself how to value that over everything else. I had to learn that because that’s not what I was taught. The value of my black sister’s body, and the value of her mind and the value of her spirit, is valueless. So then, if she has an opinion or an idea, where is it going to be placed? So a part of re-centring myself, re-centring the multiple communities I’m a part of, is, retraining and reconfiguring this, this success system and understanding that we are deeply successful because we insist on being present.”
—d’bi young anitafrika on performance, centring oneself, and storytelling in Room Magazine 39.1
Interview can also found online here: https://roommagazine.com/interview/d%E2%80%99bi-young-anitafrika-performance-centring-oneself-and-storytelling
Art credit: Danilo McCallum
