high)ku~~~a blog about my peru trip

"I Am Wary of Need That Tastes Like Destruction": The Politics of Visibility in Afro-Peruvian Performance and Culture



Audre Lorde reminds us in her poem "Need: A Chorale for Black Women's Voices" of the danger associated with unhealthy, violent relationships and the need for love and connection. I should note, that Lorde's chorale piece was in response to a series of violent acts, specifically murders, against black women. If anyone is interested in reading the piece shoot me a message and I will email it to you. rde is an important entrance to this conversation on the politics of visibility in afro-peruvian performance and culture becuase her work helps us think about sustained performances of oppression and how such performances effect the actualization of individual agency and the politics of this actualization.

These issues have been heavy rotation for the past few weeks. I have been engaging in workshops, lecutres, performances that leave me asking quite plainly where are the black people? I see our artistic practices, which is a type of visibility. I see African features on the bodies of people who do not identify as afro-peruana. I see representations of traditional African religions and spiritual practices, but I don't see many black people. So this is of course a serious problem.

In my conversations, I am learning about the intense and intricately woven history of black people in Peru. Of course there is a legacy of slavery, but I is different from the practices of slavery in the United States. Of course there is a marginilazation of of african people, as most of us live on the outskirts of the large cities, mainly Lima. And do to the history of slavery and geography you will not find many or any black people in Cuzco (due to the altitude) or the Amazon (due to slavery). So most black people are relegated to the outskirts of lima and the coastal areas (where we could thrive on plantation and survive because of similar living conditions that exist in w. africa).

So there is an absence of black bodies, black thought, and black social and artistic movements in peru. Peru has never had a civil rights movement, an uprising or revolution by the black communities. Very few Afro-peruanas attend college in the country and according to a afro-peruana scholar almost no afro-peruanas have attained economic advancement. So literally as I walk (or hobble due to a serious dance accident) or ride around Lima I do not see any black faces.

Peruana scholars speak about the large amount of mixing and passing that happens in the country because of the oppression. so those afro-peruanas who can pass do pass. i must say this is a generalization and i have not spoken directly to someone of afro-peruana descent so all of this is arguable, but i think we could look at the legacy of passing in the united states to draw parallels and analysis based on the politics of skin color that pollutes our own history.

Whether any or all of this is arguable there is an absence.

How do you analyze a disappeared body? The chalk outline is just the frontier. the boundary. The edge. I cannot say it is a beginning? But it does open a question. How does one craft a poem for the imagined presence? Can a poem speak to this truth? Can a poem color in a history? a body? a face that looks like home and tomorrow? How do I search out of absence? How do I search out of absence? How do I search out absence? and find warmth and sunshine and a skin that nods yes to this quest for legacy. An opening is not a beginning. maybe it is the moment before that calls us to take our places at the mark, get set, ready, go.....

So i am looking for blackness in lima with a crew of radical performers and theorists. we are keeping blackness a focus in all of these lectures and performances. two brothas from brazil and a sista from dc and myself are making our desire to see black bodies loud and present. we have chosen not to continue the absence our afro-peruana sisters and brothers are experiencing daily. there are with us and we are thinking and talking about them/us at every turn, every moment of this experience.

so because performance and politics are really one thing, we can look to performance as a way of complicating this already complicated issue. Kimba Fa, a lunch at Rustica, a viewing of Los Musicos Ambulantes, and a mask making workshop all inform my ideas about how performance create both visibility and invisibility for black people.

(to be continued)

ebony