Flowers for Dr. D. Soyini Madison
4/27/2024
Field Notes: Tracing Ecowomanist Genealogies
Locations: Durham, Harlem, Chicago and beyond
From a forth coming auto ethnography “Between the Bayou and the Blues: An EcoWomanist Sojourn” by Ebony Noelle Golden
“God is change.” -Octavia Butler
Everything must change. I must change. Relationships change. Knowledges change. The earth changes. Love changes. Bodies change. Affiliations change. Perspectives change. People change. Change change change. Change changes.
I’ve been reflecting on Butler’s often quoted phrase since returning from Chicago. Recently, I visited the Windy City to honor a dear educator, ethnographer, scholar and artist who redirected my entire life many years ago. More about this in a moment.
It must have been in 2005 or perhaps early 2006 I am sitting with Dr. Renee Alexander Craft (who I adore and respect immensely)in a coffee shop in Durham, NC. We are meeting about an organization we are both apart of when the conversation shifts. She invites me to see a performance on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill called Water Rites. I knew nothing about the premise or the company but I am absolutely intrigued by what Dr. Craft shares by way of introduction to the work, so I am in.
I can’t remember who went along with me. Was it Kimber or Dr. Alexis, or Mama Nia? I don’t know but what happened in that black box theatre rocked me. The performers were students studying called performance ethnography. The piece, a mixture of ritual, research, poetry, dance, projections unfolded like a hurricane like a soft touch like a gentle stream and like a raging river. It was real. It was vulnerable. It was raw. It changed me.
“In Act II we will consider “water as life” and as a human right. We will enter acts of activism by water democracy advocates and their struggle to protect public water systems from corporate privatization. Woven throughout this section are excerpts from a staged performance in Chapel Hill, North Carolina that dramatized how water rites and rituals animate our daily lives across the globe.”
From Water rites/rights in the book Acts of Activism: Human Rights as Radical Performance by D. Soyini Madison
I have had very few experiences like this in my life, within or beyond art, that showed me my path in such a clear and luminous way. And to this day I, I understand that this only happened because of a series of the life-shaking events that landed me in Durham, in SpiritHouse membership, in relationship with Dr. Craft and in that theatre that evening. God and my ancestors truly love me and I am grateful. Today, in my community-based performance and ecowomanism course “black/water” I am teaching Water Rites again as I have for many years.
The performance was by none other than Dr. D. Soyini Madison. I was very confused by why I had not heard of her. While I did not attend UNC, I figured that someone would have mentioned her in one of my two previous degree-seeking experiences. I felt duped once again by the United States academic industrial complex. But I was present and clear that however I needed to learn more about living as a performance ethnographer, I would. Thank you Renee for opening me to another world. You doula’d me in a way that most certainly did not know I needed and I appreciate you immensely for it. I can’t thank you enough.
Months later I applied to NYU, Northwestern, UNC-Chapel Hill and a few more schools. Destiny would have me at NYU instead of the other institutions. After earning a Master of Arts in Performance Studies, I was urged to divest from that system and “do my work” directly with the people I am accountable to. That has been a struggle and a joy but I would not change it for the world. I struggle with the concept of school, deeply. I believe in apprenticeship, learning, mentorship, training, guidance but even if I had the privilege to be in school with Dr. Madison, I feel I would not have been able to really devote my self to a full initiation to her work and methods. I am glad I did not squander or sacrifice a real teacher-student relationship with her in the pursuit of another degree or some external pursuit of validation and acceptance.
Over the years, developing a slow-stewed affinity for Dr. Madison’s work has clarified what ever I happened to be doing in real life. Her archive is a spiritual practice for me and quite frankly I don’t want anyone other than her mediating my relationship to her work. Her practices, performances and theories are a clear source of inspiration and practice. I am grateful.
It is through Dr. Madison I came to know a whole crew of badass scholars and artists:
Sharon Bridgforth
Dr. Omi Osun Joni L. Jones
Daniel Alexander Jones
And really the list goes on. Some of their peers, students, and colleagues have become a theoretical and literal home for me.
A few weeks ago many of Dr. Madison’s students and peers gathered for Performance Convenings to honor her. It was a beautiful ceremony that allowed us to continue to give Dr. Madison her flowers, celebrate her birthday, hear a new performance she’s building and continue learn from her and her community. We had a time.
In this moment of deep practice, investigating earth-veneration and ritual performance I must uplift that I have been in a durational apprenticeship around how to bring this kind of work, rigor and love to many people who don’t my beloved teachers and community. It is our way to honor those who have taken the time to teach and nurture me. It is our way to hold those who come along with us to a high standard of integrity and regard. It is our way to know when that road must change.
“God is change.”
My take aways in this moment of reflection on this aspect of my ecowomanist journey are many and vast but I will highlight a few:
I come from a community, a family and a lineage
Everyone is welcome but it requires work and integrity to remain
Training, education and practice are for embodied and wholistic liberation
Colonized people and systems will struggle to find their way in a space of such high regard
Capitalist pursuits do not align
The earth us
The water is our home
Those who are fellow devotees will find home through and with each other, always
Faith is infinite
What we have been taught is precious, IYKYK
Thank you Dr. Renee for introducing me to Dr. Madison. Thank you Dr. Madison for your work in the world. It has been my medicine and my resting place the wild world of art-making and scholarship in NYC and beyond. I am deeply grateful.
