Three Arizona State University doctoral students presented their decolonize performances at the Phoenix Hostel and Cultural Center Friday night.
Nia Witherspoon, assistant professor at ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts’ School of Film, Dance and Theatre, welcomed a small crowd in downtown Phoenix to observe her students’ performances after a semester of studying the ways in which colonization and slavery continue to affect people in the Americas.
“These women have been using this semester to think more largely about how the America’s are constructed by this idea and the practice of colonialism,” Witherspoon said. “This is to have a moment of conversation and community outside of the institution.”
“Decolonize the Stage” was composed of three students individually expressing their interpretation of decolonization. All three women are first-year PhD students at the School of Film, Dance and Theatre.
The night began with Geneva Foster Gluck, who presented her project titled, “My Mother Revolution.”
“I am interested in the ways in which producing art and performance can have a tangible effect on communities, spaces and ideas,” Gluck said.
Gluck displayed pictures her mom took during the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement.
“My mom’s life has always been an indication to me of what life looks like when you’re out of the system, or when you commit your life to art and protest,” Gluck said. “I desired to see my mom’s images as alternative historical documents.”
Creating photos and other images is powerful because it allows for ways of seeing to transform both the individual and many others, Gluck said. Her mother’s images were not discovered until later on in Gluck’s life.
“These images were a mystery to me,” Gluck said.
Following Gluck, Stephanie “Tippi” Hart shared her research, which is loosely based on indigenous methodology and concert dance as a way of sharing traditional knowledge.
“I just believe that for me there is no greater expression of artistry beauty and knowledge than movement,” Hart said.
People need to take a moment to pause in their lives in order to contemplate what is truly happening around them, Hart said.
To conclude the performances, Yoleidy Rosario performed a play, the first she had ever written.
“This play is a compilation of stories, poems and experiences,” Rosario said. “It is my way of sort of giving back to this idea of decolonizing work.”
At the end, the audience could respond to and reflect on the performances.
“It’s not normal for grad students to get the opportunity to perform in public in this way,” Witherspoon said. “This is kind of a moment for all of us to pause and the students to reflect.”
Contact the reporter at nsavarin@asu.edu.
