October 4, 2023 • 55 mins
In this episode, we had the opportunity to hear from Dr. Michelle Cowin Gibbs, an accomplished expert in theater, academia, and solo performance. She'll share her incredible journey, starting from her childhood dream of becoming a pilot to her deep passion for theater. Join us as we delve into Dr. Gibbs' remarkable life story, where she fearlessly tackled challenges like pursuing a Ph.D. while raising a toddler and navigating the worlds of performance, academia, and being a black woman with unwavering resilience and grace.
During our conversation with Dr. Gibbs, we'll explore the fascinating connections between race, gender, and performance. Be inspired as she shares profound insights into the work of Zora Neale Hurston and discusses her exploration of black womanhood. Dr. Gibbs uses her own experiences to create thought-provoking stories through solo performances, providing a platform for empathy and a deeper understanding of what it means to be human.
In the final part of our conversation, Dr. Gibbs extends a helping hand to current black women and non-binary doctoral students, offering invaluable advice. She speaks candidly about the importance of maintaining a life outside of academia, the value of a supportive community, and the vitality of staying connected with loved ones. This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for academics, theater enthusiasts, and anyone interested in the inspiring journeys of exceptional individuals. Don't miss this enlightening and heartwarming conversation with Dr. Michelle Gibbs.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Cohort SysSys podcast, where we give
voice to the stories, strugglesand successes of Black women and
non-binary folks with doctoraldegrees.
I'm your host, dr Yama Cola,and today I'm really honored to
have a conversation with DrMichelle Gibbs, an expert in the
fields of theater, academia andsolo performance, dr Gibbs
(00:25):
brings a blend of scholarshipand creativity to the podcast
today.
Dr Michelle Gibbs received aPhD in theater, with a graduate
certificate in performancestudies from Bowling Green State
University, and her researchspans Black performativity and
critical identity studies,delving into the intersections
of race, gender and performance.
(00:45):
Her insightful exploration ofZora Neale-Hurston's theater
work has reshaped ourunderstanding of Southern Black
community's resilience.
Dr Gibbs fearlessly navigateschallenging themes as a solo
performer, using her body as acanvas for thought provoking
narratives.
Thank you so much for joiningus on the podcast, dr Gibbs, and
thank you for your grace.
(01:06):
We had some technicaldifficulties I'm holding a baby
Like it was a struggle to getthis started, but we're started,
so thank you so much for beinghere.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yes, thank you so much for having me.
I'm very, very grateful and soexcited to chat All right, so
tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Where are you from?
I currently live in.
Where are some of the thingsthat you like to do when you're
not performing or doing research?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Great question.
So I am originally from Detroit, michigan.
I've been a lot of places sinceI've been to Detroit.
I lived in California for alittle bit.
That's where I got my master'sdegree at the MFA in acting from
University of California,irvine.
So I lived there for a littlebit.
I lived near Western Michiganfor a little bit.
I lived in New Orleans for alittle bit.
(01:50):
When you're a scholar you kindof go where the job takes you.
But most recently I came fromMinnesota, where that was my
last teaching position, and nowI live in Central Illinois,
which is about two and a halfhours south, about two hours
south of Chicago, and I teachtheater at Illinois Wesleyan
(02:16):
University Nice.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And before we got caught off, you were telling me
all about your gaming life.
To be honest, I don't envisionyou as a gamer, so you are
definitely shifting mystereotypes and my narrative of
what a gamer looks like.
So what are some of yourfavorite games and how does I'm
curious does gaming haveanything to do with your love
for theater?
Are they completely separate,or are they?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
related they are, I don't know.
I probably am a very theatricalperson and I find video games
to be very theatrical in thestyle of storytelling and the
ability to bring folks inthrough story.
So it probably has a little bitof element.
But my whole thing is like toescape.
You know, I like Marvel moviesbecause I get the opportunity to
(03:04):
escape into another world whereI don't have to think, be
constantly thinking about andlike figuring out, like self and
teaching and things like that.
So yeah, I like to.
I like to game as a way to sortof escape into someone else's
story, where it takes a littlebit of the pressure off of me to
(03:24):
be who I am.
But I'm playing right now.
I play a lot of different games, but right now I'm playing
Tears of the Kingdom Legend ofZelda, tears of the Kingdom,
which is a fabulous game.
I'm sure everybody knows aboutit because it's been like on
YouTube and everything.
But I'm playing that right nowand that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, I was.
I'm one of those people who,like, never got the video game
wave.
My parents immigrant parentswere just like you're wasting
your time, you're not likethat's just not.
It was not a function of mychildhood and I feel like I just
missed the wave, like ifthere's no fiber of my being
that is interested in picking upa console.
Like I feel like I don't havethe anti-coordination, but I
(04:07):
admire people who make that apart of their life and, like you
said, as a way to escape.
I've never heard anyone frameit like that, but it sounds like
it's a really great hobby andelement of your well-being and
self-care, so I love that foryou.
So let's talk about your lovefor the theatrics.
When did you first becomeinterested in performance in
(04:30):
theater, in otherworldly things,the extraordinary play?
Tell us a little bit about theroots of that for you.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah.
So actually I didn't getstarted into theater until like
late.
You know, a lot of the peoplethat I interact with started
doing theater when they werelike three and four.
I just didn't have that luxuryor no, or that desire.
To be honest, I think I did aplay in high school because I
was trying to get close to adude and he liked theater.
(05:01):
So I joined, like, the theaterclub because I just wanted to be
close to him but had no realinterest in it.
So I was actually interested inaviation science and I wanted
to become an air trafficcontroller in the Air Force.
So my recruiter said the bestway to get to that is to go to
(05:23):
college, get a degree, thenenlist and then you get more
money, you get a better rank,etc.
So I said, oh, I'll go toWestern Michigan University
because they had one of the topaviation programs in the state.
So I started there.
My advisor was like take thistheater class.
(05:43):
I have a lot of recruits thatcome through and they take this
theater class.
It's a really easy A and youknow you get to.
You know sort of move on fromthere because you need it as a
Gen Ed.
And I'm like, okay, sure, I'lltake the theater class, whatever
.
I started in the theater classand my advisor was wrong.
It was not an easy A, it was sohard, it was hard as heck.
(06:05):
But I fell in love with thismedium of expression and I never
really thought that that's whatmy life needed, was that kind
of like.
I was talking about videogaming as that escape.
But I never thought that mylife needed that kind of
interest in that kind ofexpression before.
And I was really intrigued bythe readings by the professor,
(06:29):
who was a very animated person,probably kind of got me started
in the ways I teach now and mypedagogy, but just was a really,
you know, fantastic teacher.
And it was one of those classesthat they kind of like kind of
farmed you into it and made youwork on their shows.
So I was like I'm reallyinterested.
(06:50):
So a props position came upwhere in the props you basically
build, you know, set pieces andyou build utilities that the
actors will use in theperformance.
And I got to run props for ashow called Flyin' West by Pearl
Cleige and it's a play aboutthese beautiful black women who
are, you know, landowners andare really, really attempting to
(07:14):
carve out a path for themselves.
And I was offstage and they putme in a costume because I kind
of had to look like I was beingthe part as I was carrying props
on stage, and I just fell inlove.
I was like this is it.
I figured it out.
So I started at the back of theclass, in this huge auditorium
with almost 60 to 80 people inthe classroom, to the very front
(07:37):
row, and just my love oftheater just sprung from that
sense of the curiosity, theexpression, the ability to
engage with humaneness in thatway.
So I changed my major.
My mom cried.
My mom was like you're going tobe broke for the rest of your
life and you know, needless tosay, she's not crying now.
(08:00):
I can't say I'm the richestperson in the world, but you
know she's not crying anymore.
But she bawled at IHOP of allplaces because I thought I'd
tell her in a public spot I'mchanging my major.
And she was like woo, I neverseen my mother weep before, but
she weeped in IHOP y'all.
(08:21):
But yeah, so I changed my major.
I became a BA in theaterperformance.
It's now a BFA program now, butI was a BA in theater
performance and I spent, becauseI was only there in my program
before for about half a semester, about a semester, and so I
(08:41):
ended up having to stay an extrasemester.
So it was there four and a halfsemesters, four and a half
years, and just loved every,every bit of it, just every bit
of it.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
I'm curious what do you think?
To what extent was the actualplay that you were studying and
working on, the firstperformance, being a story about
black women?
Did that have anything to dowith your falling in love with
the field, with the art?
Do you think that you wouldhave maybe had that same
(09:13):
trajectory if you were workingon some I don't know, the great
Gatsby or something else thatdoesn't kind of center our
stories?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, I don't think so.
I don't think I would have hadthe same kind of urge.
The professor was really cleverin that.
I don't know if it was clever,but he was just really intrigued
.
He was an older white man buthe was really intrigued by like
black theater and he talkedabout the Lion King and I had
never I mean I saw the movie,but he talked about the Lion
(09:41):
King on Broadway and a few othershows.
He included in that Raisin' inthe Sun, a few others, and I
think working on Flying West wasan eye-opening experience.
I had kind of discovered myqueerness as well in that
process.
But I think there was somethingabout watching these I mean,
(10:03):
they were really talented blackwomen who were freely emoting in
these very vulnerable spacesthat I thought to myself I think
I can do that, I think I cangive of myself and I think that
there's a way that I can havepermission to be vulnerable in
(10:23):
these very public spaces,because the way I grew up, we
don't really cry in public, wereally don't.
We kind of hold ourselves withthe decorum as black people
because we recognize that whitepeople are always watching us
and so there's a kind of acultural understanding about how
performance and performativityoccupy spaces of identity in at
(10:47):
least in my culture, in my blackculture.
So when I found out that therewas this theater, this
expression, this form ofexpression, and that black
people were doing it, I was likeoh wow, maybe that's permission
for me to engage in that kindof way, and I always thought I
was going to find my Flying Westmoment.
(11:10):
So I thought I was going to besome ways in that same
particular space again and, likea drug, it was so intriguing to
me that I had always sought outthat kind of opportunity to be
in space with black women andthose kind of theatrical
standpoints.
And I don't know if I've everactually since watching Flying
(11:34):
West, if I've actually been inthat kind of cohort of
expression in that way oftheatrical performance, in that
way.
But it doesn't stop my yearningfor that and my ability to work
with other black women inspaces that I also want to
create that same kind of energyfrom.
(11:54):
But I don't know if I ever like, if it was something like the
Great Gatsby or, you know, likeJulius Caesar, of which I
actually really love JuliusCaesar, shakespeare's Julius
Caesar I don't know if I wouldhave had the same kind of
compellingness to it.
Yeah, I think there was a lotof things going on in my
identity at that time andrecognizing my sexuality at that
time that really caught me.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, and this, my friends, is why it is important
to have diverse curricula at theundergraduate level.
This is not a testament why Idon't know what is so you fell
in love with theater in thisclass that you were told to take
because it was an easy A onyour way to aviation school.
Why go on and continue to studyit?
(12:38):
I think you know theater is oneof those fields where most
people who become interested init do theater, they perform,
they become artists.
Why decide to continue on thescholarly pursuits and the
scholarly investigation oftheater?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
That's a really great question.
So I thought of myself as anactor and as an actress and that
I was going to pursue theaterfrom that standpoint.
But it wasn't until probably mybecause my program was really
about, like my mentor and myprofessor was really about
(13:17):
funneling us into graduateprograms.
So you know, her goal was tosee us in MFA programs because
we were getting BA, Bachelor ofArts degrees, so she really
wanted to see us get terminaldegrees.
So it probably wasn't untillike once I was done with my
four and a half years at WesternMichigan that I realized that
all of my pursuits had been inthe study of theater, that I was
(13:41):
so intrigued by every aspect ofit.
I mean, I took every theaterclass that I could take.
I took scenic design, I tooklighting design, I took.
My advisor was like wow, youhave a lot of electives and I'm
like, yeah, and I'm going tokeep going too.
You know, just because I was sointrigued by it.
But it wasn't until I was donewith my program that I was like,
you know, I want to be an actorbut really I really want to
(14:04):
keep theater at the center of mylife.
Like how do I keep it, you know, if I don't decide to be an
actor, how do I still keep it aspart of it, and I think that's
where the theater studiesstarted to kind of come through.
So I made sure to pick agraduate program in my MFA that
I thought was going to kind ofgive me both of that sense so
(14:25):
that I could study acting andkind of have a very focused
understanding of acting, but italso allowed me to teach as well
.
So my last two years of mygraduate program I got a chance
to teach and really thinkingabout like pedagogy and forming
that and how that also impactedmy desire to just study theater
was also really important.
I made sure that I got to be aTA for the theater history
(14:48):
classes for the undergraduatestudents so that also kept me in
conversation with other ways ofpracticing and studying theater
and so that that became kind ofthe goal of it.
But I took a little bit of timebetween my MFA and my PhD.
I took about six years offbecause I didn't know, like my
friends had all been telling me,you know, in grad school, are
(15:09):
you going to go get a PhD?
You're such a egghead and I waslike no, no, that's really not
for me.
I'm not really because I wasreally scared of it, you know,
because a PhD means a lot andgoing into that kind of like.
My graduate program was already, you know, pretty rough in
terms of like thinking aboutracism and and and it.
(15:32):
You know it was already reallyrough.
It was really an old whiteman's club and I thought it's
probably not going to get anyeasier in a PhD program.
So I'm going to take a littlebit of time.
And then I started to enjoy filmand I started to produce film
and that way, when I and I movedto New York and I started
producing film and that kind ofoccupied a lot of my time.
But so, yeah, there was alittle bit of space of time
(15:55):
before I decided to go get thePhD, of which I realized by that
point in my life I had alreadyhad my daughter that really I
did want to teach theater andthat, for whatever that was
going to look like, that Iwanted to be able to teach
theater.
And so I pursued the PhD withalways the thought in mind of
(16:19):
keeping theater at the center ofit but also marrying that with
teaching and learning.
And how was that going toexpand.
I had no idea what my researchinterest was going to be when I
started my PhD program.
It wasn't until once I was init that that came about.
But knowing that, like the coreof me, wanted to teach and
learn and then also keep theaterat the center was really, was
(16:42):
really profound for me.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah, I love that.
So why did you?
What were some of theconsiderations that you were
thinking through as you decidedto go to Bowling Green State and
ultimately did you?
After the fact, did you feellike that was the right decision
for you?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, yeah, it was, it really was.
I thought I was going to inorder to get a PhD.
I thought I was going to haveto go back and get an MA,
because a lot of PhDs have amaster of arts in theater
studies and theater historybefore they moved to the PhD
program.
And my advisor, or my mentorfrom Western Michigan, had done
(17:24):
a lot of work with a professorwho taught at Bowling Green and
she was telling me you know, Ithink they're going to really
appreciate your practicalunderstanding of theater and
that that's a strength of yours.
And this program really doesmarry the study of theater, the
history of theater, but alsothinking about the practice of
(17:46):
it and how do you articulatethat practice through these
lenses of historiography, ofhistory and of the study of it.
And she really encouraged me toapply and I'm glad I did.
It was the right program for me.
It was actually the best programfor me because coming in I did
not have a strong background andcriticism in that way and my
(18:08):
professors were really generousin working with me.
But I had a really strongpractice skill set in that I was
an actor and I was a directorand I had worked in film and
there were a lot of things thatI could bring to the classroom
that could really help studentsnuance what they were learning
in the study of it, and so itwas definitely the right program
(18:31):
for me, because Bowling Greendoes a really good job of
marrying that skill set, and so,just like our comprehensive
exams are not just we sit downand we take an exam, it's that
we actually have to prepare aportfolio of like four or five
articles, papers that can becomearticles, and then you also
(18:52):
defend that.
You defend that portfolio ofpapers, and that was perfect for
me, because I did want thatsense of like what's the utility
of this degree?
What is it going to reallyteach me to do when I'm in the
field, when I'm actually aprofessor or for whatever?
Because a lot of people getPhDs and they don't necessarily
(19:12):
go to the classroom.
They go in a lot of differentfields and they you know.
So, yeah, so Bowling Green wasreally perfect for that that it
wasn't this traditional, youknow, sort of PhD mill that was
churning out scholars, but thatit was churning out scholars
that were also really deeplyinterested in the practice of it
(19:33):
and how the application oftheater nuances the study of it,
and so it was a.
It was a really right choice.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, this sounds kind of like you know.
I'm trying to draw an analogybetween, like professional PhDs,
like DRPH is a doctor of publichealth versus a PhD in public
health, or a a society versus aPhD in psychology and those
kinds of doctoral programs.
There is very much aconsideration of the practice of
(20:04):
the field and I had it.
I didn't realize that therewere theater PhD programs that
were framed in that way and itsounds as if this program was
exactly that.
So that's really cool.
Before we started recording,you were telling me a story
about your daughter.
And so I would love for you tospeak a little bit too.
You know, since I now know thatyou started your doctoral
(20:25):
program with a young child intow and you also, at the start
of the episode, mentioned kindof moving around to a couple of
different places, can you talk alittle bit about, you know,
your thought process of startinga PhD with a toddler and
whether, yeah, what was going onin your mind in terms of
location, in terms of supportsystems, in terms of just work,
(20:48):
life balance?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So.
It was me and my little mama.
That's that's what I call Eve.
She's my little mama for avariety of reasons.
So you know I was I wasn'tdivorced just quite yet.
I was separated when I decidedto go and get the PhD at Bowling
Green State and I also thoughtyou know, bowling Green is about
(21:12):
an hour and a half from Detroitwhere my brother lives with his
family so I thought I gotfamily.
That's also a great program too, because I also have family
that's close by and my mom withthe time was in Texas.
So I was separated and I didn'tquite have a divorce yet
because I didn't know if thatwas going to be in the cards.
But when we moved to BowlingGreen, it was just me and Eve.
(21:36):
It was me and my little mama.
And when I finally did decidethat a divorce was going to be
the best, like permanentseparation was going to be the
best, I remember like havingthis like dreaded feeling of no,
we really are alone, like wedon't have any support.
It's just me and her, and whilemy brother is an hour and a
(21:56):
half away in this space, it's meand her and she relies on me
and she needs me to be the kindof mother that prioritizes her,
and that was a challenge in aPhD program which really is set
up to prioritize the work.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And so trying to find the balance in that was really
was really tough, but we figuredit out.
There was a lot of struggle butthere was also a lot of fun in
that too, of going, of having.
So I have two stories for youactually.
(22:38):
So the first story is that myprogram was incredibly
supportive of me having a child.
I mean really supportive, likeI could bring Eve to class if I
absolutely needed to.
There was professors likeGoddard that I was a parent and
that that was really importantto me.
But there was this one timewhere it was just a rush.
(23:01):
Evie's daycare was closed forthe day and she was about two
and a half, she was about three,two and a half three years old
and she I stopped at McDonald's,picked up McDonald's.
She likes the big breakfastwith the hotcakes, so I got that
some syrup.
I brought it there.
My idea was that Evie was goingto stay in the kitchenette
(23:22):
because we have a kitchen areaat my, at my former institution.
We have a kitchen area.
So she's going to stay in thekitchen area, eat her breakfast
and then I'm going to check onher when we have a break and
make sure she's okay.
But she's going to hang outhere.
She's got like a little device,I think, at the Kindle at the
time.
So I say, wait here, I'll beright back, I'm just going to
put my stuff down.
(23:43):
I come back and Evie is coveredin syrup.
She had opened up the syrup onher own because she thinks she
know everything, which is whyshe's a little mama.
She pours the syrup and gets itall over herself and I'm just
and she's standing in thekitchen crying, oh.
And my one of my professorswalked by and saw us and she
(24:05):
looks at me and she says go toclass, I got this.
And I was like are you sure?
She was like I got this, I'm amom, I get it.
You go to class.
Me and her are going to hangout here.
And she cleaned Evie up.
I came back out for my breakand her and Evie were sitting
there laughing and chatting andtalking.
She had cleaned up Evie andthat's one of the examples of
(24:28):
like support there that you knowthey.
They had my back in a lot ofways.
And then I got boy, I hadanother story and I just I just
lost it, but, but, but, but,yeah.
So that's an example of justlike that sense of support and
feeling like, you know, we wereon our own, but really, in
(24:49):
reality, we did have.
We did have some support and,yeah, I wasn't able to go to all
the parties that I wanted to goto, but it was cool, you know,
like it was me and little mama.
Oh, I got this story.
Okay, so this is my story andI'm we're going to keep going.
I'm tell all these stories.
(25:10):
I was working on the.
I did an ethnography.
My dissertation was anethnographic dissertation that
married theater, ethnography andand performativity.
So I had to go into the field alot in order to do it and if I
went to the field, evie was withme.
So she was little mama was withme.
One night I'm working on, youknow, collect, like going
(25:34):
through interviews, and it'sit's late, and Evie's like mama,
it's time to go to bed.
And I'm like okay, evie, I'mgoing to be there in just a
minute, just, I'm going to bethere in just a minute.
She's like no, mama is time forbed.
I was like I said I will cometo you in a moment.
She says, mommy, my, your bedtwo minutes right now.
(25:58):
And she goes up the stairs andstumps up the stairs and I'm
like okay, time to work away andgo get in the bed because
Evie's like I, really I'm readyfor my cuddle.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Wow, not her giving you a bedtime, but I mean.
I love that accountabilitybecause it's so often that we
like want to keep on grindingand it's not good for our health
, it's not good for ourwellbeing and it definitely
especially if you're caring forother people.
You can't care for otherseffectively if you're sleep
deprived.
So she was like no ma'am youneed to go to sleep, I love it.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
So what were some of the other high point successes
and some of the challenges thatyou experienced during your
doctoral journey?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Um, let's see some high points was is that even in
my you know, my, my well, twothings.
So even in my sort of lack ofunderstanding always of
understanding of the criticismpart the theater criticism part
it never stopped my desire toengage in that way and to think
(27:12):
about it from my practiceoriented perspectives.
And one of the highest pointswas that I even won an award for
one of my papers that Idelivered.
I won this $500 award and thisI think I actually.
I think I actually have the.
I can't get it right now, but Ihave the plaque that they gave
(27:32):
me.
But a low point on in that wasthat I couldn't go to the
presentation because I had Evieand I didn't want to bring her.
You know, she needed to dressnicely for it.
I just didn't have the money toget her anything nice to wear,
and so I was.
I missed the, I missed thepresentation for it because I
(27:52):
had, you know, my little mama,and so so I think the sort of
balancing of, like, the factthat I'm able to have these kind
of conversations and I'm braveenough to do this work, was
really encouraging.
But there were moments where,you know, I just couldn't, you
know, I just couldn't be atcertain places because I had you
(28:14):
know, I had, I had a child, Ihave a child and that's that's
necessary.
Probably another low point I'dhave to say was that I really
wanted to write my dissertationabout Zora, no Hurston.
I really wanted to write itabout Zora, no Hurston, but I
struggled with the rightmentorship to be able to make
(28:35):
that happen.
I didn't have any scholars inmy program that were as familiar
with thinking about blackwomanhood because that's what I
was interested in is, thinkingabout black womanhood in her
texts and I just didn't havethat kind of mentorship
available.
But what I did have wasmentorship and ethnography and a
(28:56):
lot of my professors wereethnographers themselves and
were were in performance andthinking about anthropology and
a lot of that way.
So I ended up writing mydissertation about about that.
But yeah, so that's probablylike a pretty low point was the
discovery that that wasn't gonnahappen and I was gonna have to
(29:17):
put Zora on the back burner waspretty that that was hard, that
was hard to take but the I wasgonna say, but the I mean.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
The one of the benefits of being a scholar and
being trained in this work isthat the work it just continues
like.
Once you get your doctoraldegree, you can continue to do
research, you can continue to dowork.
My little mama is talking to usnow.
I have one quick question beforewe kind of get into your life
postdoctoral, postdoctoral, andthis just came to me as you were
(29:54):
talking about theater criticism.
Theater is an industry wherecriticism is baked into the work
, and so is academia, and Ithink that something that some
one of the many things thatoften folks who are not familiar
and don't know a lot of peoplewho get a doctoral degree are
(30:16):
surprised by is the kind offeedback you get on written work
.
You know, when you submit anarticle and it just comes back
rejected.
So I would love if you couldkind of speak to, if at all and
if in.
If so, in which ways did thefield of theater prepare you,
(30:37):
the criticism that is embedded,that culture of criticism that
is embedded in theater, how didthat prepare you to navigate
getting feedback and criticismon your scholarly work?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
um, that's a really great question.
So I think that my program dida good job in preparing us for
that kind of engagement throughthrough like active,
participatory ways.
So for example, in one of myclasses, scott Moggleson he's
now at Washington University ofWashington.
(31:11):
He was at the time the editorfor a journal, for the Journal
of Dramatic Theater, I think hewas.
I quite remember JCT.
Anyway, he was the journalmanaging editor and he was like
guess what?
I'm gonna teach you a littlebit about how to manage a
journal.
We're doing that this semesterand it was supposed to be a
(31:32):
theater methods class, so kindof fit in that method ease kind
of way.
But through that we got to readpapers and adjudicate papers
and really learn and reallyspeak the language of critical
thought.
Critical thinking and being ableto help usher of author through
their thinking and their ideasabout a particular topic, and
(31:56):
that was really rewarding ishaving that sense of reading
other people's work and I mean,like you know, fairly big
scholars who were writing to thejournal and submitting articles
to the journal really did helpus prepare for how to think
about our own work through thesecritical lenses and so I'm
really great it was, it was.
(32:17):
It was challenging work but I'mreally grateful for it because
it prepared me certainly rightnow I, as a managing editor for
my, for our journal, to reallyengage in that kind of
thought-provoking, thosethought-provoking ways of other
people's scholarship that then Iget to weigh in on in that way.
(32:37):
So I felt like of the programdid a good job of at least this
professor did a really good jobof introducing us to criticism
by looking at other people'swork and being able to respond
in that in a, in a way that wasgenerative for the, for the
author.
So it wasn't in this way oflike I am the critic, you know
(32:58):
it's, it's my job to, you know,glean your work through these,
through these lenses that aren'tthat are more self-serving for
me as it is for you.
But the idea of gift givingthat it was really about gift
giving, that my feedback to anauthor helped an author nuance
(33:18):
their thinking about somethingthat was really like giving a
gift to them and then in andthen I also received something
in return when an authorresubmitted a paper for for
further feedback and inclusionin the journal.
So that was, if that answersthe question, I think does?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
yeah, it does, and I think that that framework of
feedback as a gift is powerfuland a really great reframing for
folks who struggle to receivefeedback, who kind of hold on to
their scholarship and theirwork because they're afraid of
sending it out until it'sperfect.
So they get positive feedback.
Sorry, I really like I'm gladyou shared that anecdote.
(34:00):
So now I want to talk aboutyour life and work post PhD.
So, as you mentioned, zoraNeale Hurston's work is really
significant to you.
You wanted to study her workwhile you were doing your
doctorate.
Didn't get to do it to the end,but you were able to do it
after.
How does her theatrical workresonate with your exploration
(34:21):
of black womanhood and intersectwith your anthropological and
ethnographic research?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
oh, wow, that's a I all these great questions.
I tell you, though, if you givea, if you give a scholar an
opportunity to stand on theirplatform, we'll take it.
So box will take it.
So my fascination was or no,for Hurston first came out of my
graduate program, where I tooka class in theatrical modernism,
(34:48):
or American modernism, thatlooked at, you know, plays,
reframe them, reframe theseplays through this very
theatrical lens, and Zora NealeHurston was one of the scholars
that were part of that.
I didn't even know she wroteplays until I took that class
and discovered that she hadwritten a lot of plays and in a
(35:09):
lot of ways, theater wasactually going to, because at
the time period, theater wasgonna save the race and a lot of
ways a lot of artists of thattime period, of the early of the
new Negro period and of theearly Harlem Renaissance in the
early 20th century, really didfeel like theater was gonna save
the race, and Hurston was not,was not immune to that, actually
(35:29):
believed that as well andattempted through her theatrical
work to paint a story and tella story about black, southern
black folks and their own, fromtheir own perspectives, and so
her anthropological work and herethnographic work really
attempts to.
It's actually quite joined inthat by having this beautiful,
(35:52):
rich ethnographic work, in thisanthropological work, the
theater helps realize that.
It helps realize that foraudiences and while Hurston, I
think, was attempting to writetowards black audiences so that
black people could seethemselves in these, in these,
in these ways and reallyunderstand self and identity, a
(36:15):
lot of funding came from whitepeople, and so I think that
there is a little bit of twofoldin terms of audiences, of how
it is that audiences reallyreceived.
Hurston's work was from thisyou sort of white gaze, but also
to from the black gaze as welland people who identified with
those cultures, kind of like howwe see gospel plays today.
(36:37):
You know, if you've ever seen agospel play, it's definitely
has a lot of Christianundertones I'd say Christian
overtones as part of them, butthey also speak to culture and
they speak to black culture andHurston moved in that same kind
of way.
So so, yeah, so I think, interms of my own investigations
(37:00):
of her work, that blackwomanhood appears as a stark
contrast to black malehood, toblack men, in the play, in these
plays, and a lot of times blackwomen are arguing for one
aspect of identity.
And then black men are oftenarguing for something, for
(37:22):
something different, but theyfind a way in her place to meet
in the middle.
They don't always agree, butthey find a way to resolve some
kind of conflict or come fromsome kind of position.
And so I'm really intrigued bythat intersection of of gender
and identity, where black womenare professing a lot of the
(37:45):
desire to be looked at as humanand is treated as human beings
and not as objects, and sonegotiating that, while at the
same time they are also indomestichood, thinking about
being mothers, thinking aboutbeing wives.
One of my favorite moments in aplay, one of Hersta's plays, the
(38:06):
Turkey and the Law, is at thevery beginning of Act Two, where
these women in the communityare talking about what's needed
for their community, what'sneeded for the men to understand
themselves, while at the sametime talking about cooking and
cooking for their men.
And so it's really complicatedin that either professing a
(38:26):
sense of self by talking aboutthe needs of the community and
what needs to happen in orderfor the conflict to be resolved,
but at the same time they'relike I gotta go make dinner,
because you know, if so-and-sodoesn't have dinner on the table
, there's gonna be trouble.
So that really complication isvery interesting for me, and so
(38:47):
I'm currently and I'm hopingthat it's kind of like one of
those lifelong loves.
I do a lot of things in thetheater but I'm kind of hoping
that Hersta is one of mylifelong loves, that I'll
constantly be revisiting herplays because there's just so
many juicy bits that are part ofit, but that I'll always be
(39:09):
sort of coming back to it inthose ways.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
So I have just a few more questions as we start to
wind down.
I want, I'm dying to hear aboutyour solo performance work.
Can you talk about some of theissues that you address in your
solo work?
Why even do solo work asopposed to I don't know if the
opposite of solo work now thatI'm saying it, I'm like I don't
she don't know the appropriatetheatrical term for non-solo
(39:36):
work but what inspired you to dosolo performance work and what
are some of the main issues andconflicts and themes that you
tend to address in your soloperformances?
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Oh, yeah, this is.
You guys got all these greatquestions.
This is so awesome.
Okay, so my interest?
So I have a certificate inperformance studies from my
institution and so a lot of myprofessors spent a time doing
ethnographic work and connectingit to theater and particularly
(40:13):
theatrical practice.
And so, working on mydissertation, it kind of opened
the door for me, for how could Iexpress the complicated
feelings and the complicatedinterpretations of black
identity that's explored in mydissertation?
How could that be actualized?
How can, similar to ZorinAl-Herson, how can what I was
(40:36):
learning in the field beeffectively understood through
the body?
And so how does the body becomethis space and this become this
apparatus for nuancingidentities, particularly black
female identities?
And so I began to sort of museabout the notion of solo
performance.
Solo performance is incrediblytheatrical.
(41:00):
It's storytelling, and a verytheatrical from a very
theatrical standpoint, with theability of which for the
performer to connect withaudience and recognize that
through the process ofstorytelling, there's a
theatrical element, that there'sa connection to audience, and a
very direct connection toaudience, as opposed to in scene
(41:20):
work, where there's a directconnection to the other, knowing
that you are being watchedthrough another kind of lens.
So it's two sort of separate,different spaces and so I was
really interested in the soloperformance component of it.
And then auto ethnography reallycame about in my graduate
(41:41):
experience too, in writing aboutauto ethnography and really
thinking about what does it meanto be reflexive in how it is
that really performance, autoethnography?
So how to be sort of thinkingreflexively about self in these
very theatrical sort ofperformative ways, so
(42:03):
acknowledging that performance,identity and theatrical
storytelling can existsimultaneously to tell a larger
story about what's happening inthe world and making larger
connections between self andlarger issues that are happening
(42:23):
.
And so my solo autoethnographic work really
attempts to respond to that.
And because of the time when Iwas in graduate school I was
really thinking about blackmotherhood and a lot of those
spaces, my writing of my soloauto ethnographic work really
took shape there.
I was really intrigued.
(42:45):
One of my very first pieces wascalled Blunt Force Trauma is
called Blunt Force Trauma, whereI was really intrigued by how
it is that a mother could hurther child.
I had taken, I had learnedabout a story of a black woman
who had murdered her son becausehe had thrown a Wii controller,
(43:07):
a remote controller, a videogame controller into a
television, to their television,and so she beat him to death.
And yeah, it was very tragic.
She had beat him to death andthe thing was is she waited five
days in their apartment for himto die.
And the whole time she doesn'tthe whole thinking of it I think
(43:29):
her processing of it is thatshe doesn't think he's that bad,
and she was also.
When she was caught by thepolice and arrested and
incarcerated, she told the judgethat she was afraid and that
she was scared that she wasgoing to get in trouble.
And we talk about a 19 year oldmother of two who was a parent,
(43:54):
and so I was really intrigued bythat idea about how could there
be empathy and compassion forsomeone who could do something
so horrible to another humanbeing, also their child.
And so that intersection ofjust finding empathy I felt like
solo auto ethnographicperformance gave me a way to
(44:15):
look through my own life and howI was parenting my own child,
because we really don't know asparents if we're doing a good
job.
We listen to what our eldersand our ancestors tell us about
parenting, but we don't know wecould be causing harm.
We could be doing harm.
So I wanted a way to negotiatethat and I felt like solo auto
(44:42):
ethnographic performance gave methe platform and really gave me
the lens to be able tocritically understand how it was
that I how was my relationshipto my daughter?
Sort of sort of a dance, howwas my relationship to my
(45:02):
daughter really impactfulcompared to this woman who had
had a relationship with her sonin this way?
And so I say all that to saythat soul auto ethnographic
performance really does open upspaces of empathy and really the
exploration of humanness inthat.
So when you're connecting a veryhot topic to thinking about
(45:26):
self, it opens up the door for alot of conversations that
audiences can have with eachother, that audiences can have
with the performer.
So always making sure that anyof my performances I have talk
backs so it gets the audiencetalking about what it is that I
did is really important andreally valuable.
So it becomes this beautiful wayof expression.
(45:47):
That's also this way oflearning and navigating how we
know and what we know and so,yeah, so I feel very privileged
to do that kind of work, becausethere's a lot of troubling ways
that you can get caught up inself and forget that the work
(46:09):
really is for a larger audienceand we learn something in that
larger audience which I thinkseparates the work of like,
let's say, richard Pryor, who Ialso think is a very compelling
solo performance artist, in thework of John Leguizamo and
wanting to talk about hisculture.
(46:31):
Puerto Norican culture is soloperformance in a way that is
attempting to tell a story, butwhen you add the auto
ethnographic component we beginto learn something about
ourselves and about thecommunities at which we are part
of, and the audience also getsthat as well.
(46:51):
So again about this giftexchange I'm all about
exchanging gifts, y'all thisbeautiful exchanging of gifts
that happen when we combine andreally think through solo auto
ethnographic performance.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
I am just like so intrigued by all.
This is so different from mywork and really anything I'm
familiar with.
So I am like really curious.
I'm going to scour the internetand figure out how we can find
some of your work and some ofyour performances and we'll drop
whatever we find in the shownotes so that anyone else
listening can also betterunderstand and hopefully be able
(47:26):
to experience some of whatyou're talking about, that gift
exchange of the autoethnographic work from the actor
, the performer to the audience.
It just sounds so fascinating,so I'm really excited to delve
in a little bit more deeply.
Final two questions as youreflect on your doctoral journey
, what's one thing that youwould do differently if you had
to do it all over again?
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Oh, yeah, okay.
So if I had to do it all overagain, I was going to a lot of
conferences when I was agraduate student and I think if
I had to do it all over again, Iwould have involved myself and
more theater groups that werethat had like strong, like I
don't want to say strong, butjust had more black women as
(48:12):
part of like, as part of thoseconversations.
So being able to, you know, goto ATHAs, association for
Theater and Higher Education,which is really expensive to go
to and connecting with the BlackTheater Association there, bta,
where there are a lot of blackwomen who occupy a lot of those
(48:34):
spaces, and so just being ableto, you know, do more to make
those connections.
And if I, and if not, like,finding ways that I could
facilitate that kind ofengagement with black female
scholars in the field, you know,I think if I had, you know, had
sort of know what I know nowand could go back, I would
definitely want to do that kindof work.
(48:57):
And right now I'm reallyinterested in creating those
enclaves of black women who cansupport one another black women
in theater, particularly blackwomen in theater in the academy
that can support one another andthink about, like the process
for tenure, and thinking aboutlike how do we advance ourselves
(49:17):
in a you know, I'm not going tolie very white supremacist,
like spaces that the academyoften they become, they often
are, they often are, and so howdo we support one another in our
journeys and our collectivejourneys and our individual ways
that we want to study andpractice and think critically
(49:39):
about theater is something thatI definitely wish I had had in
my graduate journey, for sure.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
That makes a lot of sense.
And last question what is onefinal piece of advice that you
have for current black women andnon binary doctoral students,
perhaps, especially those whoare in the humanities and the
arts?
What's some advice that youhave for them?
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Okay.
So I know you asked me for one,but I got to.
My first thing is is that, asblack folks, we need a plan.
We need a plan of actionbecause folks will tell us you
know why.
(50:24):
Folks will tell us what that,what our scholarship should look
like and the kind ofcommunities that we should be
working with and thinking about,especially as you move in the
tenure process.
So having a clear plan, a clearset of goals of what you intend
(50:46):
to accomplish with your degreewhile you're in your program is
going to be paramount.
Making sure that, as you aregoal planning and goal setting,
you're also thinking about yourown life and what is
accomplishable.
If you've got children, ifyou've got, you know a partner
or a spouse.
If you've got, you know yourcaretaker for your own, for your
(51:09):
parents, for your families, youknow what is.
How are those goals going to bealigned in that way so that, in
a lot of ways, no one can tellyou what your degree is going to
do and what you are going to do, but that you have clearly
paved a way that is accessibleto you, that takes into account
the struggle because there isstruggle, there is always
(51:32):
struggle, so that you stay sane,you know.
You know nobody gonna tell youyou crazy.
You know like you've got aclear path.
So that's my, that's my firstone.
My second one is that get a life.
Get a life that is not in theacademy, get a life that is
(51:53):
filled with folks that careabout you, that love you the
most in your life I had.
I had a.
One of my, one of my friends inmy cohort said you know,
graduate school really makes youan asshole Because you forget
you're.
We're working so hard that weforget that we have families and
(52:14):
so, no, no, a life like,imagine a life like.
Get a community, be part of acommunity, create this was one
of the best things I ever wentto was a sister soul group of
black women who can sit in spacewith one another and meditate
and talk and journal and justreflect on life.
(52:35):
And it's your space.
So a sister soul circle is agreat, great spaces, because
they also not only do they reifyyour commitment to a beautiful
community of black women, but italso reifies who you are and
what it is that you, what it isthat you need in order to get
(52:55):
you through your program orthrough your first tenure, track
position or through justthrough the academy.
So I would definitely say havea have a plan, a goal, a path
that aligns with your own goalsin your life, and then get a
life.
Have friends, call your parents,call your, your aunties and
your uncles and the people whocare the most about you.
(53:17):
Keep them in contact becauseI'll tell you they are
supporting you, they are behindyou, they love you and they care
about you and they got yourback and so recognizing that you
are not alone, that's, that'ssome good that's.
I'm gonna call that some goodadvice, it's really good advice.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
That is a fantastic advice have a plan and get a
life.
Thank you so much, dr Gibbs,for sharing so much of your own
doctoral journey, your work,your interests, your research,
as well as really criticaladvice for our listeners.
We're really excited to havehad you on the Coversus's
podcast.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Yes, yes, I am grateful.
Thank you so much for this gift.
I am very grateful to you.
Much love to y'all.
I appreciate you so much, DrCola.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Thank you again for listening to this week's episode
of the Cohort Sisters podcast.
If you are a black womaninterested in joining the Cohort
Sisters membership community oryou're looking for more
information on how to support orpartner with Cohort Sisters,
please visit our website atwwwcohortsistuscom.
You can also find us on allsocial media platforms at Cohort
(54:37):
Sisters.
Don't forget to subscribe tothe Cohort Sisters podcast and
leave us a quick review whereveryou're listening.
Thank you so much for joiningus this week and we'll catch you
in next week's episode.
Welcome to the Cohort SysSys podcast, where we give
voice to the stories, strugglesand successes of Black women and
non-binary folks with doctoraldegrees.
I'm your host, dr Yama Cola,and today I'm really honored to
have a conversation with DrMichelle Gibbs, an expert in the
fields of theater, academia andsolo performance, dr Gibbs
(00:25):
brings a blend of scholarshipand creativity to the podcast
today.
Dr Michelle Gibbs received aPhD in theater, with a graduate
certificate in performancestudies from Bowling Green State
University, and her researchspans Black performativity and
critical identity studies,delving into the intersections
of race, gender and performance.
(00:45):
Her insightful exploration ofZora Neale-Hurston's theater
work has reshaped ourunderstanding of Southern Black
community's resilience.
Dr Gibbs fearlessly navigateschallenging themes as a solo
performer, using her body as acanvas for thought provoking
narratives.
Thank you so much for joiningus on the podcast, dr Gibbs, and
thank you for your grace.
(01:06):
We had some technicaldifficulties I'm holding a baby
Like it was a struggle to getthis started, but we're started,
so thank you so much for beinghere.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yes, thank you so much for having me.
I'm very, very grateful and soexcited to chat All right, so
tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Where are you from?
I currently live in.
Where are some of the thingsthat you like to do when you're
not performing or doing research?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Great question.
So I am originally from Detroit, michigan.
I've been a lot of places sinceI've been to Detroit.
I lived in California for alittle bit.
That's where I got my master'sdegree at the MFA in acting from
University of California,irvine.
So I lived there for a littlebit.
I lived near Western Michiganfor a little bit.
I lived in New Orleans for alittle bit.
(01:50):
When you're a scholar you kindof go where the job takes you.
But most recently I came fromMinnesota, where that was my
last teaching position, and nowI live in Central Illinois,
which is about two and a halfhours south, about two hours
south of Chicago, and I teachtheater at Illinois Wesleyan
(02:16):
University Nice.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And before we got caught off, you were telling me
all about your gaming life.
To be honest, I don't envisionyou as a gamer, so you are
definitely shifting mystereotypes and my narrative of
what a gamer looks like.
So what are some of yourfavorite games and how does I'm
curious does gaming haveanything to do with your love
for theater?
Are they completely separate,or are they?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
related they are, I don't know.
I probably am a very theatricalperson and I find video games
to be very theatrical in thestyle of storytelling and the
ability to bring folks inthrough story.
So it probably has a little bitof element.
But my whole thing is like toescape.
You know, I like Marvel moviesbecause I get the opportunity to
(03:04):
escape into another world whereI don't have to think, be
constantly thinking about andlike figuring out, like self and
teaching and things like that.
So yeah, I like to.
I like to game as a way to sortof escape into someone else's
story, where it takes a littlebit of the pressure off of me to
(03:24):
be who I am.
But I'm playing right now.
I play a lot of different games, but right now I'm playing
Tears of the Kingdom Legend ofZelda, tears of the Kingdom,
which is a fabulous game.
I'm sure everybody knows aboutit because it's been like on
YouTube and everything.
But I'm playing that right nowand that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, I was.
I'm one of those people who,like, never got the video game
wave.
My parents immigrant parentswere just like you're wasting
your time, you're not likethat's just not.
It was not a function of mychildhood and I feel like I just
missed the wave, like ifthere's no fiber of my being
that is interested in picking upa console.
Like I feel like I don't havethe anti-coordination, but I
(04:07):
admire people who make that apart of their life and, like you
said, as a way to escape.
I've never heard anyone frameit like that, but it sounds like
it's a really great hobby andelement of your well-being and
self-care, so I love that foryou.
So let's talk about your lovefor the theatrics.
When did you first becomeinterested in performance in
(04:30):
theater, in otherworldly things,the extraordinary play?
Tell us a little bit about theroots of that for you.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah.
So actually I didn't getstarted into theater until like
late.
You know, a lot of the peoplethat I interact with started
doing theater when they werelike three and four.
I just didn't have that luxuryor no, or that desire.
To be honest, I think I did aplay in high school because I
was trying to get close to adude and he liked theater.
(05:01):
So I joined, like, the theaterclub because I just wanted to be
close to him but had no realinterest in it.
So I was actually interested inaviation science and I wanted
to become an air trafficcontroller in the Air Force.
So my recruiter said the bestway to get to that is to go to
(05:23):
college, get a degree, thenenlist and then you get more
money, you get a better rank,etc.
So I said, oh, I'll go toWestern Michigan University
because they had one of the topaviation programs in the state.
So I started there.
My advisor was like take thistheater class.
(05:43):
I have a lot of recruits thatcome through and they take this
theater class.
It's a really easy A and youknow you get to.
You know sort of move on fromthere because you need it as a
Gen Ed.
And I'm like, okay, sure, I'lltake the theater class, whatever
.
I started in the theater classand my advisor was wrong.
It was not an easy A, it was sohard, it was hard as heck.
(06:05):
But I fell in love with thismedium of expression and I never
really thought that that's whatmy life needed, was that kind
of like.
I was talking about videogaming as that escape.
But I never thought that mylife needed that kind of
interest in that kind ofexpression before.
And I was really intrigued bythe readings by the professor,
(06:29):
who was a very animated person,probably kind of got me started
in the ways I teach now and mypedagogy, but just was a really,
you know, fantastic teacher.
And it was one of those classesthat they kind of like kind of
farmed you into it and made youwork on their shows.
So I was like I'm reallyinterested.
(06:50):
So a props position came upwhere in the props you basically
build, you know, set pieces andyou build utilities that the
actors will use in theperformance.
And I got to run props for ashow called Flyin' West by Pearl
Cleige and it's a play aboutthese beautiful black women who
are, you know, landowners andare really, really attempting to
(07:14):
carve out a path for themselves.
And I was offstage and they putme in a costume because I kind
of had to look like I was beingthe part as I was carrying props
on stage, and I just fell inlove.
I was like this is it.
I figured it out.
So I started at the back of theclass, in this huge auditorium
with almost 60 to 80 people inthe classroom, to the very front
(07:37):
row, and just my love oftheater just sprung from that
sense of the curiosity, theexpression, the ability to
engage with humaneness in thatway.
So I changed my major.
My mom cried.
My mom was like you're going tobe broke for the rest of your
life and you know, needless tosay, she's not crying now.
(08:00):
I can't say I'm the richestperson in the world, but you
know she's not crying anymore.
But she bawled at IHOP of allplaces because I thought I'd
tell her in a public spot I'mchanging my major.
And she was like woo, I neverseen my mother weep before, but
she weeped in IHOP y'all.
(08:21):
But yeah, so I changed my major.
I became a BA in theaterperformance.
It's now a BFA program now, butI was a BA in theater
performance and I spent, becauseI was only there in my program
before for about half a semester, about a semester, and so I
(08:41):
ended up having to stay an extrasemester.
So it was there four and a halfsemesters, four and a half
years, and just loved every,every bit of it, just every bit
of it.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
I'm curious what do you think?
To what extent was the actualplay that you were studying and
working on, the firstperformance, being a story about
black women?
Did that have anything to dowith your falling in love with
the field, with the art?
Do you think that you wouldhave maybe had that same
(09:13):
trajectory if you were workingon some I don't know, the great
Gatsby or something else thatdoesn't kind of center our
stories?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, I don't think so.
I don't think I would have hadthe same kind of urge.
The professor was really cleverin that.
I don't know if it was clever,but he was just really intrigued
.
He was an older white man buthe was really intrigued by like
black theater and he talkedabout the Lion King and I had
never I mean I saw the movie,but he talked about the Lion
(09:41):
King on Broadway and a few othershows.
He included in that Raisin' inthe Sun, a few others, and I
think working on Flying West wasan eye-opening experience.
I had kind of discovered myqueerness as well in that
process.
But I think there was somethingabout watching these I mean,
(10:03):
they were really talented blackwomen who were freely emoting in
these very vulnerable spacesthat I thought to myself I think
I can do that, I think I cangive of myself and I think that
there's a way that I can havepermission to be vulnerable in
(10:23):
these very public spaces,because the way I grew up, we
don't really cry in public, wereally don't.
We kind of hold ourselves withthe decorum as black people
because we recognize that whitepeople are always watching us
and so there's a kind of acultural understanding about how
performance and performativityoccupy spaces of identity in at
(10:47):
least in my culture, in my blackculture.
So when I found out that therewas this theater, this
expression, this form ofexpression, and that black
people were doing it, I was likeoh wow, maybe that's permission
for me to engage in that kindof way, and I always thought I
was going to find my Flying Westmoment.
(11:10):
So I thought I was going to besome ways in that same
particular space again and, likea drug, it was so intriguing to
me that I had always sought outthat kind of opportunity to be
in space with black women andthose kind of theatrical
standpoints.
And I don't know if I've everactually since watching Flying
(11:34):
West, if I've actually been inthat kind of cohort of
expression in that way oftheatrical performance, in that
way.
But it doesn't stop my yearningfor that and my ability to work
with other black women inspaces that I also want to
create that same kind of energyfrom.
(11:54):
But I don't know if I ever like, if it was something like the
Great Gatsby or, you know, likeJulius Caesar, of which I
actually really love JuliusCaesar, shakespeare's Julius
Caesar I don't know if I wouldhave had the same kind of
compellingness to it.
Yeah, I think there was a lotof things going on in my
identity at that time andrecognizing my sexuality at that
time that really caught me.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, and this, my friends, is why it is important
to have diverse curricula at theundergraduate level.
This is not a testament why Idon't know what is so you fell
in love with theater in thisclass that you were told to take
because it was an easy A onyour way to aviation school.
Why go on and continue to studyit?
(12:38):
I think you know theater is oneof those fields where most
people who become interested init do theater, they perform,
they become artists.
Why decide to continue on thescholarly pursuits and the
scholarly investigation oftheater?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
That's a really great question.
So I thought of myself as anactor and as an actress and that
I was going to pursue theaterfrom that standpoint.
But it wasn't until probably mybecause my program was really
about, like my mentor and myprofessor was really about
(13:17):
funneling us into graduateprograms.
So you know, her goal was tosee us in MFA programs because
we were getting BA, Bachelor ofArts degrees, so she really
wanted to see us get terminaldegrees.
So it probably wasn't untillike once I was done with my
four and a half years at WesternMichigan that I realized that
all of my pursuits had been inthe study of theater, that I was
(13:41):
so intrigued by every aspect ofit.
I mean, I took every theaterclass that I could take.
I took scenic design, I tooklighting design, I took.
My advisor was like wow, youhave a lot of electives and I'm
like, yeah, and I'm going tokeep going too.
You know, just because I was sointrigued by it.
But it wasn't until I was donewith my program that I was like,
you know, I want to be an actorbut really I really want to
(14:04):
keep theater at the center of mylife.
Like how do I keep it, you know, if I don't decide to be an
actor, how do I still keep it aspart of it, and I think that's
where the theater studiesstarted to kind of come through.
So I made sure to pick agraduate program in my MFA that
I thought was going to kind ofgive me both of that sense so
(14:25):
that I could study acting andkind of have a very focused
understanding of acting, but italso allowed me to teach as well
.
So my last two years of mygraduate program I got a chance
to teach and really thinkingabout like pedagogy and forming
that and how that also impactedmy desire to just study theater
was also really important.
I made sure that I got to be aTA for the theater history
(14:48):
classes for the undergraduatestudents so that also kept me in
conversation with other ways ofpracticing and studying theater
and so that that became kind ofthe goal of it.
But I took a little bit of timebetween my MFA and my PhD.
I took about six years offbecause I didn't know, like my
friends had all been telling me,you know, in grad school, are
(15:09):
you going to go get a PhD?
You're such a egghead and I waslike no, no, that's really not
for me.
I'm not really because I wasreally scared of it, you know,
because a PhD means a lot andgoing into that kind of like.
My graduate program was already, you know, pretty rough in
terms of like thinking aboutracism and and and it.
(15:32):
You know it was already reallyrough.
It was really an old whiteman's club and I thought it's
probably not going to get anyeasier in a PhD program.
So I'm going to take a littlebit of time.
And then I started to enjoy filmand I started to produce film
and that way, when I and I movedto New York and I started
producing film and that kind ofoccupied a lot of my time.
But so, yeah, there was alittle bit of space of time
(15:55):
before I decided to go get thePhD, of which I realized by that
point in my life I had alreadyhad my daughter that really I
did want to teach theater andthat, for whatever that was
going to look like, that Iwanted to be able to teach
theater.
And so I pursued the PhD withalways the thought in mind of
(16:19):
keeping theater at the center ofit but also marrying that with
teaching and learning.
And how was that going toexpand.
I had no idea what my researchinterest was going to be when I
started my PhD program.
It wasn't until once I was init that that came about.
But knowing that, like the coreof me, wanted to teach and
learn and then also keep theaterat the center was really, was
(16:42):
really profound for me.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah, I love that.
So why did you?
What were some of theconsiderations that you were
thinking through as you decidedto go to Bowling Green State and
ultimately did you?
After the fact, did you feellike that was the right decision
for you?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, yeah, it was, it really was.
I thought I was going to inorder to get a PhD.
I thought I was going to haveto go back and get an MA,
because a lot of PhDs have amaster of arts in theater
studies and theater historybefore they moved to the PhD
program.
And my advisor, or my mentorfrom Western Michigan, had done
(17:24):
a lot of work with a professorwho taught at Bowling Green and
she was telling me you know, Ithink they're going to really
appreciate your practicalunderstanding of theater and
that that's a strength of yours.
And this program really doesmarry the study of theater, the
history of theater, but alsothinking about the practice of
(17:46):
it and how do you articulatethat practice through these
lenses of historiography, ofhistory and of the study of it.
And she really encouraged me toapply and I'm glad I did.
It was the right program for me.
It was actually the best programfor me because coming in I did
not have a strong background andcriticism in that way and my
(18:08):
professors were really generousin working with me.
But I had a really strongpractice skill set in that I was
an actor and I was a directorand I had worked in film and
there were a lot of things thatI could bring to the classroom
that could really help studentsnuance what they were learning
in the study of it, and so itwas definitely the right program
(18:31):
for me, because Bowling Greendoes a really good job of
marrying that skill set, and so,just like our comprehensive
exams are not just we sit downand we take an exam, it's that
we actually have to prepare aportfolio of like four or five
articles, papers that can becomearticles, and then you also
(18:52):
defend that.
You defend that portfolio ofpapers, and that was perfect for
me, because I did want thatsense of like what's the utility
of this degree?
What is it going to reallyteach me to do when I'm in the
field, when I'm actually aprofessor or for whatever?
Because a lot of people getPhDs and they don't necessarily
(19:12):
go to the classroom.
They go in a lot of differentfields and they you know.
So, yeah, so Bowling Green wasreally perfect for that that it
wasn't this traditional, youknow, sort of PhD mill that was
churning out scholars, but thatit was churning out scholars
that were also really deeplyinterested in the practice of it
(19:33):
and how the application oftheater nuances the study of it,
and so it was a.
It was a really right choice.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, this sounds kind of like you know.
I'm trying to draw an analogybetween, like professional PhDs,
like DRPH is a doctor of publichealth versus a PhD in public
health, or a a society versus aPhD in psychology and those
kinds of doctoral programs.
There is very much aconsideration of the practice of
(20:04):
the field and I had it.
I didn't realize that therewere theater PhD programs that
were framed in that way and itsounds as if this program was
exactly that.
So that's really cool.
Before we started recording,you were telling me a story
about your daughter.
And so I would love for you tospeak a little bit too.
You know, since I now know thatyou started your doctoral
(20:25):
program with a young child intow and you also, at the start
of the episode, mentioned kindof moving around to a couple of
different places, can you talk alittle bit about, you know,
your thought process of startinga PhD with a toddler and
whether, yeah, what was going onin your mind in terms of
location, in terms of supportsystems, in terms of just work,
(20:48):
life balance?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So.
It was me and my little mama.
That's that's what I call Eve.
She's my little mama for avariety of reasons.
So you know I was I wasn'tdivorced just quite yet.
I was separated when I decidedto go and get the PhD at Bowling
Green State and I also thoughtyou know, bowling Green is about
(21:12):
an hour and a half from Detroitwhere my brother lives with his
family so I thought I gotfamily.
That's also a great program too, because I also have family
that's close by and my mom withthe time was in Texas.
So I was separated and I didn'tquite have a divorce yet
because I didn't know if thatwas going to be in the cards.
But when we moved to BowlingGreen, it was just me and Eve.
(21:36):
It was me and my little mama.
And when I finally did decidethat a divorce was going to be
the best, like permanentseparation was going to be the
best, I remember like havingthis like dreaded feeling of no,
we really are alone, like wedon't have any support.
It's just me and her, and whilemy brother is an hour and a
(21:56):
half away in this space, it's meand her and she relies on me
and she needs me to be the kindof mother that prioritizes her,
and that was a challenge in aPhD program which really is set
up to prioritize the work.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And so trying to find the balance in that was really
was really tough, but we figuredit out.
There was a lot of struggle butthere was also a lot of fun in
that too, of going, of having.
So I have two stories for youactually.
(22:38):
So the first story is that myprogram was incredibly
supportive of me having a child.
I mean really supportive, likeI could bring Eve to class if I
absolutely needed to.
There was professors likeGoddard that I was a parent and
that that was really importantto me.
But there was this one timewhere it was just a rush.
(23:01):
Evie's daycare was closed forthe day and she was about two
and a half, she was about three,two and a half three years old
and she I stopped at McDonald's,picked up McDonald's.
She likes the big breakfastwith the hotcakes, so I got that
some syrup.
I brought it there.
My idea was that Evie was goingto stay in the kitchenette
(23:22):
because we have a kitchen areaat my, at my former institution.
We have a kitchen area.
So she's going to stay in thekitchen area, eat her breakfast
and then I'm going to check onher when we have a break and
make sure she's okay.
But she's going to hang outhere.
She's got like a little device,I think, at the Kindle at the
time.
So I say, wait here, I'll beright back, I'm just going to
put my stuff down.
(23:43):
I come back and Evie is coveredin syrup.
She had opened up the syrup onher own because she thinks she
know everything, which is whyshe's a little mama.
She pours the syrup and gets itall over herself and I'm just
and she's standing in thekitchen crying, oh.
And my one of my professorswalked by and saw us and she
(24:05):
looks at me and she says go toclass, I got this.
And I was like are you sure?
She was like I got this, I'm amom, I get it.
You go to class.
Me and her are going to hangout here.
And she cleaned Evie up.
I came back out for my breakand her and Evie were sitting
there laughing and chatting andtalking.
She had cleaned up Evie andthat's one of the examples of
(24:28):
like support there that you knowthey.
They had my back in a lot ofways.
And then I got boy, I hadanother story and I just I just
lost it, but, but, but, but,yeah.
So that's an example of justlike that sense of support and
feeling like, you know, we wereon our own, but really, in
(24:49):
reality, we did have.
We did have some support and,yeah, I wasn't able to go to all
the parties that I wanted to goto, but it was cool, you know,
like it was me and little mama.
Oh, I got this story.
Okay, so this is my story andI'm we're going to keep going.
I'm tell all these stories.
(25:10):
I was working on the.
I did an ethnography.
My dissertation was anethnographic dissertation that
married theater, ethnography andand performativity.
So I had to go into the field alot in order to do it and if I
went to the field, evie was withme.
So she was little mama was withme.
One night I'm working on, youknow, collect, like going
(25:34):
through interviews, and it'sit's late, and Evie's like mama,
it's time to go to bed.
And I'm like okay, evie, I'mgoing to be there in just a
minute, just, I'm going to bethere in just a minute.
She's like no, mama is time forbed.
I was like I said I will cometo you in a moment.
She says, mommy, my, your bedtwo minutes right now.
(25:58):
And she goes up the stairs andstumps up the stairs and I'm
like okay, time to work away andgo get in the bed because
Evie's like I, really I'm readyfor my cuddle.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Wow, not her giving you a bedtime, but I mean.
I love that accountabilitybecause it's so often that we
like want to keep on grindingand it's not good for our health
, it's not good for ourwellbeing and it definitely
especially if you're caring forother people.
You can't care for otherseffectively if you're sleep
deprived.
So she was like no ma'am youneed to go to sleep, I love it.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
So what were some of the other high point successes
and some of the challenges thatyou experienced during your
doctoral journey?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Um, let's see some high points was is that even in
my you know, my, my well, twothings.
So even in my sort of lack ofunderstanding always of
understanding of the criticismpart the theater criticism part
it never stopped my desire toengage in that way and to think
(27:12):
about it from my practiceoriented perspectives.
And one of the highest pointswas that I even won an award for
one of my papers that Idelivered.
I won this $500 award and thisI think I actually.
I think I actually have the.
I can't get it right now, but Ihave the plaque that they gave
(27:32):
me.
But a low point on in that wasthat I couldn't go to the
presentation because I had Evieand I didn't want to bring her.
You know, she needed to dressnicely for it.
I just didn't have the money toget her anything nice to wear,
and so I was.
I missed the, I missed thepresentation for it because I
(27:52):
had, you know, my little mama,and so so I think the sort of
balancing of, like, the factthat I'm able to have these kind
of conversations and I'm braveenough to do this work, was
really encouraging.
But there were moments where,you know, I just couldn't, you
know, I just couldn't be atcertain places because I had you
(28:14):
know, I had, I had a child, Ihave a child and that's that's
necessary.
Probably another low point I'dhave to say was that I really
wanted to write my dissertationabout Zora, no Hurston.
I really wanted to write itabout Zora, no Hurston, but I
struggled with the rightmentorship to be able to make
(28:35):
that happen.
I didn't have any scholars inmy program that were as familiar
with thinking about blackwomanhood because that's what I
was interested in is, thinkingabout black womanhood in her
texts and I just didn't havethat kind of mentorship
available.
But what I did have wasmentorship and ethnography and a
(28:56):
lot of my professors wereethnographers themselves and
were were in performance andthinking about anthropology and
a lot of that way.
So I ended up writing mydissertation about about that.
But yeah, so that's probablylike a pretty low point was the
discovery that that wasn't gonnahappen and I was gonna have to
(29:17):
put Zora on the back burner waspretty that that was hard, that
was hard to take but the I wasgonna say, but the I mean.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
The one of the benefits of being a scholar and
being trained in this work isthat the work it just continues
like.
Once you get your doctoraldegree, you can continue to do
research, you can continue to dowork.
My little mama is talking to usnow.
I have one quick question beforewe kind of get into your life
postdoctoral, postdoctoral, andthis just came to me as you were
(29:54):
talking about theater criticism.
Theater is an industry wherecriticism is baked into the work
, and so is academia, and Ithink that something that some
one of the many things thatoften folks who are not familiar
and don't know a lot of peoplewho get a doctoral degree are
(30:16):
surprised by is the kind offeedback you get on written work
.
You know, when you submit anarticle and it just comes back
rejected.
So I would love if you couldkind of speak to, if at all and
if in.
If so, in which ways did thefield of theater prepare you,
(30:37):
the criticism that is embedded,that culture of criticism that
is embedded in theater, how didthat prepare you to navigate
getting feedback and criticismon your scholarly work?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
um, that's a really great question.
So I think that my program dida good job in preparing us for
that kind of engagement throughthrough like active,
participatory ways.
So for example, in one of myclasses, scott Moggleson he's
now at Washington University ofWashington.
(31:11):
He was at the time the editorfor a journal, for the Journal
of Dramatic Theater, I think hewas.
I quite remember JCT.
Anyway, he was the journalmanaging editor and he was like
guess what?
I'm gonna teach you a littlebit about how to manage a
journal.
We're doing that this semesterand it was supposed to be a
(31:32):
theater methods class, so kindof fit in that method ease kind
of way.
But through that we got to readpapers and adjudicate papers
and really learn and reallyspeak the language of critical
thought.
Critical thinking and being ableto help usher of author through
their thinking and their ideasabout a particular topic, and
(31:56):
that was really rewarding ishaving that sense of reading
other people's work and I mean,like you know, fairly big
scholars who were writing to thejournal and submitting articles
to the journal really did helpus prepare for how to think
about our own work through thesecritical lenses and so I'm
really great it was, it was.
(32:17):
It was challenging work but I'mreally grateful for it because
it prepared me certainly rightnow I, as a managing editor for
my, for our journal, to reallyengage in that kind of
thought-provoking, thosethought-provoking ways of other
people's scholarship that then Iget to weigh in on in that way.
(32:37):
So I felt like of the programdid a good job of at least this
professor did a really good jobof introducing us to criticism
by looking at other people'swork and being able to respond
in that in a, in a way that wasgenerative for the, for the
author.
So it wasn't in this way oflike I am the critic, you know
(32:58):
it's, it's my job to, you know,glean your work through these,
through these lenses that aren'tthat are more self-serving for
me as it is for you.
But the idea of gift givingthat it was really about gift
giving, that my feedback to anauthor helped an author nuance
(33:18):
their thinking about somethingthat was really like giving a
gift to them and then in andthen I also received something
in return when an authorresubmitted a paper for for
further feedback and inclusionin the journal.
So that was, if that answersthe question, I think does?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
yeah, it does, and I think that that framework of
feedback as a gift is powerfuland a really great reframing for
folks who struggle to receivefeedback, who kind of hold on to
their scholarship and theirwork because they're afraid of
sending it out until it'sperfect.
So they get positive feedback.
Sorry, I really like I'm gladyou shared that anecdote.
(34:00):
So now I want to talk aboutyour life and work post PhD.
So, as you mentioned, zoraNeale Hurston's work is really
significant to you.
You wanted to study her workwhile you were doing your
doctorate.
Didn't get to do it to the end,but you were able to do it
after.
How does her theatrical workresonate with your exploration
(34:21):
of black womanhood and intersectwith your anthropological and
ethnographic research?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
oh, wow, that's a I all these great questions.
I tell you, though, if you givea, if you give a scholar an
opportunity to stand on theirplatform, we'll take it.
So box will take it.
So my fascination was or no,for Hurston first came out of my
graduate program, where I tooka class in theatrical modernism,
(34:48):
or American modernism, thatlooked at, you know, plays,
reframe them, reframe theseplays through this very
theatrical lens, and Zora NealeHurston was one of the scholars
that were part of that.
I didn't even know she wroteplays until I took that class
and discovered that she hadwritten a lot of plays and in a
(35:09):
lot of ways, theater wasactually going to, because at
the time period, theater wasgonna save the race and a lot of
ways a lot of artists of thattime period, of the early of the
new Negro period and of theearly Harlem Renaissance in the
early 20th century, really didfeel like theater was gonna save
the race, and Hurston was not,was not immune to that, actually
(35:29):
believed that as well andattempted through her theatrical
work to paint a story and tella story about black, southern
black folks and their own, fromtheir own perspectives, and so
her anthropological work and herethnographic work really
attempts to.
It's actually quite joined inthat by having this beautiful,
(35:52):
rich ethnographic work, in thisanthropological work, the
theater helps realize that.
It helps realize that foraudiences and while Hurston, I
think, was attempting to writetowards black audiences so that
black people could seethemselves in these, in these,
in these ways and reallyunderstand self and identity, a
(36:15):
lot of funding came from whitepeople, and so I think that
there is a little bit of twofoldin terms of audiences, of how
it is that audiences reallyreceived.
Hurston's work was from thisyou sort of white gaze, but also
to from the black gaze as welland people who identified with
those cultures, kind of like howwe see gospel plays today.
(36:37):
You know, if you've ever seen agospel play, it's definitely
has a lot of Christianundertones I'd say Christian
overtones as part of them, butthey also speak to culture and
they speak to black culture andHurston moved in that same kind
of way.
So so, yeah, so I think, interms of my own investigations
(37:00):
of her work, that blackwomanhood appears as a stark
contrast to black malehood, toblack men, in the play, in these
plays, and a lot of times blackwomen are arguing for one
aspect of identity.
And then black men are oftenarguing for something, for
(37:22):
something different, but theyfind a way in her place to meet
in the middle.
They don't always agree, butthey find a way to resolve some
kind of conflict or come fromsome kind of position.
And so I'm really intrigued bythat intersection of of gender
and identity, where black womenare professing a lot of the
(37:45):
desire to be looked at as humanand is treated as human beings
and not as objects, and sonegotiating that, while at the
same time they are also indomestichood, thinking about
being mothers, thinking aboutbeing wives.
One of my favorite moments in aplay, one of Hersta's plays, the
(38:06):
Turkey and the Law, is at thevery beginning of Act Two, where
these women in the communityare talking about what's needed
for their community, what'sneeded for the men to understand
themselves, while at the sametime talking about cooking and
cooking for their men.
And so it's really complicatedin that either professing a
(38:26):
sense of self by talking aboutthe needs of the community and
what needs to happen in orderfor the conflict to be resolved,
but at the same time they'relike I gotta go make dinner,
because you know, if so-and-sodoesn't have dinner on the table
, there's gonna be trouble.
So that really complication isvery interesting for me, and so
(38:47):
I'm currently and I'm hopingthat it's kind of like one of
those lifelong loves.
I do a lot of things in thetheater but I'm kind of hoping
that Hersta is one of mylifelong loves, that I'll
constantly be revisiting herplays because there's just so
many juicy bits that are part ofit, but that I'll always be
(39:09):
sort of coming back to it inthose ways.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
So I have just a few more questions as we start to
wind down.
I want, I'm dying to hear aboutyour solo performance work.
Can you talk about some of theissues that you address in your
solo work?
Why even do solo work asopposed to I don't know if the
opposite of solo work now thatI'm saying it, I'm like I don't
she don't know the appropriatetheatrical term for non-solo
(39:36):
work but what inspired you to dosolo performance work and what
are some of the main issues andconflicts and themes that you
tend to address in your soloperformances?
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Oh, yeah, this is.
You guys got all these greatquestions.
This is so awesome.
Okay, so my interest?
So I have a certificate inperformance studies from my
institution and so a lot of myprofessors spent a time doing
ethnographic work and connectingit to theater and particularly
(40:13):
theatrical practice.
And so, working on mydissertation, it kind of opened
the door for me, for how could Iexpress the complicated
feelings and the complicatedinterpretations of black
identity that's explored in mydissertation?
How could that be actualized?
How can, similar to ZorinAl-Herson, how can what I was
(40:36):
learning in the field beeffectively understood through
the body?
And so how does the body becomethis space and this become this
apparatus for nuancingidentities, particularly black
female identities?
And so I began to sort of museabout the notion of solo
performance.
Solo performance is incrediblytheatrical.
(41:00):
It's storytelling, and a verytheatrical from a very
theatrical standpoint, with theability of which for the
performer to connect withaudience and recognize that
through the process ofstorytelling, there's a
theatrical element, that there'sa connection to audience, and a
very direct connection toaudience, as opposed to in scene
(41:20):
work, where there's a directconnection to the other, knowing
that you are being watchedthrough another kind of lens.
So it's two sort of separate,different spaces and so I was
really interested in the soloperformance component of it.
And then auto ethnography reallycame about in my graduate
(41:41):
experience too, in writing aboutauto ethnography and really
thinking about what does it meanto be reflexive in how it is
that really performance, autoethnography?
So how to be sort of thinkingreflexively about self in these
very theatrical sort ofperformative ways, so
(42:03):
acknowledging that performance,identity and theatrical
storytelling can existsimultaneously to tell a larger
story about what's happening inthe world and making larger
connections between self andlarger issues that are happening
(42:23):
.
And so my solo autoethnographic work really
attempts to respond to that.
And because of the time when Iwas in graduate school I was
really thinking about blackmotherhood and a lot of those
spaces, my writing of my soloauto ethnographic work really
took shape there.
I was really intrigued.
(42:45):
One of my very first pieces wascalled Blunt Force Trauma is
called Blunt Force Trauma, whereI was really intrigued by how
it is that a mother could hurther child.
I had taken, I had learnedabout a story of a black woman
who had murdered her son becausehe had thrown a Wii controller,
(43:07):
a remote controller, a videogame controller into a
television, to their television,and so she beat him to death.
And yeah, it was very tragic.
She had beat him to death andthe thing was is she waited five
days in their apartment for himto die.
And the whole time she doesn'tthe whole thinking of it I think
(43:29):
her processing of it is thatshe doesn't think he's that bad,
and she was also.
When she was caught by thepolice and arrested and
incarcerated, she told the judgethat she was afraid and that
she was scared that she wasgoing to get in trouble.
And we talk about a 19 year oldmother of two who was a parent,
(43:54):
and so I was really intrigued bythat idea about how could there
be empathy and compassion forsomeone who could do something
so horrible to another humanbeing, also their child.
And so that intersection ofjust finding empathy I felt like
solo auto ethnographicperformance gave me a way to
(44:15):
look through my own life and howI was parenting my own child,
because we really don't know asparents if we're doing a good
job.
We listen to what our eldersand our ancestors tell us about
parenting, but we don't know wecould be causing harm.
We could be doing harm.
So I wanted a way to negotiatethat and I felt like solo auto
(44:42):
ethnographic performance gave methe platform and really gave me
the lens to be able tocritically understand how it was
that I how was my relationshipto my daughter?
Sort of sort of a dance, howwas my relationship to my
(45:02):
daughter really impactfulcompared to this woman who had
had a relationship with her sonin this way?
And so I say all that to saythat soul auto ethnographic
performance really does open upspaces of empathy and really the
exploration of humanness inthat.
So when you're connecting a veryhot topic to thinking about
(45:26):
self, it opens up the door for alot of conversations that
audiences can have with eachother, that audiences can have
with the performer.
So always making sure that anyof my performances I have talk
backs so it gets the audiencetalking about what it is that I
did is really important andreally valuable.
So it becomes this beautiful wayof expression.
(45:47):
That's also this way oflearning and navigating how we
know and what we know and so,yeah, so I feel very privileged
to do that kind of work, becausethere's a lot of troubling ways
that you can get caught up inself and forget that the work
(46:09):
really is for a larger audienceand we learn something in that
larger audience which I thinkseparates the work of like,
let's say, richard Pryor, who Ialso think is a very compelling
solo performance artist, in thework of John Leguizamo and
wanting to talk about hisculture.
(46:31):
Puerto Norican culture is soloperformance in a way that is
attempting to tell a story, butwhen you add the auto
ethnographic component we beginto learn something about
ourselves and about thecommunities at which we are part
of, and the audience also getsthat as well.
(46:51):
So again about this giftexchange I'm all about
exchanging gifts, y'all thisbeautiful exchanging of gifts
that happen when we combine andreally think through solo auto
ethnographic performance.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
I am just like so intrigued by all.
This is so different from mywork and really anything I'm
familiar with.
So I am like really curious.
I'm going to scour the internetand figure out how we can find
some of your work and some ofyour performances and we'll drop
whatever we find in the shownotes so that anyone else
listening can also betterunderstand and hopefully be able
(47:26):
to experience some of whatyou're talking about, that gift
exchange of the autoethnographic work from the actor
, the performer to the audience.
It just sounds so fascinating,so I'm really excited to delve
in a little bit more deeply.
Final two questions as youreflect on your doctoral journey
, what's one thing that youwould do differently if you had
to do it all over again?
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Oh, yeah, okay.
So if I had to do it all overagain, I was going to a lot of
conferences when I was agraduate student and I think if
I had to do it all over again, Iwould have involved myself and
more theater groups that werethat had like strong, like I
don't want to say strong, butjust had more black women as
(48:12):
part of like, as part of thoseconversations.
So being able to, you know, goto ATHAs, association for
Theater and Higher Education,which is really expensive to go
to and connecting with the BlackTheater Association there, bta,
where there are a lot of blackwomen who occupy a lot of those
(48:34):
spaces, and so just being ableto, you know, do more to make
those connections.
And if I, and if not, like,finding ways that I could
facilitate that kind ofengagement with black female
scholars in the field, you know,I think if I had, you know, had
sort of know what I know nowand could go back, I would
definitely want to do that kindof work.
(48:57):
And right now I'm reallyinterested in creating those
enclaves of black women who cansupport one another black women
in theater, particularly blackwomen in theater in the academy
that can support one another andthink about, like the process
for tenure, and thinking aboutlike how do we advance ourselves
(49:17):
in a you know, I'm not going tolie very white supremacist,
like spaces that the academyoften they become, they often
are, they often are, and so howdo we support one another in our
journeys and our collectivejourneys and our individual ways
that we want to study andpractice and think critically
(49:39):
about theater is something thatI definitely wish I had had in
my graduate journey, for sure.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
That makes a lot of sense.
And last question what is onefinal piece of advice that you
have for current black women andnon binary doctoral students,
perhaps, especially those whoare in the humanities and the
arts?
What's some advice that youhave for them?
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Okay.
So I know you asked me for one,but I got to.
My first thing is is that, asblack folks, we need a plan.
We need a plan of actionbecause folks will tell us you
know why.
(50:24):
Folks will tell us what that,what our scholarship should look
like and the kind ofcommunities that we should be
working with and thinking about,especially as you move in the
tenure process.
So having a clear plan, a clearset of goals of what you intend
(50:46):
to accomplish with your degreewhile you're in your program is
going to be paramount.
Making sure that, as you aregoal planning and goal setting,
you're also thinking about yourown life and what is
accomplishable.
If you've got children, ifyou've got, you know a partner
or a spouse.
If you've got, you know yourcaretaker for your own, for your
(51:09):
parents, for your families, youknow what is.
How are those goals going to bealigned in that way so that, in
a lot of ways, no one can tellyou what your degree is going to
do and what you are going to do, but that you have clearly
paved a way that is accessibleto you, that takes into account
the struggle because there isstruggle, there is always
(51:32):
struggle, so that you stay sane,you know.
You know nobody gonna tell youyou crazy.
You know like you've got aclear path.
So that's my, that's my firstone.
My second one is that get a life.
Get a life that is not in theacademy, get a life that is
(51:53):
filled with folks that careabout you, that love you the
most in your life I had.
I had a.
One of my, one of my friends inmy cohort said you know,
graduate school really makes youan asshole Because you forget
you're.
We're working so hard that weforget that we have families and
(52:14):
so, no, no, a life like,imagine a life like.
Get a community, be part of acommunity, create this was one
of the best things I ever wentto was a sister soul group of
black women who can sit in spacewith one another and meditate
and talk and journal and justreflect on life.
(52:35):
And it's your space.
So a sister soul circle is agreat, great spaces, because
they also not only do they reifyyour commitment to a beautiful
community of black women, but italso reifies who you are and
what it is that you, what it isthat you need in order to get
(52:55):
you through your program orthrough your first tenure, track
position or through justthrough the academy.
So I would definitely say havea have a plan, a goal, a path
that aligns with your own goalsin your life, and then get a
life.
Have friends, call your parents,call your, your aunties and
your uncles and the people whocare the most about you.
(53:17):
Keep them in contact becauseI'll tell you they are
supporting you, they are behindyou, they love you and they care
about you and they got yourback and so recognizing that you
are not alone, that's, that'ssome good that's.
I'm gonna call that some goodadvice, it's really good advice.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
That is a fantastic advice have a plan and get a
life.
Thank you so much, dr Gibbs,for sharing so much of your own
doctoral journey, your work,your interests, your research,
as well as really criticaladvice for our listeners.
We're really excited to havehad you on the Coversus's
podcast.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Yes, yes, I am grateful.
Thank you so much for this gift.
I am very grateful to you.
Much love to y'all.
I appreciate you so much, DrCola.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Thank you again for listening to this week's episode
of the Cohort Sisters podcast.
If you are a black womaninterested in joining the Cohort
Sisters membership community oryou're looking for more
information on how to support orpartner with Cohort Sisters,
please visit our website atwwwcohortsistuscom.
You can also find us on allsocial media platforms at Cohort
(54:37):
Sisters.
Don't forget to subscribe tothe Cohort Sisters podcast and
leave us a quick review whereveryou're listening.
Thank you so much for joiningus this week and we'll catch you
in next week's episode.
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