This episode of Mid-Ground, is part 1, of a 2-part episode wherein Tara Aisha Willis hosts a conversation with Bebe Miller and Jennifer Harge.
This episode of Mid-Ground, is part 1, of a 2-part episode wherein Tara Aisha Willis hosts a conversation with Bebe Miller and Jennifer Harge.
INTRO: Welcome to How People Move People, a podcast about the impact that our words, art, stories, and lives have on each other. Each series' journey unfolds in a sequence of six episodes. This series titled "Mid-Ground" is hosted by dancer, curator, and scholar, Dr. Tara Aisha Willis. “Mid-Ground,” brings pairs of dance and performance artists together in kinship around their roots and work in the Black Midwest.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: So, my first question to both of you is if you could just kind of lay out like what does the work of Jennifer Harge and the work of Bebe Miller do? What does it feel like? How do you do it?
BEBE MILLER: I’m, I, my first thought is like, which, which timeline are we talking about? (Willis: Mmm) Um, and the present one is the one that's here, of course. Um, and so I think right away that, um, even what dailyness might be, um, in terms of my work, you know, imagining, imagining people in a room. I don't have people in a room around me, and that is my first stop. So something about without that, in this period of time, I am faced with myself, as well as like, what would it take? What does it take? Because we will be getting in a room. What, what am I going to be bringinginto this room with the people that I, that I am hoping to work with? But at the same time, I am working, or I am being, let's just say, in a really very different kind of a dailiness than I ever have. Like I mentioned before, I'm here on Vashon Island, I'm on an island. It is damp and beautiful. I walk every day just about at least a good, you know, 40 minutes of down a gravel road and then on a path into a preserved forest and then turn around and come back and there's mushrooms, a lot of those. There's moss, there's dampness, there's my dog, andI'm also for, I'm not sure exactly why, what brings it up is, what brings up, what comes up alongside of that is a reference historically, both into my own past and then just to the history of this, of a particular landscape. And um, oh, these trees have been here and really don't care (laughs) who we are. I mean, really (Willis laughs). So they will just hopefully go on way past us. So just something about that, that sense of, um, you know, we, we are just tiny. We are in our timeline is tiny. Um, at the same time, I am completely human and involved in like, what did I read? And like, what's my niece doing? Oh, she just had a, my new niece, my oldest niece is now a grandmother. Like, oh my goodness, like within the last month. I mean, all of that aspect. So, so living is coming forward (Willis: Hmm) in a particular way. I also, I was, I did a writing retreat about a month ago, and ended up looking a lot at work that is 30 years old or older of, of mine and, and delving into these particular people who were involved, yes, in the choreography, but like what are they doing with each other? What did I miss at that moment watching them 30 years ago when I was in a completely different headset? So like, what is that nature of that touch, really? That's not choreographic, but it's personal. And trying to write about that, both, both for my own reference, but also so that I could bring somebody else toward the way I see (Willis: Mm-hmm), so that we could kind of share that space (Willis: Mmm). So I feel like, um I'm in a very present moment and in an older moment at the same time. And, and just trying to negotiate between those things (Willis: Mm-hmm).
JENNIFER HARGE: Listening to that is really helpful just to frame how I think about making and doing, because living and being are so central. Um like being present to what I'm feeling, being present to what I'm sensing, what I'm reading, witnessing those around me, how we're interacting with one another. And I think I've always been really informed by those around me and in, in all kinds of rooms. And, and I also like my body is really susceptible to other people's energies and it has been as long as I can remember. So I think I've always been also collecting a lot of information since I was young. And so for me doing, making is always coming after absorbing for very long periods of time. And so currently I'm in, I'm away from my home. I'm in Philadelphia. I've been here for the semester andbeing really at times frustrated, because I couldn't, I'm not making anything, quote unquote, right now, or don't feel I'm active. And then a week will pass and I'm like, oh, I was sitting last week. Okay, that's what we were doing (laughs). That's what was happening. Or I'm cooking, or whatever the thing. But I'm being in this space, I'm settling, or like trying to settle in a place I don't really live in, or don't live in. But all those things are really important to me. They always have been. And I think in this kind of Fall energy where people are really active right now, I can sense my, I'm not really producing anything, but I'm listening to a lot. It's also a lot of information to be listening to, like especially in a social media context, it's just, you know, inundated with information. But that, I've just been remembering lately like, oh yeah, I also need to be, and being is how I understand, or how I orient myself before and while I'm, while I’m doing things. And then when it was warmer too, where I am in West Philly, I was walking a lot, through the neighborhoods and admiring all of these Philly homes which are so distinct. And then we'll talk about Midwest proper in a little bit, but I was thinking, during my walks for like my first two months of being here, I was thinking about Black Migration routes a lot. And I was like, we could have ended up here. Like, oh, but we ended up in Detroit, but oh, this could have been the place. And so imagining is also a lot of what, how I like come to understand things. But yeah, a lot of witnessing. And I mean, when I was younger, maybe still it was about being kind of nosy (Miller laughs). But now I'm just like in awe of lots of things. But yeah, but living in remembering that like that living is not always wondrous. You know, sometimes it's agitating and frustrating, but, but it's happening (Miller: Mm-hmm). I've been really frustrated (laughs) with feels like inactivity (Miller: Hmm. Mm-hmm) (Willis: Yeah). And it's like, oh, you just kind of been, yeah, you've been collecting even your frustrations. Like, oh, I'm learning that like this particular thing makes me frustrated (Miller: Hmm. Hmm). Yeah, and then I'm slowly feeling less pressured to feel I have to put those things to use (Miller: Mm. Mm-hmm).
TARA AISHA WILLIS: I just want to name that I've had the privilege of taking workshops with both of you as a mover, and they were very different from each other, but like halfway through your workshop this year, Jennifer, for Movement Research, like everyone, it was like a workshop for Black movers specifically, and everyone was like, we need to take a nap (laughs) (Miller laughs). So we spent an entire session on Zoom. It was a Zoom workshop also (Miller: Uh. Uh). So we were on Zoom resting (laughs) for two hours (Miller: Uh). And then we did it again (Harge: Two days in a row). Two days in a row. We did it the next day. So I just want to name that (Miller: Oh my gosh). And then I know, and then Bebe, I mean, it was a totally different context, but there's, I feel that there's a similarity in like that prioritizing the storing and the fact that like the process doesn't have to feel like it's or look like it's doing something, but it is anyway, like that understanding that like there's no action in the body that is wasted. It's, you know what I mean, or doesn't show up later in some way (Miller: Mm-hmm). It's all part of the process, I think was really central to that workshop that you taught also on Zoom (laughs) (Miller: Also on Zoom). Yeah. And so in two different ways, yeah, in two different ways that seem like, like going into hibernation mode is not just like a pause. It is intaking other information. To hear you both talk about that in different ways, and at different kind of moments in your artistic lifetimes also is really beautiful, and I think really powerful, especially like for Black women, and you know what I mean? Like that is also, there's a layer of that I'm feeling also that's really important. But I'm curious also to hear each of you just extend what you just said and maybe name even more precisely, what happens when you go into a studio?
JENNIFER HARGE: My relationship to studios is, is shifting all the time. I'm sure it's true for all of us. And so being in Detroit for so long where there really hasn't been access to studios, I had to make studios. And so even like my entry into space has been, my first question is like, what do I need? Or what do I want to be there? And so I've been building them a lot. And for me, it's like, well, what, who are the people? And many times they are coming from different worlds, both inside and outside of dance. And like, do you need paint? Do you, just like other something else for the ideas to kind of like be messy? I don't wait to be messy in my ideas. And so the studios lately are messy, which feels really helpful because dance studios have been really stressful for me for a long time. I was like, it's not enough stuff in here (Miller: Hmm). And you can't get messy enough in here. Like, I don't know what to do once my body was like at its max. I'm like, there's other materials that I'm needing, but then you can't leave them in there because you got somebody else coming in after you. And then just was like, this, the space doesn't work. So it's been a lot of like, yeah, defining what the space needs, really because I had to (laughs). It's just like a void of the space I was living in. And then seeing like how all those things are in conversation with each other feels like then how the studio starts working or trying to create non-hierarchical relationships between them. So as a mover, it's really complicated sometimes when the dance is not central all the time. I'm like, am I, am I doing the dance right if it's not (Miller: Hmm) the main thing? But sometimes it's not supposed to be the main thing. And so trying to find, like, hear my impulse as well enough to know when we slip in and out of moving into maybe writing, into sound things, or something like installation, collage base. Like what are the, how do I listen to when the changes happen is how studio practice has been operating for me lately.
BEBE MILLER: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Oh, that's so interesting. And it makes me realize that I tend not to have things (laughs). You know, paper or, or playing a color with or crinkle (Willis: Hmm). And when I'm with people and maybe there's, but that crinkle, crinkling as an activity a verb of things. So, when I was on this writing retreat, and I had a studio, and I was pacing more than I was like wrinkling the space. And I realized I was also watching video this work from 30 years ago. Actually, no, it's almost 40 years ago. No, okay (Willis: Hmm), small point (Willis and Harge laugh). Um, or large point. But, but I, I was without reference that I usually have of other people and where they are and what we talk about, like, can you triangulate the humanity. And I've always, uh, I, well, there is no always, but it seems, thinking back, that I tend not to have a theme or an idea when I walk in the first time for what could be a project. But it's like, hey, well, how are my feet landing today? (Willis: Hmm) Oh, okay, this seems to be important. And then it becomes something that we turn to maybe the next day or the following day and start tracking that, start tracking that procession of physicality (Willis: Mm-hmm). But without that, without other people in the room, there is, my mind is, and my body is less (clears throat) particular about, well, what shall I do movement-wise? (Willis: Hmm) And I find that I'm pacing generally counterclock, no, clockwise, and then I think of it clockwise. And gesture may emerge, but the pacing kind of continues. So, I'm, I’m entering, I'm in a phase where it's like, well, if they're not in the room, well, what am I thinking of? And what am I, how am I moving? Because that never really does go away. That's always there.
JENNIFER HARGE: I'm just thinking about the clockwise (Miller: Mm) procession pacing (Miller: Mm-hmm). And when you said it, like my body (Miller: Mm), cause I, I have a clockwise procession (Miller laughs) that I've been calling a clearing. Like when things get like, Ehhhh, I don't know what's going on (Miller: Uh-huh). I take clockwise laps (Miller: Mm). And there's even like, it's been drawn on the wall before, like as a reminder, like if things get messy, you remember you can just clear it out (Miller: Mm). So I'm just curious for you, like, it feels like it's like orienting you towards something, but I'm wondering if it ever has like other directions?
BEBE MILLER: Do you mean other directions in space or other directions in terms of…
JENNIFER HARGE: No, or like in thinking or in (Miller: Hmm. Hmm). Like just the ways it shifts the room, perhaps.
BEBE MILLER: Yeah, yeah. Probably. And it doesn't necessarily kind of clarify itself right away. There's a joke I tell to myself that when I'm in the room with, with other collaborators, other dancers, I'm watching a lot (clears throat). And I say like, what is that? What is that? And there's nobody to ask that of when I'm by myself (Harge laughs). So it's like, I know this (Harge: Mmm). I know this and that. This is what it is. This is right (Harge: Hmm). This has a rightness right now. So that's a curious thing about (clears throat), are we solving something or are we reminding ourselves what we already know? And I like that those are, are both really deep possibilities in, in either direction for us to go in (Harge: Mm-hmm).
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Since you're both not currently in the Midwest, I'm gonna ask you both to each talk about the last time you were in the Midwest or the last time you can like remember very vividly that you were in the Midwest, where you were and something that mattered (laughs) about that time, something that you loved about that time or that felt poignant or memorable about that time.
JENNIFER HARGE: I'm trying to think, because this year is the longest that I've been away from the Midwest in like a decade. But I was home over the summer, home in the Midwest over the summer. And for Detroit in particular, and I'm missing it right now, especially being in the Northeast, I'm, what feels special to me is the, the landscape and the sprawling nature of the space. Like to have that much space (laughs) feels, I forget how important that is to me. And it was Detroit in the summer, which is, I feel like many Northern cities, a whole, a whole vibe when the summer comes because you have survived the winter (Miller laughs). And so it, so like there's a summer energy when I was there. And then Detroit is incredibly green in the summer too. So like all of those combined feels, there's a settling in that's possible for me. And yeah, that's my memory and like, but my memory of it whenever I go back, I think.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Mm-hmm.
BEBE MILLER: Uh-huh. Oh my, I'm loving the landscape thing. And it's funny, I was last in Columbus, Columbus, Ohio, probably in August, where I, and it's where I'd been living since, you know, for 20, 20 odd years, and I will be going back (coughs). I don't live very far from Ohio State campus and there's a, there is a road, Kenny Road on West Campus where (clears throat) they used to let the cows out in the morning through the evening of the agricultural school and that there's corn growing and this is not far from Target (everyone laughs), or, or any of the, the mall aspect of a Midwestern town. And I remember when I first got there, of just like, huh, there's something about that sky, I get to see the color change. It faces west, and so I see sunset, and more than just the sun actually setting, but just the range of color that happens. And I think back to growing up in Brooklyn way back in time. Very different than the Brooklyn that I've been to recently. And how sky is just not evident in the same way, or it's about what's around the buildings. So I remember when I first moved to Columbus, just like I didn't expect that openness to, to affect me so deeply. So, and, you know, how did that or not work itself into my work? I'm not sure how it worked itself into my work. But one thing that did happen being in, in Ohio is my timing of how I worked completely changed (Willis: Wow) from say New York studio life, four days a week, three, four hours a day, Monday through Thursday, bada-boom-boom-boom, over certain months stretching to working with people and in a space where I didn't have that regularities, but I did, we were able to do two or three weeks at a time intensively where we had, definitely had lunch together, definitely probably had dinner as well, and that, that resting time in between in the middle of the day. So something about the expansiveness or the expanding, contracting focus of how you can follow an idea, how time is on your side, weirdly. It's very much a part of being in the Midwest. I have to say I love that the three of us are talking about landscape on a particular level. And (clears throat) maybe because I grew up in the city, I don't know, but I don't remember having landscape conversations with Black women when I was growing up (Harge: Hmm) (Willis laughs). And maybe just because I was just growing up and we were all just growing up. So it might be an age thing, but it's, it’s amazing is not the right word. I think something less charged, but like it is satisfying on a, on a, on a, hmm, on a level that I still want to kind of figure out, like how much work we are able to see now that reflects the land, that's about going back to land (Harge: Mm-hmm). Even if it's not the planting land (Harge: Hmm), it is, you know, the corner stoop land. That we, we recognize the architectural value of the land (Willis: Yeah), where we've been, where we came from. Where we’re going. So all of that.
JENNIFER HARGE: I'm just thinking about within that expanse and then not necessarily like coming into contact with humans like so immediately. For me at least I was then, like things just lingered, like my ideas lingered (Miller: Hmm), how I'm in space lingers. Like I'm not cut off by many things (Miller: Hmm) very often (Willis: Yeah). And then even thinking about Bebe, talking about how your rehearsal structure changed. When I got to Detroit as working as a professional artist, we had Sundays. Like that was the day that I was making the works (Miller: Hmm). So then for me, then I had to like find ways to hold (laughs) (Miller: Oh) from week to week (Willis: Hmm). And so even like that literal expanse between the days and like, and how much information is then entering in, in between all of that time and space. So something as I'm listening, like that expanse is bringing me into a deepening and deepening into land in ways that I don't experience in, in more populated cities (Miller: Hmm)
TARA AISHA WILLIS: To get a little concrete, can you each just kind of name your relationship with the Midwest really like fairly succinctly? Like when did you arrive? Obviously at birth for some of us. But also like why have you stayed or left in the moments when you have left? And why have you come back?
JENNIFER HARGE: Yes, I was born in Saginaw, Michigan, and went to school, middle school and high school in Saginaw, Michigan. But my, both sides of my family, so maternal and paternal sides, both are in Detroit, as products of the Great Migration. My father's side gets to Detroit from South Carolina like 1910s (Miller: Hmm). And my grandmother's side comes from Tennessee, a little like later. She herself and her family come like 1940s. And some people come a little before then. So both sides are, you know, arrive in Detroit and for the most part are still there. And if not in the city proper, like the immediate surrounding areas. And so that's how I, that's my orientation. It's like very much a familial place for me. And I did not intend on coming back. So, and I spent my life in this kind of back-and-forth between Detroit and Saginaw. And I, after going to school and living away, I didn't intend on being in the Midwest or spending my professional life there. I swear I moved back from grad school and I was like, in six months, I'm moving to Brooklyn. This is the moment to like have the New York moment. And that October, I premiered the first work that was the collective I created, Harsh Dance Stories. And I remember that show ending, and I was like, I forgot to move to Brooklyn (Willis laughs). Like it just, I don't move to Brooklyn. It just like completely left my mind for several months. And so after that moment, like the idea of New York just kind of also didn't even seem necessary. And so you're like the family structures and like then being in commute—or artistic communities have are what keep me there and what has me there as a, as a professional.
BEBE MILLER: My mother left her home in Meridian, Mississippi when she was in her 20s to come to New York. Oh, which would have been late, early 40s, maybe during the war, World War II. I'm not sure. She came to be a domestic. A cousin of hers got her a job with a family, a doctor's family. And she, when I talk to her sisters, my aunts, they always say, Hazel was just the good one, the quiet one, and just really focused. And she died when I was in my 20s. So a while ago. But um she came, she was so impressed. The family of the doctor or the doctor himself that he paid for her to go to nursing school. So she became a nurse. And then being mostly a single parent, she felt like, well, I need to be home when the kids come. So she became an elementary school teacher. And then the story goes, it's like, well, the people that I was working for, their kids went to dance class and music class, so my kids are gonna go. So she sent us to Henry Street (Willis: Hmm). So it was just like this whole like, here you are and these are the things that are available for you. And at a young age, I'm not thinking like, well, these are the things that are available to me. It's just like, this is fun. This is what I wanna do. Dance, music, the woods. She was a camp nurse in, in Maine, so we all went with her (Willis: Hmm). So. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Mommy (Willis: Hmm). And at the same time, though, just setting us up in Brooklyn with all of that. Brooklyn, Gowanus, where you don't go Bronx, you never go (Willis laughs). You know, how you shape your childhood landscape just stays with you for quite a while. But all that to say, when I got to be college time, I chose to, we were living in Queens at the time, and I was like, nah, I don't wanna be close here. I wanna go away. I went to the Midwest. I was in a small school in Indiana, a Quaker school. I was one of like maybe 27 Black students out of 1400. But it was an introduction to the Midwestern landscape. I saw corn growing for the first time. I saw that, that particular farm with a central farm home and the trees around it and everything else was just plots of crops of just a way of living and being land-wise that I hadn't seen before. Years passed, things happen. y mother passes away and, timing had it that it allowed me, maybe just the relief of leaving the city to go back to the Midwest, to grad school at Ohio State and, re-enter that kind of landscape. So all this to say, I, I,I enjoy that I can reflect on all these variations, the vertical and horizontal, and space and compression. So, but I, grad school, wonderful, yeah, yeah. But also the return again, you know, 10 years later, and spending some time teaching, and then returning again 15 years after that, of just entering and living in the town of Columbus, Ohio (Willis: Hmm), which is different than the job of a university. And how long it actually took for me to feel like what is on that East side that is not near me and where, where all that particular kind of Black folk neighborhood thing is going on versus another kind of neighborhood where I was. And actually versus is not the, it's not an either or. There's just like, there's different ways of being. So, I think like many New Yorkers, you know, it is the place to be from. I mean, wouldn't everybody want to be from New York? You know, come on (Harge and Willis laugh) But I'll move on from there. Because, because, but I, I remember leaving New York thinking like, New York watch me go, huh (Harge: Hmm). Okay, I'm going. Now, as if, as if New York is watching. It's sort of just saying that just to give a sense of like who you think you are because you're from New York and then who you think you are when you were in land (Harge: Hmm). And allowing like land and people and to really, you know, to honor all of that in the person I was trying to be, as well as the work that I was trying to make (Willis: Hmm. Mm-hmm). So I feel, you know, I will just always be a New Yorker who doesn't live there anymore which is different than being a Midwesterner.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Since you're both not currently in the Midwest, do each of you think of when you hear the phrase, the Black Midwest?
JENNIFER HARGE: For me, Black Midwest is like a northern South, which many folks have talked about for, you know, in different ways, but I sense that, being here in Philly, I sense a little bit of that too, but it feels more pronounced in the Midwest of how much the South continued. And maybe something about that, the expanse that we talked about earlier, where you had space to like build your world in a particular way where I think coming to like a Northeast city, you build in the structures that are there. Like the structures feel more rigid in the Northeast. And I think about like Black domestic spaces. I think about that a lot in my own work and it as its own kind of world-making place. And as I go from like Black homes in Chicago, in Detroit, in Dayton, like they, they have so many, like the textures, the energies of them are so familiar and so much of that I attribute to the Southern roots. So I feel that connectivity between North and South really clearly, which feels like a Black Midwest to me. And I'm being, I've been so interested in accents lately and like from a linguistic standpoint, just like listening to folks, how Black folks talk (laughs) and I've always been interested in linguistics, but like kind of from afar, but being in Philly (Miller: Hmm) and I have a couple cousins who moved from Detroit to Philly, I say 20 years ago and so, and they actually, their Philly accents are thick. So being here in Philly, I just keep thinking I'm hearing my cousins. I'm like, is that Candice? (everyone laughs) I'm like, oh, that's just Philly. That's where I am right now. And so when I go back to Detroit, I'm like, oh, I hear it. Like there's something on the tongue that is happening that I hear it in Chicago. And so I'm also just thinking about, yeah, like that Southern drawl that's happening in the mouth of people in the North and Midwest in particular. But yeah, I feel really, not just aligned with it, but like empowered by it. Like it feels like I feel very connected to it. I'm like, oh, that is where I am from. That is shaped how I understand so many things in my life, how I understand timing, how I understand like being with people is so much shaped in my time with my family and communities in Midwest spaces (Miller: Hmm). And I'm excited to keep, like, I've been trying to write about Detroit now for like three years and I'm like slowly, slowly getting into, into that. So I'm excited by a Black Midwest and thinking into it because it, yeah, it feels like it's like at the bottom of how I've been working for so long.
BEBE MILLER: I feel in my time in the Midwest, more kind of an outsider. And I think now because of my time in the Midwest, when I'm in New York, I'm kind of an outsider. So I wonder, if that is part of the whole shift that's actually going on about being from a place to being observing and seeing. And maybe this is kind of more sentimental or a deeper kind of self-reflection of just, have I always been an outsider? Maybe it's the outsider thing of like, what is it to belong to that neighborhood? I know when we were growing up in the Red Hook projects in Brooklyn, in fourth grade, starting in fourth grade, I went to a different school out of the, in Flatbush, on the subway, by myself with my brother, age nine. And it was sort of like, well, we always went away in order to kind of do all the things that, that were fun and interesting or that we had to do. So, when I think of Midwest, I think home. Black Midwest, home for the Black Midwesterners (Harge: Hmm). But I don't feel myself as one of those. And I feel like an ex-New Yorker who lives in the Midwest more than anything. Which is neither here, it doesn't, I'm not sure where I belong actually, so (Harge: Hmm).
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Yeah, I relate to that experience of kind of being shipped to a different neighborhood for school (laughs) (Miller: Ahh). I, you know, like I was shipped to private school on the other side of the city because of my own parents, like aspirational goals for me. And, and you know, like this, this kind of, which, I mean, my mom is white, and so there was a piece of that was part of it as well, and both of them were educators, so they had very clear beliefs about education specifically. But, but I think for my dad in particular, it was really about the idea of success, right? And his mom had been a domestic worker in Jackson, Mississippi (Miller: Uh... Mmm...), and worked in such a way, like her entire goal of her life and her work was to ensure that her two kids could go to private school for even just one year. And they went for one year in elementary school, you know, and that was like the goal, because if you could get some of that, even a piece of that, right? Then you could kind of climb this ladder in a different way (Miller: Yeah) than previous generations. So I think that I inherited that. And so that is to me, even though you had that experience in New York, that's Black experience, right? (laughs) (Miller: Yeah. Yeah) (Harge: Yeah. Yeah) That's a particular part of Black experience is this (Harge: Yeah) kind of intentional like if we can gain education, if we can gain these access to these things, even though we can't have access to these other things, like we have, the evidence that we have value, you know, when someone asks, we can say, I went here for school, right? (laughs) You know?
BEBE MILLER: Yeah. And, and so something, you know, we can't ignore the whole context of our histories. We are, we are different ages, we've all gone through several decades of ways of thinking about who we are (Willis: Yeah) as a community and as a non-community, as an individual even (Willis: Yeah). And just the rise and fall of that individuality, it's like I can do it myself, that kind of thing. And, and maybe thankfully we are at a time where like, no, I need these other folk with me in order to do myself (Harge: Mm-hmm). So (Willis: Mm-hmm) I, I don't know. I, I mean, the contextual reading of these landscapes of time and opportunity and what that looks like. And then when I see images of contemporary choreographers going out into not the field, but like the corner open lot and planting. And that is like the demonstration of a, of a, of an urge that, that maybe they didn't even know they had 15 years ago (Willis: Mm-hmm). So just this, the rise and fall of land and like ownership or part, not ownership, but digging in. And how that has been of a, of a different value over time. I really (Willis: Hmm), we are not, we are not constant and our, our political (Willis: Yeah) social situation is not constant.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Yeah. Yeah (Miller: Yeah). But, but the phrase “Black Midwest” is interesting to me because I think it's a different map than the map (Harge: Hmm) of the Midwest (Miller: Hmm). Like I think it has to do with histories of industry that Black people have flocked to over time and it has to do with Great Migration maps in a different way. And it, you know, so there's some arguments that like Pittsburgh is part of the Midwest suddenly when you start to think about the Black Midwest (Harge: Yeah). And it isn't necessarily considered part of the Midwest. You know, like Pennsylvania is not part of the Midwest, right, so there's, there’s these kinds of things and there's maybe areas of the Midwest as the nation, as the US might describe it, that are not part of the Black Midwest (Miller: Hmm). And there's maybe more emphasis on the cities when you start to think about the Black Midwest than there might be, but there's also these folks, Black folks, Black communities in other parts of the, in small towns that have existed for a long time (Harge: Mm-hmm) and aren't known about, right? So I think there's something productive in it because of that, all the things I just listed. And there's this really amazing, like super famous people have got Black folks, you know, like in the arts, like across the art, like Toni Morrison, all these people are from the Midwest, you know, like Langston Hughes is from the Midwest. You know, all the, I mean, of course, tons of musicians that are famous and all that, but it's like there's all these amazing people that come from here, all these activists, you know, different fields, and there's not always this association of those figures with the Midwest, even though they're from here (Harge: Hmm). So that to me, there's something that makes Blackness in the Midwest somehow less visible than in other parts of the country (Harge: Hmm), than in the East, West, and in the South somehow. So that has been like a curious thing to me. And In that book that we were just talking about, Jennifer, there's a, in the intro, there's a quote about, like, there's a certain modest posture, this is the phrase that the (Harge: Mm-hmm) author uses, Jamala Rogers, to Midwesterners in general (Harge: Mm-hmm), maybe, but maybe specifically Black Midwestern culture that is, that means that there's not a recognition as visible, right, to other folks outside of, of this context. Anyway, so it's like, what is productive about thinking of this as one network somehow? You know, I'm, I’m curious about that.
BEBE MILLER: You know, it's funny (Willis: Jennifer?), because in listing Toni Morrison and Langston Hughes and all these musicians, they left, they left. So there's that, that like rereading of the strings (Willis: Mm-hmm) of attachment, which is not as like having them, you know, them staying. So their connection to home is what we're (Willis: Yeah) really seeing in their work, which is not so much, so then it's, it’s not localized on the landscape in a way. It's like, it’s like something (Willis: Yeah) that has been, you know, inherited and embodied. And so maybe there's, that's why Pittsburgh or other places, parts of Brooklyn (Willis: Mm-hmm. Yeah, right) are, you know, that where the Midwest actually lives, where the peopleness lives is not so much. And, and their, and their remembrance of the landscape perhaps even. But that's what we're reading as well.
TARA AISHA WILLIS: Right. Yeah. Totally. Yeah.
JENNIFER HARGE: But it's making me, so you were saying Toni Morrison, so now I'm like just, my brain is thinking through various Toni Morrison novels (Miller: Hmm). And there's something about a Black Midwest that feels, like the, the motivations feel very different than like a coastal city. So without that kind of visibility, and I learned this from working in Detroit, I'm pretty clear, but without that kind of visibility, like my motivations aren't so externally motivated. And I think about like the characters in like a Sula or Song of Solomon, like they are reflection, that like they are being with themselves (Miller: Hmm) and making sense of the world with the people who are there. And that feels very Black Midwest to me (Miller: Hmm). And that feels important to me as like a way to orient, as a way to make of like, to not be looking out at a New York for how I should be or whatever (Willis: Mm-hmm). Like I'm in the community I'm in. This is the, there's a knowing here and I'm gonna be with that knowing (Willis: Hmm). And, and those who read are welcome to see, but not trying to shift the knowing just because like an outsider is coming in (Willis: Yeah). And that feels very particular to the, to the region, for Black folks in the region.
BEBE MILLER: I think it's, it’s interesting just bringing up Toni Morrison in, in terms of her reflections back into her characters and her choice at a certain point in her writing life to like, I'm not going to name these as Black people, they are people. So of, of just, and then, you know, allowing us to all go in and see ourselves (Willis: Hmm). I mean, she always allowed us to. So (Harge: Mm-hmm) I, but I'm also really curious about Toni Morrison as a writer and her job in a way is to kind of step back and look from the outside (Harge: Hmm. Mm-hmm) in order to, in order to really kind of figure out like what is going on? How do I talk about this? What, what's the three-dimensionality of this way of living? And when I think back to my (clears throat), to Red Hook and Brooklyn and my kind of you know the projects life is a, is a very particular way of not going out and showing like I'm gonna who I'm gonna be. It's like who's here? what are we gonna do right now? Okay let's stay here. Ba-ba-ba-bum, which is formative and never leaves. So (Harge: Hmm. Mm-hmm) is it about (clears throat), we also notice in ourselves as artists, perhaps, that sense of like, I have to step outside this in order to see what it looks like. I have to be able to define this, and I don't define it as well from being on the inside (Harge: Yeah). And I don't know, I'm, it's funny about like trying to, in, in, I'm thinking about, you know, choreographic processes where spending time, trying to like, no, no the rhythm is not quite like that. It's more of (voices the rhythm) (Willis: Mm), and the gesture is no, no that's not quite it. But what if we do this? Can we see the difference of that? So, so qualifying to the nth degree of like, what is that thing I felt? Who are these people and what does that glance mean? And what's the angle of that, of that fire in the eyes to the other person? (Willis: Mm-hmm) And that there is a distance that's implied. And I think (Willis: Hmm), ah, and I wonder how much of, of just even, you know, the Black Midwest term is a way of, of, of putting a shape or a container around that outside, outsider eye. Because you need a certain (Willis: Hmm) kind of outsider eye to see inside or to, or to transfer that information.
OUTRO: How People Move People, is brought to you by The National Center of Choreography at The University of Akron, or NCCAkron. This podcast is produced by Jennifer Edwards, James Sleeman is our editor, theme music by Ellis Rovin, sound design by Damon Locks, transcription by Arushi Signh, cover art by Micah Kraus. I’m DeMarcus Akeem Suggs, Director of Development at Mid-America Arts Alliance, Founder & Framework Culturalist at kummbuntu LLC, and an NCCAkron Board Member. Special thanks to The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for their continued support of NCCAkron programming like this. To learn more about NCCAkron, please visit us online at nccakron.org and follow us on Instagram or Facebook @nccakron. We hope you enjoyed this episode and encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platform by searching for How People Move People.