Haunted by history and healing through community and care.

Merely being a minority in a country can feel like a daily battle, constantly waking up and dreading the little microaggressions or worse one might face in the day. Not only that, but as a Black person in America, one also bears the gravity of Black history in one’s very existence, carrying it in the body, and weighed down by expectation and perception of society and the Black community itself.

Coalescing the experience of Black men in modern day America, Chicago-based artist J’Sun Howard has choreographed aMoratorium, which made its Singapore premiere this week as part of the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival. Originally created as a response to the Art Institute of Chicago’s retrospective of visual artist Charles Wilbert White, the duet explores the place and presence of Black male identity today, while incorporating Black belief systems into the mix.

Onstage, all we see is a massive “tree” on stage left, and we imagine a garden of repose, a space separate and removed from the urban sprawl of the city, where one might find peace of mind. Enter collaborator-performers Dedrick “D. Banks” Gray and Timothy “Solomon” Bowser, the former in a camo top and sweatpants, the latter in a plain white tee and jeans. Both are casually dressed, and it feels as if they’ve come here to seek solace, the sounds of insects audible in the night. Their backs to us, they are completely taken by this liminal space, enraptured by the freedom it affords.

We hear Boris Gardiner’s “Every Nigger Is A Star”, and from what seems like a long journey, the two men are finally at peace, gazing up at the stars, sitting with each other, so close they’re almost touching, comfortable in each other’s presence. Their freedom feels like an act of resistance against the pressures of behaving “manly”, as their movements – light and smooth as they graze the floor, leaping without restraint, are completely themselves.

Yet, this doesn’t seem to last for too long, a dreamy setting that begins to collapse as the music crackles and shifts. No longer are we comforted by the music, that seems to ebb into something altogether more spiritual, and both dancers seem to be distracted and burdened by something on their minds – death. We hear snippets from Netflix’s “Rodney King”, thinking of police brutality and the violence and Black lives taken from sheer prejudice, as they mimic being shot over and over again before falling to the ground. 

What follows from here? Is that all there is to it? Both dancers half naked, we feel their vulnerability in their bodies, as they display tentativeness and fear at this new reality, the death perhaps of the inner self from all these social pressures to conform or worse – to face violent discrimination over who they are. There is a sense of mourning, as the dancers seem to weep over what they’ve lost, the music hymnal, as if suggesting a religious ceremony. Yet there is more to it – amidst the pain of loss, Timothy decides to raise Dedrick on his shoulders, and breathe new life into him, not yet extinguished.

And it is from here that we find hope in the tenderness, in the belief that love is not something to be ashamed of, not something that requires a marginalised, fringe space by which to be comfortable expressing. A moratorium suggests temporary prohibition, to be told one cannot do something. But aMoratorium brings out the ‘amor’ within the title, where Black men can express romance, where they can be vulnerable, and where they can and should be dancing in the name of love. To exist becomes an act to resist, and we are reminded that against the unbearable weight of one’s skin colour and sexuality, one is not alone, never alone in facing the horrors, and that in both recognition of a pained history and celebration of the tiny triumphs amidst that, one can indeed carry on.

Photo Credit: Kristie Kahns

aMoratorium played from 17th to 18th January 2024 at the Esplanade Theatre Studio. More information available here

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2024 runs from 17th to 28th January 2024 across various venues. Full line-up available here, with tickets available from BookMyShow

Production Credits:

Choreographer: J’Sun Howard Collaborator/Performers: Dedrick “D. Banks” Gray, Timothy ‘Solomon’ Bowser Collaborator/Sound Artist: Jared Brown Lighting and Scenic Designer: Jacob Snodgrass