fu(struc)tures
by Eva Yaa Asantewaa
on my mind pre-pandemic:
wow. let’s take a few dancers
from big-name troupes and
maybe mix ‘em up with dancers
from not-so-big names and
put them in space tiny space
with folks who never
bother much with dance and
have folks watch from
up close so they
get. it.
on my mind pre-pandemic:
get this
catch the sweat
catch the spirit
catch thought flaring
‘cross a brain
catch an impulse
feel that impulse
make connection
lose the thread
find that thread
worry it
surrender
surrender
on my mind pre-pandemic:
unboxing
it’s all boxes
can we not have boxes?
just once
just forever
can we have space without...
on my mind pre-pandemic:
let me pull my feet back so
these dancers do not trip up
but what a thrill
what a charge
on my mind pre-pandemic:
how does language limit
access?
are we so sure
we really want
everybody in?
on my mind pre-pandemic:
how many words for circle
round
hoop
ring
circus
enclosure
cycle
revolution
corona
on my mind pre-pandemic:
there’s no telling
how much you’ve shaped me
trained me as you move
taught me as you move
there’s no telling
how much you’ve shaped through me
there’s no telling
how futures shape through you
©2020, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Eva Yaa Asantewaa (pronouns: she/her) is Senior Director of Artist Development and Curation as well as Editorial Director at Gibney, New York’s acclaimed center for dance and social activism. She won the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance as a veteran writer, curator and community educator. Since 1976, she has contributed writing on dance to Dance Magazine, The Village Voice, SoHo Weekly News, Gay City News, The Dance Enthusiast, Time Out New York and other publications and interviewed dance artists and advocates as host of two podcasts, Body and Soul and Serious Moonlight. She blogs on the arts, with dance as a specialty, for InfiniteBody and will serve as Editorial Director of Imagining: A Gibney Journal, an online publication devoted to writing on dance and performance, to be launched in Fall 2020.
Ms. Yaa Asantewaa joined the curatorial team for Danspace Project’s Platform 2016: Lost and Found and created the skeleton architecture, or the future of our worlds, an evening of group improvisation featuring 21 Black women and gender-nonconforming performers. Her cast was awarded a 2017 Bessie for Outstanding Performer. In 2018, Queer|Art named one of its awards in her honor, and Detroit-based choreographer Jennifer Harge won the first Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant for Queer Women(+) Dance Artists. In 2019, Yaa Asantewaa was a recipient of a BAX Arts & Artists in Progress Award.
A native New Yorker of Black Caribbean heritage, Eva makes her home in the East Village with her wife, Deborah, and cat, Crystal.
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