Cryptomnesia
Cryptomnesia will be a new physical and movement theatre work directed by Yandass Ndlovu as a conversation catalyst starting with her body as a Black, Queer and Female person. Shoes are taken and missing. It hopes to interweave British Sign Language to augment the visual movement that expresses the issues of identity, structural racism and power for audiences who want to engage in discourse.
Prologue
In the beginning, a body lies naked in her original design as a complete being. But something important has been taken and the reason why is not comprehensible. As the body enters the world to search, she meets Diversity and Inclusion personified.
Diversity invites her to a party but does not allow her dance.
Inclusion also invites her to dance but does not provide the music with which to dance to.
“This is what structural racism looks like. It is not just about personal prejudice, but the collective effects of bias. It is the kind of racism that has the power to drastically impact people’s life chances.” Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I No Longer talk to White People About Race.
Have we as individuals in a society become susceptible to unknowingly borrow ideology – a phenomenon of Cryptomnesia? Even as we say “not on my watch” to overt acts of racism but are so often complicit and quietly fearful of a black planet.
In the midst of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and 1956, one of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermons was on not conforming to the world. He said “only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit”.
Is there a chance where the Black body could meet a third kind of person: Integration? Perhaps Integration would act justly and show loving kindness by seeing the Black body in her original design in the beginning.
Cryptomnesia is supported by Future’s Venture Foundation, Radical Independent Art Fund to be produced as a five minute short film. futuresventure.net/artist/yandass-ndlovu This will used as a provocation at a two-weeks research and development that is being planned to happen in 2021.