Is it really a review if you're just gushing? Kawuna: You're It!, a play by Kemiyondo Coutinho and No Place To Call Home, a book by JJ Bola
There is something incredible about consuming black art. And not just black art but African art. If you're Ugandan, like me, and grew up recognising the joy art gave you then you consumed a tonne of it, like I did, and found yourself where you could. In Punky Brewster coz you always have to be the star of the show, in Rogue coz the best powers is having all the powers only when you want them, in April coz she got to kick ass, too. Then you found Fresh Prince and you were just spoilt for choice; are you Will? Of course, you're Will, he's the coolest. But, maybe, you're Ashley coz you're the same age, or Hilary coz you know you've got style, too or are you Aunt Viv coz she's hilarious and so are you.
Still none of these people ever felt familiar but it wasn't something I recognised at the time. I just knew there was the world on TV and in books and there was my world. And sometimes, people in my world made TV or wrote books but that didn't really count, you know. Or, at least, that's what I thought. Because I'd somehow convinced myself that there was one way to be art and we weren't it.
Eventually, this perception shifted when I continued to consume black art and African art and art by black women and African women. I began to get used to idea of our art and, of course, because it's ours and I'm from here and it's from here, it speaks to me in ways I didn't realise art could and I finally got what all the fuss was about.
Do you realise how important it is to consume black art, African art, art created by your peers? The people who have lived through the world with you showing you what that has been like for them so you can have the language to talk about what it's been like for you. I think it is a kind of magic. And it is a kind of magic I'm lucky to have encountered in two works of art this past week.
First, I'd like to talk about Kawuna: You're It!, a one woman play by Kemiyondo Coutinho. It's actually hard to write about this without tears welling up in my eyes. Mahgaht! What a performance! Coutinho is a fucking whirlwind from the moment she gets on that stage, I tell you. A play in which she has to give 11 distinct performances, 11 personalities that interact with each other, that talk about each other, 11 chances for Coutinho to entirely transform her physicality to transmit these characters and for the audience to be carried along on this wave with her. The writing, plotting, stage work is ingenious and engaging and surprising and enlightening. It's actually a little sad that this isn't just running for one straight month so everyone can see it but Coutinho spoke of plans to turn the play into a tv series so at least you can be treated to everything else sans her very powerful performance.
I also just finished reading JJ Bola's No Place To Call Home. To say that I was moved, that I felt undressed and lain bare, would only be scratching the surface. This story got me, you guys, right in the fucking feels. Reading it felt a little bit like an act of therapy. In the book, Jean, a high school student in the UK, whose parents are immigrants from Congo spends a lot of time in his head and his inner monologue could well have been mine except I was a female student in Uganda. (So, maybe, replace some of his angst over toxic masculinity with my own over rape culture.) Shame is a hard hard thing. A painful thing that seeks to make you small and yet there's some unspoken legacy of shame in colonised societies that is insidious. It seeps into everything and twists us into ugly beings which only makes us more shameful. The shame of poverty, the shame of being other, the shame of being born into a rigid world that has already carved out a tiny space for you that you're not allowed to outgrow or change in. Talking about this shame, is why I think this book is so important. Talking about it a non 'special episode' way is why I think this book is so important. Giving this black family an ordinary life of hard work, going to school, going to church, doing normal folk shit is why I think this book is so important. I've been thinking about Jean and Marie and wondering what became of them. Mostly, I hope they found in themselves those worthy beings their parents took for granted were in them. I hope they made it back to a Kin happy to have them. I hope they found home.
izzy806
yousharknotpass
origamiaround
blakekathryn
gummygunk
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
romaincrisis
dededos
stormborns
baratheonpilled
