{"id":3625,"date":"2013-09-20T11:57:02","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T15:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arts.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=3625"},"modified":"2013-09-20T11:57:02","modified_gmt":"2013-09-20T15:57:02","slug":"sight-sound-and-stir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2013\/09\/20\/sight-sound-and-stir\/","title":{"rendered":"Sight, Sound, and Stir"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span>An academic talk, I assume, will have a standard format: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to do, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s me doing it, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I did, questions?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The do\/did\/done is usually particular research, lots of (beautiful) jargon (#HomoNationalism, #Schizoanalysis, #FungibilityAndAccumulation), and a take away that blows something (my mind, not something (just blows), etc.). I am used to this format. This format gives me comfort. There is a certain formula\/art, if you will, to the standard talk.
\n<\/span>
\nWhen the normal academic talk is disrupted, however, by queer-black-dance identity, I know this talk isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just an art form but art itself. Here are some signs:
\n<\/span>1. There is a Wii controller that, when it moves, adjusts sounds that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never heard before–whirrs and chants and whizzes and vhroooooongs.
\n<\/span>2. Every so often the mouse on screen ventures into the unknown, seemingly jumping from the screen onto the board to drag another window (invisible) into plain sight. As if all computer windows are always open but invisible to the naked eye, all information like atoms, tucked away into the smallest depths of reality, the mouse dragged j-stepping videos into plain sight. J-step over here and over there, and all of a sudden the talk stopped to only watch a video (all with accompanying Wii controller controlled sound).
\n<\/span>3. Before long all windows flashed away from the screen and a lone Word document lay in our midst. The cursor blinks in a terrifyingly regular way, more steady than my own heart or the internal metronome keeping the Wii controller controlled. Words, fragments, phrases, and identities appear. Are corrected. Disappear. Move on.
\n<\/span>4. There is silence. Between words, sentences, remarks, sounds. He stares back at our staring eyes.
\n<\/span>
\nSome talks have audio-visual components, but again–\u00e2\u20ac\u009dI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m playing this for you, here it is, wow, I just played that–cool.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153OH MY, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to play this video for you, BAM, here it is, AH! it just played.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n<\/span>
\nThis academic talk was less talk more performance art. Hinging on creative interests and experiences as an artist, dancer, queer person of color, it was no surprise that Tomm(ie\/y) would disrupt our notions of an academic talk to center himself along the edges, cracks, and space in order to create something that was original and unique. Something that wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just talk about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dancing [Black<\/span>|Queer] Diasporas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but be dancing, black, queer diasporas.
\n<\/span>
\nBlackness and Queerness disrupt most things in civil society, if not all things. In my experience they (it, since I identify as Queer) do so in a beautiful way by allowing for more possibilities than first realized.
\n<\/span>
\nThe talk finished, the questions answered, and then we danced.
\n<\/span>
\nWe were to dance Black dance insofar as Black dance is an aesthetic style appropriated by some, embodied by some, and rendered (un)intelligible by some. The beat to 212 (by, yes, Azealia Banks) started to play and I knew that this was some pivotal moment in my life. We were beckoned to stand up (if able) and an individual led us through several dance moves that involved hip and bum movement, dropping it low, and sidestepping. We laughed and danced and became community all while the beat beat beat beat beat.
\n<\/span>
\nComing back to campus, coming (back) to academia, and coming back to beloved spaces, it was nice to have a Monday night interrupted with dance, art, performance art, and a big queer audience of which to be a part.
\n<\/span>
\nThe world said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153welcome back\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to Ann Arbor and we replied \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I guess that . . . gettin eatin.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An academic talk, I assume, will have a standard format: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to do, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s me doing it, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I did, questions?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The do\/did\/done is usually particular research, lots of (beautiful) jargon (#HomoNationalism, #Schizoanalysis, #FungibilityAndAccumulation), and a take away that blows something (my mind, not something (just blows), etc.). I am used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[333,337,334,23,336,331,158,332,335],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3625"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3632,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625\/revisions\/3632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}