It means even more now that my dad has passed and he was the one who filled in most of the information. I’ve been looking for a similar one and found this one on Amazon a few weeks ago. It was first published in 1998. They don’t make baby books like this anymore.
Yellow book with a little Black baby and the words “Baby’s Heritage” on the front
My baby book is one of my most prized possessions because it feels like a love letter from my parents to me. In it, they tell me who they are, their hopes, dreams, and prayers for my life, and trace my growing up.
For my March Substack, I returned to Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr.’s article “The Black Church Is Dead” and talk about how it’s still relevant. Also, as Black people leave the church, we need to think more energetically about what it means to create church at the pole studio, in the yoga class, etc.
My latest book review for @sojo.net is out!
“Who are the ancestors shaping our lives, churches, and nations? And what are they saying to us? These are the questions Rev. William H. Lamar IV invites us to reflect on in Ancestors.”
sojo.net/sojoshare/Nz...
I finished listening to “Kin” on my way to Duke’s Feminist Theory Workshop. Dr. Erica Edwards is currently talking about “Sula” in her keynote speech, and now I’m interested in what it would look like to read “Kin” and “Sula” together.
Also, last night I worked on the part of my dissertation where I discuss why I’m interested in using Communion (the regular definitions and the sacrament) to think about my work and why the core chapters are named for phrases from both the communion liturgy and the communion scripture.
However, I’m not the best person to conduct that research, and it might require discussing some things that intentionally go unnamed and unaddressed in Black church spaces.
But the lines weren’t always as clearly defined. Just based off growing up in dance ministry spaces, I think mime becomes a space for queer religious expression.
Mime (white face, white gloves, on a Black body) developed alongside dance ministries and in some ways got pushed as the more masculine form of expression in Black religious spaces. Women dance, and men mime.
There are things that are related to my dissertation that I’ve decided will be included as interludes. One of them will briefly discuss mime, flags, and pageantry. They’re things that are related to dance ministry but warrant their own project.
I don’t know how many words I’ve written today, but I currently have over 4,000 words of my dissertation written. Today I focused on the background of my project and my research sites.
Tomorrow I am preaching on creating spaces of freedom while living under empire from the Gospel of Luke and the life of Fannie Lou Hamer.
To graduate in May, I need to have a complete draft of my dissertation by the end of January. I’m about to really be in the house until then.
This weekend, I shared on my PhD research at the AAR-Southeast Conference. My presentation was entitled “Sacred Rituals of Healing and Freedom: Liturgical Dance and Pole Dance in the U.S. South.” I am so excited for all of the forms that my research will take in the coming years!
A pole in front of a screen that has the words “Fix Me Jesus” Pole Dance. In front are eight smiling Black women.
My first presentation on my PhD research went well! I’m glad it I was able to kick it off with an embodied workshop where I could bring my full self, the minister, the liturgical dance scholar, the liturgical dancer, and the pole dancer.
That matters because she hasn’t always loved her body, but through pole, she’s learning to love her body. I so relate to that.
Tonight the quote that made me tear up came from one of my pole dance friends. She talked about how she loves pole because she’s in a place where she gets to dance with people of al shapes and sizes.
I’ve realized that when I present on my PhD research, I have to practice at least once at home, not because I need the practice but because I’m sensitive and talking about Black women getting free and finding healing through dance makes me emotional. I get all my tears out when I practice at home.
I’m in my pole dancing to spirituals era. For my embodied workshop next Saturday, I’m ending with a pole dance to “Fix Me, Jesus.” Also, I just started my pole competition piece which pays homage to Alvin Ailey’s Revelations.
I’m interested in what happens when we gather together in community and engage in rituals of remembrance. Communion is communal/relational, embodied, and spiritual/sacred, and so is pole dance.
My current dissertation title is “Sacred Communions: Exploring Black Women’s Relationships through Dance.” Communion is a good term because it doesn’t have to be religious, but it is in the way that I use it. Communion also worked out better because I’m interested in relationships.
I put that poem in the article I submitted on pole as a more liberating and alternative space to the Black Church for Black women and femmes, so hopefully they publish it. My family said baptism was doing too much though and was bordering on heresy, so I shifted to communion.
When I started this project, I wrote a poem about a woman who goes to the altar to be baptized, except it’s not the altar but the pole studio, and she’s not baptized into Christianity but baptized into a journey that often includes a new name, a pole name.
I’m in a new member’s class and they mentioned my dissertation title, except they don’t know they mentioned it because it’s one of the ordinances of this church (and most Baptist churches). I began with the idea of baptism and pole.
Also, all of these things are constantly buzzing around in my head as I do my research on liturgical (praise and worship) dance and pole dance.
I hope I can come back and tease out some of these thoughts when I’m done preparing for my February workshop and conference presentation. I am in the midst of reading about dance, Christianity, and repression in preparation for the workshop.
I have thoughts on how Western culture and Christianity have shaped some perceptions around dance. I have thoughts on who gets to determine which forms of dance are “appropriate.” I have thoughts on dance as a cultural and communal practice and ritual.
I’ve been thinking about the president’s post on Bad Bunny’s performance & how he named the dancing as “disgusting,” especially given young children were watching. I have thoughts on how the dancing bodies of people of color tend to be sexualized.
I’ve been thinking about genre in terms of my writing lately. I feel like the sweet spot for me is somewhere between creative nonfiction and scholarly article, but I have to figure out when to let the creative voice lead and when to let the scholarly voice lead.