The following are excerpts from the script for the choreopoem. This material has been shared only for the purposes of viewing work samples.
© ALISON HALL KIBBE, 2017. No part of this site, www.alisonkibbe.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.
This body
Este cuerpo?
This body
This body contains questions
pregnant pauses
quizzical stares
This body contains water
routes of travel
deep currents
storms and waves
bodies sinking to the bottom
This body contains maps
borders cut across the skin
routes of trade, conquista, escape
This body never seems to be enough
This body has no accent from
North Carolina “Hey Y’all”
Jamaica “Ya mon, we be irie right?
Cuba “Asere, que bolá?”
This body has learned through generations
that perhaps
it is better
if your tongue
does not tie you to one place
you are of places
This body trains her tongue and lips to speak in languages
searching for her voice in
Kreyol
Portuguese
Español - El idioma nativo de su abuelo
forever trying to expat the accent that marks her as foreigner
as someone who doesn’t belong
This body trains her hips to move, her ass to shake, and her feet to step
looking for a dance that can speak
tells the stories that her skin and eyes hide
This body never seems to be enough
This body is carried on oceans of questions
in question
“How many generations does belonging last?”
“Where’s the black in you?”
“But how black is your mom?”
“Ella es negra de verdad? O Mulata?”
“Exactly how black are you? 1/4 black and 1/8 latina?”
“What box do you check?”
“Pero donde fue la negra? Yo no la veo”
“How many generations does belonging last?”
You don’t believe me
so I pull out a photo.
better yet a map
filled with arrows
routes of migration
the places that
this skin carries.
passing for a dream
This body
Could pass for a dream
The dream
blue eyes. Skin that can pass for white
translucent, without the help of milk baths
a dream dreamed in a world formed by the white power of sugar
tall tall grass
the roots suck the sweetness out of the ground
the machete swoosh sucks the breeze out of the air.
dreamed in places where skin colors are named by the multitude of combinations that the cash crops produce
cafe con leche
leche con cafe
anejo
chocolate
brown sugar
The more refined the sugar, the whiter it is, the higher the price the closer to gold
the original treasure that they sought in this “New World”
And this dream grew out of the nightmare that was reality
In which, darker, meant death
dark bodies working until death amongst the tall tall cane.
the roots sucking the sweetness out of their life
They mixed the cream with the coffee
condensed milk in a can
more sugar, sweeter, better
to cover the beautiful complex bitter of coffee
One of the most complex tastes known to human palates
Did you know that scientists still cannot explain how the taste of coffee works on our tongues?
We can’t explain how the flavors engage our senses
just like we can’t explain how our ancestors survived, created, thrived
in the midst of centuries of crazy
but dreams were dreamed
and nightmares lived
and generations born and raised
and generations born and raised
and generations born and raised
transplanted, bearing new fruit
cycles of migration
looking for something more
Europeans arrive in the Americas
Africans are brought to the Caribbean fields
The Tainos and the Caribs resist, flee, perish
The English, Spanish, French, Scottish, and Irish become Creoles,
owners of other humans
Resistance is always, revolutions are fought, independences won, and sovereignty challenged
The promise of a canal pulls two of my great-great grandmothers from Jamaica to work in Panama
The sweetness of a sugar boom attracts my great grandmother Hilda Parchment Brown to Cuba from Jamaica
A wave of blanquimento brings my great grandfather Pancho from the Canary Islands to Cuba
My grandfather Francisco is born in Cuba
Hilda wins the lottery and brings her family to Jamaica
Francisco meets Daphne
Their first daughter, my mother Diane is born in Jamaica
The family moves from the island of Jamaica to Jamaica, Queens, New York
Diane grows into a woman the color of cafe con leche, she meets my father David, an ivory skinned man shaped in Cleveland, the center of the country.
They have three children the color of cream on the border of Texas and Mexico.
The raise their children in North Carolina. The South.
The youngest daughter, rubia rubia
blue eyes
skin that can pass for white
translucent, without the help of milk baths
Is this the dream?
Ancestors, when I was born and appeared white, were you happy?
Mom, did you know that my light skin and blue eyes would protect me from forces even stronger than your Supermother powers?
Did you know that a name like Alison Hall Kibbe, when printed at the top of a resume, meant it would always be read?
Who dreamed this dream?
Did you want to protect me from what you knew?
From everything that came before me?
I don’t want to pass for this dream
I don’t want to pass
these women
The women in my mother's line
of which I am one
have moved away from their mother’s
to find something new
encountering the world
alone
to make a new home
I come from people who keep moving
who carry their world
in
bags and baskets
Nuestro corriente corre rápido abajo
The current runs swift downstream
The past
is alway a blur
just behind
colors blurred and borders smudged
big cargo boats for crossing into
the next name
next language
next accent
in the belly of the boat
the sea slaps against our sides
Among the cargo is darkness
except for light bouncing from memory to imagined future
To that place we can only imagine because we haven't yet been there
to that place we can never forget because we can never return
It is stories we hold on to
crafting the past so it makes sense
to us
to them
Our bodies together tell stories that are rather complex