The ongoing Israeli attack on Gaza has left 1.7 million Palestinians displaced, 12,300children killed, 70% of Gazan homes destroyed. And a lot of that destruction has been streaming on our devices day and night. In this moment, many artists are asking, how do you make art, dance, or perform in the face of live-streamed atrocities. In 1963, after the release of her song, Mississippi Goddam, musician Nina Simone offered one answer "The role of the artists is to reflect the moment." And that’s what a group of Bay Area dancers did with a 14-hour marathon event of learning, performance, and solidarity.
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At 9 am, Styles Alexander pulls up to CounterPulse, a performance and event space smack dab in the Tenderloin. The sidewalk is covered in blood. Styles was told that someone had fallen and bled out on the street.
"In a way it was painfully metaphorical for what we're doing here, um, just to be literally cleaning blood as we're trying to sort of clean up the blood that our nation has made with our hands."
We’re outside the event, Artists Against Genocide. It’s a marathon of performances, teach-ins, and actions in solidarity with the people of Palestine, Sudan, and the Congo. Styles is an artist and dancer and calls themself the instigator of the event.
Styles says: "The question of what does our art do in these moments, like in a moment like this, a moment of televised genocide, it made me ask, what is the purpose?"
I’ve been asking myself this same question. How can I create anything, when, right now, I don’t even know how I’m supposed to put one foot in front of the other? As an Arab, I cannot separate myself from these atrocities.
Every day I visit countless graves as all our phone screens become cemeteries for the more than 30,000 Palestinians who have been killed. Styles— like me— forgot how to make art. But then, they talked with other artists and had a realization:
"We came to this conclusion that you know, artists are actually the first responders in so many ways."Styles Alexander
In thinking about how to respond, Styles and their community started talking not just about Palestine, but also the thousands and thousands killed in Sudan and the Congo.
Styles explains: "It was less about what can performance do as much as it was like, what else do I have? What else do I have?"
Styles glides me through the corridors. There are three floors with films and sound baths, phone banking and food, poetry and performance workshops.
Rhodessa Jones is kicking off the first workshop of the day. "Go! One! Give me a circle! One, two, three, four."
As founder of the Medea Project, she leads storytelling workshops for incarcerated women. Today, she’s on the stage at CounterPulse, teaching us the first step to making art in times of trouble: Speak as a chorus.
Another organizer, Chibueze Crouch, reads a poem as a tight circle gathers ‘round her: "I believe that liberation is within our reach and revolution is at our throat."
The chorus chants, I believe. I am a bird, I dream.
Together, the chorus speaks as they point their fingers high to the sky.
It reminds me of how I was taught to bear witness. My family raises their fingers just like that when they pray.
"Dance, for me, is prayer."Styles Alexander
Like Styles, my family taught me prayer and dance, were done better together. Today, it seems dreaming, praying, and witnessing share the same meaning.
As I listen to the chorus, the voices sound like a flock, and I imagine the words of Palestinian poet, Marwan Makhoul. He says: In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political / I must listen to the birds/ And in order for me to hear the birds / the warplanes must be silent.
But the warplanes aren't silent right now. I ask the question again: can you dance, should you dance?
Styles says, in this moment, if the first step for artists is to use art to connect— step two is: Don’t dance to escape. "People don't want to see. A bunch of people just performing and, and dancing around when people are dying. We wanted a space where people could cry and could rage and could sing and dance and just be still and be quiet and eat and break bread together."
I move backstage as musicians start to play and call the audience members to join them. The bass of the music and their stomps shake the building and move up through the soles of my feet. A familiar feeling rushes over me. The feeling of being carried in a crowd as I march in the streets. Of chanting in unison.
So, we're speaking as a chorus, and we're not dancing to escape. Sharif Zakout, a featured speaker of the Teach-In, led me to Step 3— Ground your art in education.
"And we are in one of the most well-documented genocides. Literally, we are seeing it play-by-play on cell phones. And with over 30,000 people dead, over a third of them children, over 7,000 people who have left unaccounted for, suspected to be killed under rubble."
He emphasizes how worldwide struggles are interconnected.
Chibueze Crouch says the organizers were adamant about this point. "It just felt like having this panel and having a teach-in, where we had people from representatives from Palestine, Congo and Sudan would be a really tremendous moment for solidarity to connect the dots and kind of, um, understand the ways that all these violences are connected and all these systemic genocides are part of a larger system of imperialism and colonialism."
Even educators know that in times of atrocity, in order to endure, we need to pause and offer up prayer. Writer and doctoral student, Shah Noor steps back during her teach-in on Sudan, to do just that:
"I just want to do a prayer for the children of Sudan, and of Palestine, and of the Congo, and of all places that deserve safety, and love, and just care, and life."
Shah recites Surah al Fatiha, the first chapter in the Qu’ran. I, too, have it memorized. And my lips follow her prayer, like a chorus.
My mother taught me to pray and dance in the same breath. How to move my body, not just in bursts of joy, but also to carry me through waves of grief. Maybe the key to making art in times of trouble is not to let go— but to hold on tighter.
If artists are, like Styles says the first responders, then maybe a day like this one is the antiseptic in their first-aid kit. A day filled with presence, connection, and education. A day which draws on the possibility evoked by performance. It makes way to see the wound, to know what is needed to heal.
This story aired in the March 20, 2024 episode of Crosscurrents.
