Today Shy and I had a one day mini-residency working on Borders Resurfacing in LA. We started in the morning with a Skype check-in with Meena and Sandra, who were in Philadelphia and Munich. Meena left after we worked out some important logistics, and Sandra, Shy and I continued chatting to help formulate Shyamala's and my creative tasks for the day. Together, we decided that Shy and I would make another phrase remixing other people's material together in the studio. In addition, we shared some stories about troubles with border crossings, including people caught in Trump's travel ban, and decided that Shy and I would create some new movement based on these stories.
password: remix
Remix Phrase (Shy solo)
We also played with putting it together as a canon. We envisioned that it could be interesting to do as an ensemble of bodies in uneven canons, creating an ebb and flow of people trying to cross borders, encountering obstacles, being sent away. Perhaps a soundscape consisting of excerpts of the border trouble stories could accompany the phrase, with parts of the stories comprehensible and parts not, with the overall effect of oceanic ebb and flow.
password: remix
Remix Phrase (duet)
For our movement inspired by stories of trouble crossing borders, we ended up creating "Border Sawal Jawab":
password: ACLU
Border Sawal Jawab
This study is based on the story of Hina Shamsi, an ACLU lawyer with a Pakistani passport and US green card who was stopped and questioned in the aftermath of Trump's travel ban. With a few modifications and additions for clarity and theatrical impact, most of the actual questions were taken verbatim from Shamsi's description of her "second screening" interrogation. And I was inspired by Meena's earlier explorations doing footwork to Fred Moten's words!
For reference, here is Shamsi's story:
https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/flying-home-abroad-border-agent-stopped-and-questioned-me-about-my-work-aclu
You can also hear the story in her voice on the following "Intercepted" podcast (listen from 20:43-24:23):
https://theintercept.com/2017/02/15/intercepted-podcast-we-are-all-in-trumps-hunger-games-now/
And here are some of the other "border trouble" stories that we shared with each other during our Skype discussion:
password: remix
Remix Phrase (Shy solo)
We also played with putting it together as a canon. We envisioned that it could be interesting to do as an ensemble of bodies in uneven canons, creating an ebb and flow of people trying to cross borders, encountering obstacles, being sent away. Perhaps a soundscape consisting of excerpts of the border trouble stories could accompany the phrase, with parts of the stories comprehensible and parts not, with the overall effect of oceanic ebb and flow.
password: remix
Remix Phrase (duet)
For our movement inspired by stories of trouble crossing borders, we ended up creating "Border Sawal Jawab":
password: ACLU
Border Sawal Jawab
This study is based on the story of Hina Shamsi, an ACLU lawyer with a Pakistani passport and US green card who was stopped and questioned in the aftermath of Trump's travel ban. With a few modifications and additions for clarity and theatrical impact, most of the actual questions were taken verbatim from Shamsi's description of her "second screening" interrogation. And I was inspired by Meena's earlier explorations doing footwork to Fred Moten's words!
For reference, here is Shamsi's story:
You can also hear the story in her voice on the following "Intercepted" podcast (listen from 20:43-24:23):
https://theintercept.com/2017/02/15/intercepted-podcast-we-are-all-in-trumps-hunger-games-now/
And here are some of the other "border trouble" stories that we shared with each other during our Skype discussion:
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/20/british-muslim-teacher-denied-entry-to-us-on-school-trip
- https://www.artforum.com/news/id=66941
- https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/26/grandmother-deported-from-uk-despite-being-married-to-briton-for-27-years
- http://www.dw.com/en/deported-afghans-dream-of-returning-to-germany/a-37352655
- https://codastory.com/migration-crisis/geopolitical-ruptures/an-opera-singer-takes-the-stage-and-confronts-deportation
- https://codastory.com/migration-crisis/news/update-celebrity-musician-and-asylum-seeker-back-in-afghanistan-following-deportation
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