Alison Stewart (4:19)

It's interesting. Before you enter the show, there's a video in the lobby, and at first you're like, sort of don't pay attention to it. And then you realize, oh, I'm supposed to pay attention to this. And it's got all these images of people performing. For example. I think the most one that people recognize is Hazel Scott. She played the piano with both hands at the same time. Tell us, who's in these videos? What do they have in common? And why is this one of the things that you want people to experience before they even enter the theater?

Issa Davis (4:48)

Well, I mean, you picked up on Hazel Scott because both of us are piano players, right? And I mean. I mean, what an incredible artist she was. And I think that that level of virtuosity that she has and had, you know, where she would swing the classics, play two pianos at a time. Other people in the video are like, Dorothy Dandridge, amazing harpists and trumpet players. And I think really what I'm trying to get at is the way that we're expected to be far beyond what excellence is. We have to be, you know, a trillion times more excellent. Right? And I want to be able to release a performing black woman's body from those expectations. And that's what you. So it's like, you see, like, that height, you know, that hurdle that we're supposed to leap over, and then, you know, you get into the space and sometimes, you know, we're just sitting on the floor talking and having a slumber party, you know what I mean? And just being relaxed.

Alison Stewart (6:00)

The person invited us into a small area before the show starts. And you see books hanging from the ceiling. They almost looks like a mobile over a bed. And after the show was over, I realized, oh, this is what the show's about. It's about a lot of these books. Like, maybe wanna go read them? It's my own syllabus. I was hoping you could tell us about a few black feminist lessons for marine mammals. Why do you have that book?

Issa Davis (6:29)

Well, I think in a lot of ways, the piece, you know, the Water Tank is representing this transatlantic crossing, right? And this middle passage and this. The idea that Alexis Pauline Gumbs has in this is about this undrowning, this way in which. And I also kind of link it to Octavia Butler's Wild Seed, in which you become a dolphin and literally jump off of a slave ship and live in that way. So there's an undrowning, I think, that is occurring in the piece. It's that I'm both representing ancestors who were taken captive and also being able to fully embrace the complexity of that history and the beauty of the ritual that was born across that ocean and brought to this country and then, you know, is still enlivening all of global culture, you know.

Alison Stewart (7:30)

Next book on the list was Lose youe A Journey along the Atlantic Slave Route.

Issa Davis (7:35)

Yes. Saidiya Hartman, what a powerful scholar she is. I just look to her. She also has a piece that she's been creating that I believe is going to be in Amsterdam next in October with Okwi OK Pakwasili, who was a movement consultant on this piece, and my good friend Andre Holland, they're a part of that. So Saidiya's scholarship is just so powerful to me in Lose youe Mother, because she's going back to the motherland. And I'm putting that in quotes for those who can't see me, which is all of you in the audience, but that there's this real, I guess, illusion that we may have of this homecoming when folks from the African diaspora and from the Americas in particular, go to the African continent. And I think that what's in there that was so powerful to me was just to really understand that the transatlantic slave trade, from that perspective of being on the continent and what the internal slave trade there, how that shifts the concept of it. And also in that it's not a book hanging, but my mother did a Lot of work on the African continent when she was studying for her PhD in indigenous conflict resolution and restorative justice. And there was this concept that she introduced me to of the Middle Passage as a rite of passage. Again, that's an Africanist way of thinking about it. You know, that this was something that we could go through in order to become that much more embodied, fulfill our destiny as people. Yeah.

Alison Stewart (9:30)

There's one book that I want to read. It's Fred Moten's book.

Issa Davis (9:32)

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Alison Stewart (9:33)

Black and Blur. He teaches now. Does he teach at nyu?

Issa Davis (9:37)

I'm not sure right now.

Alison Stewart (9:38)

Not sure who's teaching.

Issa Davis (9:40)

I love seeing I bump into him sometimes or. I mean, he doesn't know me, but I see him at. I see him at, like, you know, really amazing avant garde jazz performances. He's around. So, yeah, I would. Yeah.

Alison Stewart (9:52)

And then there's Angela's Mixtape.

Issa Davis (9:53)

Yes.

Alison Stewart (9:54)

Which is your own book, a book that you wrote. Share with people what it's about.

Issa Davis (9:58)

Angela's Mixtape is a stage memoir about growing up in. In the Bay Area. I am the daughter of Fania Davis, whom I just was speaking about, a restorative justice practitioner and longtime warrior for freedom. And my aunt, her sister is Angela Davis, who of course, came to prominence in the late 60s and early 70s when she was on trial for charges that she was completely innocent of. And, of course, is this incredible light that we all look toward when it comes to understanding our world. So that piece really is about my obligations that I felt as a child growing up in this radical family and what it was that I felt that I needed to do be, in order to live up to that legacy. And so it's there because there are a lot of linkages, both in terms of aesthetic and also in terms of this question of obligation. So it's like moving from the question of this very particular family with a global legacy. But then now I'm thinking about obligation to sort of black womanhood and where those requirements come from, like those kinds of pressures that then become internalized.

Alison Stewart (11:25)

And at the end of the mobile of books is a set of tap shoes. I have my suspicions, but why tap shoes? Of all the dance shoes, they could be ballet shoes, they could be jazz shoes. But you chose tap shoes.

Issa Davis (11:40)

I did. I did. Well, I just got those tap shoes last year so that I could go to tap class. I only have been to two tap classes in my life. One when I was six. I can still remember the combination for that. And then I went to one. I think it's steps. Something like that last year with my friend Sasha Hutchings, who's on the warriors album. But I put that there because, of course, they hold this weight of the way that we're expected to perform in a white supremacist ideology. And they are the symbol of pure liberation for me, of dance as music, of this rhythmic power that we as black cultural practitioners have. I love. I just, you know, I think about my friend, like, Aydela Cassel, and I just think about her incredible work. And so it's both an aspiration and it's a recognition of that history.

Alison Stewart (12:50)

It's really interesting. And I can't remember where I saw it, but I saw tap dancers, and they were tapping in a very fierce way, sometimes an angry way, not just for pleasure, Right? And I thought that was so interesting. And I thought, like, this is gonna go. This kind of goes right back to your thesis, you know, can you be black and not perform, or are you performing something else?

Issa Davis (13:18)

Yeah, well, you know, it's not as though these issues that I'm talking about are new. They're just. I'm trying to go at it in a new way with a different set of tools. But, of course, I think about something like Shuffle along, right? Which really, you know, you got to see in that production that a smile that you might wear on your face while you're tap dancing isn't necessarily one of, you know, that you're putting it on as a mask, but. But that it actually is the true emotion that you're feeling the smile, because your body literally has to smile, or that the experience of that music in your body is creating this internal joy. So, yeah, I feel that this piece is in this long, long, long lineage of discussions about black performance.

Alison Stewart (14:22)

My guest is Issa Davis. The name of the show is the Essential isn't. It's at Here arts Center through September 28th. We'll have more after a quick break.

Issa Davis (14:31)

This is all of It.

Alison Stewart (14:42)

You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is Issa Davis. We're talking about her show the Essential isn't at here Art Center. It's happening through the. The end of the month, through the 28th. All right. The central question in this piece is, can you be black and not perform? How did that question come to you?

Issa Davis (15:02)

Wow. Well, something that's in the piece is this moment of my graduate acting class where I was asked to do a private moment, which is, you know, this Strasberg Actor Studio technique where you do something in private, that you do something in public that you would never do in public. You do something private that you would never do in public. And. And that was a way to find your way into a kind of performance that is that much more magnetic and powerful because you're actually not performing. You know, the whole adage about don't perform on stage with children or animals because they're so free that everyone will focus on them. Right. As opposed to the polished pro who's been rehearsing, you know, doing everything according to what they had planned. And so that's the question, right? Is this, can I be in non performance on stage? Does that violate all of the history that I have as a performer? So it's kind of a test. You know, I did that. That exercise over and over in class and always would kind of fail. So it's partly that. And then it's also, you know, again, thinking about all of these ways that we're expected to perform. Respectability, we're expected to perform again, you know, twice as good as anyone who is not black. And. And then, of course, as women, there's just all of the burden of sexism that people often completely just have in their unconscious and don't even realize that they're perpetuating this oppression. So in a way, it came to me as just a form of finding liberation on stage and really embracing performance for the freedom that it can provide, as opposed to. Well, I would say. And also examining the way in which it causes this kind of pressure and oppression. Yeah.

Alison Stewart (17:27)

Did you ask your friends this question? Did they have answers for you, or were they. What are you talking about, Issa?

Issa Davis (17:33)

Well, yeah, I mean, obviously, I have a lot of performer friends who are like, ooh, I know, right?

Alison Stewart (17:37)

It's interesting.

Issa Davis (17:38)

Like, oh, wow. You know, because I think that that's. That a lot of people who go into performance have found it as this kind of refuge from the ways that maybe they weren't performing in life. Right. Like, let me go on stage and do all these things that I'm not allowed to do offstage. Right. And yet the stage itself can then have all of these different requirements that keep you away from that reason why you first showed up there in the first place.

Alison Stewart (18:12)

All right, so in the show, you enter the auditorium and you're seated about. Is it about six feet, that tank? How tall is that tank?

Issa Davis (18:23)

Let's see. I think it's 28 by 28 by 74.

Alison Stewart (18:26)

Huge.

Issa Davis (18:27)

So, yeah, so you're seated way up.

Alison Stewart (18:30)

On top of the tank, and you Initially, you go in the water, and it's quite beautiful. You can see you're, like, almost dancing in the water. In one section, you have kind of a white dress. But also becomes clear that, like, possibly a metaphor for someone who's chosen to leave the boat during the middle passage and decided that's a better life choice for them. What does water mean for you in this moment as you're about to start the show?

Issa Davis (18:56)

Wow. Wow. What a deep question. It's. I mean, very, very, very. I feel I have this very intimate request in that moment. I'm almost in tears talking about this, but I just. I ask ancestors to be with me, and they'll say, like, of course we are. Like, when are we not? So I think that the water is, you know, it's this mother. It's also this place of loss and this place of memory. And I feel it both hold me in this very embracing way that's very warm and wonderful. And then it also feels like, of course, this is a terrible, dangerous, frightening place that symbolizes death as well. So all of those things are happening. All of those things are happening.

Alison Stewart (20:03)

That's how way to start a show. That is really a tough place for you, emotionally, to start a show.

Issa Davis (20:10)

Well, you know, I feel like it's the realest place. It's the realest place. And it's, again, you know, where I feel I always have to go back to. And what I want the show to honor is, again, this entire tradition that.

Alison Stewart (20:24)

I'm working in, just practically rehearsing with that giant tank. What did you do to have to rehearse? I know there's a sort of a rope in the back, but I was curious. What's that like?

Issa Davis (20:37)

Well, when we first got this tank and shout out to Andy Sowers at Performance Space New York, who first sourced this for me, I was terrified. I was so scared to go. My heart was pounding. I couldn't. I just kept talking like, okay, so do I put my foot here? Do I put my knee here? I just was trying to rationalize how I could possibly get into this tank and. And finally just had to do it. And the rope, in a lot of ways, is. That's, like, again, another symbol of a bondage, but also, in a lot of ways, a lifeline when I'm in the tank. And so rehearsing was There actually was very little rehearsal in the tank. It was really just that I had to just make the plunge, literally. And then see what happened once I got in there. And what was really phenomenal Was that that first time when I was just so, so, so scared to get in? Once I did, I was like, oh, my gosh, I just want to stay in here forever.

Alison Stewart (21:49)

You're joined on stage by two actors who are called the Sovereigns.

Issa Davis (21:53)

Yes.

Alison Stewart (21:54)

Why are they called the Sovereigns?

Issa Davis (21:55)

Yes. You're talking about Princess Jacob and Jamella Cross, who goes by Jam. And they're called Sovere because that's what I want them to be modeling for us, is that they have total sovereignty over their body, over the stage. They don't care if you're there watching them. They're like, you know, like we're saying about animals and children. Like, they're. Imagine just a little, you know, a cat that decided to walk across the stage and curl up and take a nap. Like, that's really who they are. And I think they're, in a lot of ways, both ancestral guides. And they're also just very contemporary, you know, in their sweatsuits, and they just kind of represent this connection or the separation that you may have amongst folks who have similar bodies as you. So. Yeah, but Sovereign for sure, is about self determination, and that's what they have. And I'm just so happy that I get to do the show with them. They're just so fantastic. They're both making their New York stage debuts with this. Yeah.

Alison Stewart (22:59)

I always get to look because I looked them up online.

Issa Davis (23:01)

Yes.

Alison Stewart (23:02)

And we're of the same vintage, you and I, and I looked them up and they're of a different vintage.

Issa Davis (23:06)

Yes.

Alison Stewart (23:07)

Was that intentional?

Issa Davis (23:08)

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I just. I really wanted to be able to both, you know, give them the opportunity, but I wanted it to feel like we were, you know, just hanging out on the street, that I was, you know, with folks who were younger than me who could also teach me their form of sovereignty. And I just. I love doing it with them. I really do.

Alison Stewart (23:33)

When did you begin writing the songs that we hear?

Issa Davis (23:36)

Ah, so it's filled with songs this. This show. The songs actually are the things that have sort of remained the constant. The scaffolding around them has changed a lot. But the songs, you know, I started writing in 2012, 2013, 2014. But then what keeps changing in them are the lyrics. So in a lot of ways, the music has remained the same. There's new music in there as well. But again, as the piece shifts, as I want to say different things, then the lyrics themselves will change.

Alison Stewart (24:13)

Yeah, I just want to give people a little glimpse of this. There's a quick audience sing along See, I'm telling you, I'm not going by Jennifer Holiday and or Jennifer Hudson. First of all, why did you pick this song for the audience to have a moment?

Issa Davis (24:33)

I mean, well, I just saw that we're going to have a revival of Dreamgirls. I saw that in the spring that Camille Brown, the amazing Camille Brown, is gonna choreograph and direct. So, yeah, and I am telling you, right. What an iconic song. It's unbelievable what both of those singers, Jennifer Holiday and Jennifer Hudson, have done with that song and what, you know, thousands, millions maybe, of women and people of other genders have done with this song. So I just felt like it was a perfect way to get at the, you know, absolute virtuosity. Right? I mean, who can do that? Who can do that? And of course, there are a lot of people in New York who can do it. But what is it? What does it take from you, you know, to sing that? You know what I'm saying? What does it take from you when you're giving that much? And is that also what we're asking of black women all the time, is to work that hard. So just to be able to sing that badly, to have the release of not having to work, you know, and spit out, like, your entire lung, you know, on the microphone, you know, like, let's see what that's about.

Alison Stewart (25:55)

What has been the audience response?

Issa Davis (25:57)

Oh, to the. Well, the show itself. It's what I. I like to go and just greet people immediately afterward, and people have just been in tears. It's a very intimate show. Something that was really powerful that happened this weekend is when Jam and Princess and I left the stage. We heard the audience singing that final song, like, just kept singing it, Kept singing it. So it's really. It's really. It's a really powerful experience, I think, that people have been having, and I hope that, you know, more and more people get to come and see it while we're running.

Alison Stewart (26:43)

I do want to ask you one warriors question, because over the summer at Lincoln center, you held a silent disco for the warriors concept album you wrote with Lin Manuel Miranda. I was there. It was awesome.

Issa Davis (26:55)

Oh, you were there?

Alison Stewart (26:56)

Oh, yeah.

Issa Davis (26:56)

Oh, my gosh. Sweating.

Alison Stewart (26:58)

What was it like to sort of see it in the wild?

Issa Davis (27:03)

Well, I felt like Lin and I got to have this really fun, almost stadium like experience, you know, when people pulled out their phones during Same Train Home and were, like, waving, you know, I mean, it was thrilling. Of course, the sad part was that, you know, we. Because the stage was so high it almost seemed like we were supposed to put on a show. And of course, we had no show.

Alison Stewart (27:28)

But you were dancing. You guys were like, I was dancing.

Issa Davis (27:30)

I'm saying Lynn was dancing. All of the warriors are dancing. I think Mike Elizondo was bobbing his head. So, yeah, it was just when you say out in the wild, it really, because we're working on, you know, making this, adapting the album into a stage production, it really allowed us to see, like, what are those moments where people are just going for it, singing it, you know, screaming. What are the parts where people are really singing along? And so I think it was really helpful for us. It was almost like a little workshop where we got to have a blast.

Alison Stewart (28:02)

The name of the show is Issa. The Essential Isn't. It's at Here art Center, through September 28th. Thanks for coming in.

Issa Davis (28:10)

Thank you so much. Alison NYC now delivers breaking news, top headlines and in depth coverage from WNYC and Gothamist every morning, midday and evening. By sponsoring our programming, you'll reach a community of passionate listeners in an uncluttered audio experience. Visit sponsorship.wnyc.org to learn more.