By Kara Little, Forum Editor
This past weekend, I had the honor of being in Monica Prince’s choreopoem, Roadmap. The show was centered around a black male named Dorian, and although there were a lot of current references in the show, it was set to take place in pretty much any time period in America. This choreopoem was also written by Monica Prince, a creative writing professor here at SU.
She started off her time here at Susquehanna with a bang, performing How to Exterminate the Black Woman, a choreopoem written by her specifically telling the story of a black woman named Angela, and the different parts that come with her.
As a main role in How to Exterminate the Black Woman, and with my role in Roadmap as a dancer, as well as an understudy for two roles, I am honored to have been a part of the great work put on by her. In How to Exterminate the Black Woman, I was able to have a safe space for myself for the first time since arriving at Susquehanna.
Being surrounded by black women on campus (and junior Jahmir Wilson, the only male to star in both of Monica Prince’s choreopoems while put on at Susquehanna), I was able to find myself.
I went through a phase in high school where I was not really confident in my self-identity, where being black was something I was ashamed of.
Sure, it was easy to be confident in my self-identity when I was surrounded my family and family friends, but in school, all I would hear are jokes about my skin color and how I didn’t have any culture. Being here at SU surprisingly helped me become so confident in being black, and a black woman at that.
And that is something I would pay tribute to Monica Prince. She not only wrote shows for our voices to be heard, but she created a space for me and other women of color to not just be black girls in the room, but to be ourselves.
Roadmap also created the same safe space for me. I was able to bond with more men of color, as well as other women of color, and I was able to be bubbly and laugh and smile and not have to worry about how my personal actions would reflect how my entire community would be looked at.
My favorite part of Roadmap was being able to expand my knowledge on other marginalized communities, other than my own. Throughout the performance, dancers like myself were scattered around throughout the audience, stating real-life statistics of our every day lives.
Indigenous people in the United States have the highest rate of young adult suicide compared to any other ethnicity. 1 in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year, and 90 percent are witnesses to the violence. Abused children are more likely to exhibit violent behavior.
Being a part of both of Monica Prince’s performances really showed me that I should be proud of who I am, and I should take all the time that I can to learn how to love myself and others, regardless of who they are.
Thank you Monica Prince for being a huge part of my Susquehanna experience and for being my mentor. I could not have asked for a better person to come and shake up SU. For expressing your thoughts on paper and for my new experience in self-love, I owe you.