"Rupture" and "In-ex-clusion"

April 7th through the 9th make sure to catch Sarah Perez' and Kyle Ramsey's Senior Theses in Choreography and Performance in Kirby Theatre at Amherst College:

"Sarah Perez’s original choreography piece 'Rupture' features movement inspired by issues of the gendered body and the violent nature of human interactions.

“In-ex-clusion,” by Kyle Ramsay, involves three unique performances that use song, text, dance and film to convey the quandaries involved with three aspects of identity: sexuality, gender and race. Can we define who we are? Or is our identity imposed on us?"

The performances are free and no reservations are required. Hope to see you there!

No Shame

Check out the killer/adorable new poster, designed by artist Car Lacho:

During one portion of Brother Outsider, the film on Bayard Rustin that was recently screened at Amherst College, one interviewee noticed that, remarkably, Rustin embraced his sexuality without any trace of shame, even way back the 1950s.  In recent meetings, we have been discussing a poster combating the shame that one might feel as queer individual, especially a queer individual of color.  My initial suggestion was violently worded "We are FAGGOTS, and there is NO SHAME in that."  The sentence had several problems, one of which was summarized by Dexter Padayachee as follows:

 "As a subaltern people we need to reclaim language by which to call ourselves, outside of the patriarchal heteronormative Eurocentric metastructure. By calling ourselves by the name of our oppressor we are reinforcing their sentiments."

He makes a good point.  The poster has now changed to what you see above.  Special thanks to Car Lacho for his heartwarming artwork.

Look forward to more NO SHAME posters on the way, and please give your feedback below.  Also, if you are interested in being part of the NO SHAME project, please contact us at fivecollegepc@gmail.com and let us know how you will be willing to help.

Selective Hearing

You know when you're dancing at a club or at a party and suddenly the DJ puts on this one song and every goes absolutely nuts and the energy just rises, and then you realize its the most homophobic piece of crap playing on the radio this month, but you keep on dancing anyway because the beat and the energy and the sound around you feels soooo good?  SHAME ON YOU!

... And the unsettling part is, writing those three words, I couldn't make up my mind whether I wanted it to be a totally serious condemnation or a partially a joke.  It should be shame on us, it should be we go run tell the DJ to turn that crap off as quick as we are to harass them when we feel their playlist needs some musical direction, but instead we're just used to ignoring the lyrics for the sake of the party.

Harold Aarons of the Amherst College class of 2010 recently had published an article on this subject over at XHIBITP.  Go check it out.  Voici le link:

My Guilty Pop Pleasure: Dancehall Music

www.xhibitp.com