I look to Vicki Igbokwe’s Uchenna Dance and her acclaimed 2016 work The Head Wrap Diaries. The production, which I saw during its 2018 tour, is described as a ‘funny and uplifting’ show, set in a hair salon, that explores Black hair; all the while centering femininity, beauty, culture, and sisterhood. The work covered hair as a site of trauma for Black women – its policing, negative perception, or desirability in society. Yet, that was a part of a bigger picture.

 

‘Three fierce, clever and witty female characters’ took to the stage and explored community, heritage, womanhood, and hair. Set within a South London hair-salon called BE U Tiful.' We saw characters express the high and lows of their hair journeys through empathetic monologues and groove filled choreography. The stories of struggle were given equal weight to those of overcoming and celebration.

 

Since its inception in The Bronx, New York, in the 70s, Hip Hop has been a form of protest and self-expression. Born out of Black and Latino communities, it has been a powerful medium for the marginalised to protest against the status quo, inequality, and injustice. Yet there was a huge emphasis on living loudly, unashamedly, and expressing the joy and pride of being from disenfranchised communities. The self-expression centred on joy despite hardships. I wonder if we, as Hip Hop dance and theatre practitioners have been pigeonholed into only expressing the hardships.

 

I believe the difference to be between such works and Igbokwe’s is what language is used, how deliberate it is, and what parts of our stories we focus on; not only on stage but beyond it – in marketing, writing, interviews, and applications. We can’t only let the work do the talking.

 

Many of the works I’ve listed above have attempted to engage in creating in this manner. Campbell-Davies’ Womb Paves Way for example, shifts to being a work of self-discovery, self-love, and affirmation by its end. In an interview with Ian Abbott of the Hip Hop Dance Almanac, she felt that creating such a work was a way of ‘allowing myself to really be seen and be bare and be heard with the audience’.

 

In my review of Dean’s Man Up, I note how she used comedy as a tool to explore and tackle the challenging topic of suicide. It was clear she had her audience’s care and best interest in mind. I walked into the theatre expecting a tough, heart-wrenching, and distressing experience. Instead, her approach made me walk away feeling nothing but empathy and compassion.

 

In my case, I recognised the negative impact The Oreo Complex had when I presented it all those years ago. On the Rich Mix website, part of the marketing copy reads: ‘An Oreo is a person of mixed-black heritage: black on the outside but white on the inside. Is it an insult, a compliment or just an honest observation?’. I did not write this. My copy was edited and translated into what I agreed at the time to be more marketable. And it’s through this lens, a focus on the insult and trauma itself rather the character experiencing it, that the audience viewed my work. Like Igbokwe, I have since taken charge of the language I use beyond the stage and how I use it to highlight the humanity in my work.

 

Had The Head Wrap Diaries been my formative Hip Hop theatre experience in 2016, instead of Griffith’s Behind Every Woman, I wonder if I would have come to this realisation sooner. That there are alternative ways to express our lived experiences of trauma on stage. One that shifts power back to our hands as Hip Hop theatre storytellers. One in charge of how our works are perceived not only on stage but beyond it.

 

To me, this is a position I think the form and community should adopt in the next few years. Not necessarily avoiding trauma but engaging in different thinking and approaches. Rooted in humanity and Hip Hop’s cultural roots of self-expression, joy, and resistance despite our traumas. Hip Hop theatre shouldn’t retraumatise. It should uplift despite it.