(Editor’s Note: This is cross-posted with permission from The Saartjie Project (TSP) Tumblr page. The article is written by @JessSolomon, the founding producer. TSP wrote and performed street theater about street harassment in Washington, DC, for International Anti-Street Harassment Week.)
We are a home-grown performance ensemble made up of black women exploring and creating at the intersections of race, gender and power, intentionally and without apology. We create in community and perform on stages, at universities, in multi-purpose rooms, galleries and now …the street. We fiercely believe in the power of our narratives and those of our allies, so to co-sponsor Washington DC’s Anti-Street Harassment Week was a no-brainer (I give thanks for @mdotwrites exposing me to texts like Dr. Bernice Johnson’s Working in Coalition – it grounds me in the importance of this kind of work). It was deciding what we’d do as a co-sponsor that was the challenge.
After much discussion and sisterly debate about “what” we’d do, we decided to perform somewhere we’ve known Street Harassment to take place. There is power in reclamation of spaces.
We crowdsourced a performance location and Gallery Place/ Chinatown – one of the busiest areas in the District – won hands down. (Adams Morgan and Georgetown were close contenders.)
Process
As allies and supporters, it’s important that you understand the context of this “performance”. (Please note: I use that term loosely. Sometimes “performance” conjures up fancy notions like curtains and lights and seats and backstage.) At its essence, our performance was an output of a personal process. We sat around and asked ourselves, “Why are we doing this? Who are we doing this for? What does a world without Street Harassment look like? Feel like?” We talked about feeling safe enough to perform. “What if someone approached us? Touched us? What did we want spectators to walk away with? What would their call to action be?”
Holding Space
We are still so grateful to the people who intentionally showed up on a rainy Saturday afternoon to witness and hold space for us on the street. Supporters who marked it in their calendar and invited their friends. We are still so grateful for those that weren’t there but were thinking about us. We are also still so grateful for those who had no idea that they’d become an important part of some bold magic happening on the street.
Some Reflections from the Saartjie Crew
Shonda said, “… people stopped and shared their stories. Young women seemed to appreciate that we were speaking about our lives in public. And young men felt comfortable enough to jump in and assist! I appreciated all of the people who included themselves even if that just meant bearing witness.”
Saartjie Project members experienced street harassment directly after our performance. Yup.
As Farah recounted, “A man who observed our show twice walked up to me and Shonda to share what we initially thought to be feedback about our performance. Instead, he told us that we didn’t have to dress like nuns and that people might be more attentive if we showed a little breast and thigh. I felt anger rising up in me, but said “God bless you. And I pray that one day, you won’t street harass women how you’re harassing us” and walked away from him. The man continued to ramble and followed us until I made a scene and asked him to say the same thing to my husband who happened to be volunteering.
I questioned if the performance was effective—a man who looked engaged still doing exactly what we had been speaking against – to us directly! But I weighed his ignorance with the positive responses we received—those from a young man who helped us pass out brochures about Street Harassment and confessed that he’s been guilty of harassing women; an older woman who said that she’s still a victim of street harassment; and the teenage girls who nodded and said that they too have experienced street harassment. I knew that I couldn’t let one person affect the importance of what we did. We started conversations and used art to address a social issue that was proven to not only be relevant and current, but personal.”
So now…
Anti-Street Harassment Week is over but our work isn’t. This experience/experiment taught us that we must continue to tell our stories, recognize the responsibility in being a bystander and that in the midst of fighting for justice someone who you think is a supporter may not be. And that teaching moments show up all the time…even when you’re performing on the street.
Next year, I envision performances like ours happening simultaneously all over the District, perhaps all over the planet! Imagine how powerful that would be.
One last thing…
Some readers may be wondering about the origin of our name.
Saartjie Baartman was a South African woman taken from her homeland under false pretenses and crudely displayed in Europe from 1810 – 1815. She was given the show name “Hottentot Venus”, locked in a cage for 11 hours a day, dressed in feathers and sheer clothing to “enhance” her pronounced buttocks and labeled as hypersexual and subhuman. Her silhouette became in inspiration for the Victorian bustle worn by women of that time. Upon her death her body was dissected and publicly displayed in a museum in Paris until 1974. After much international political and social discourse over where Saartjie Baartman “belonged,” her remains were flown back to her homeland in May 2002, and laid to rest almost 200 years after she was taken to Europe. Our work revolves about bringing humanity to her life and the many paradoxes and crooked rooms we live in as black women.
