Is dramaturgy care work?: Jasmine Hearn

Dear love, how your actions shaped me and kept me focused as I was dreaming.

I am addressing the Black womb-bearers in my life – encircled by their attention and grace, I could not be invisible even when I wanted to be. They are my first dramaturgs who witnessed my stories. I am with their choreographies and concentric circles of meals, rides, hands and belief – all foundational to care-work and an origin of my dramaturgical lens.

Hip to hip with the one who birthed me and the ones who laid their hands on my healing body, I am now learning how to take care of memory and people who are transitioning. I understand care as an embodied learning of wisdom technologies – traditions of listening and responding [call and response] that I understand as labor birthed by womb-bearers.

I am integrating what it means to have been a witness to violence and survival. How these womb-holding lineages escaped in order to come back and care for those who could not leave. And those who left pledging allegiance to composting abusive patterns into nourishment, protection, and adornment.

I ride this wave, tracing non-linear stories with all my senses – the ones I can name with my words and body. I am inspired by the trajectory of red in the choreographic work of Bebe Miller and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. I am supported by the attention of my teachers – Kerry Ultimate Phoenix, Grand-mommie, Begee, Staycee Pearl, Sacred Marlies Yearby, and more people and places.

With ear to surface, their bodies tipped towards the fire that we were creating – their back space-aware. What kind of listening came out of their bodies – and the dances they each contributed: spine inclining forward, an unwavering gaze responding to what they noticed, a stilling focus, tapping in, a prisming gaze that traces threads, seams, stories. Each person who I have learned from reminds me of what dramaturgy is. Each person, an intersection of places and lessons, locates specific choreog- raphies and supports the retracing of stories that already exist and that are ready to be remembered.

Witness, what are your priorities, where is your drive, who are you loyal to? What are you lifting to the surface?

I am here, present making dances that prism space for me to feel, tend, and bear witness. Mentor and collaborator, jhon r. stronks just said to me “Jasmine, your work is dramaturgy.” All I can do is laugh as I learn what this means – noticing the recurring structures in the way I like to situate colors next to each other, prepare jars of homemade soups for each collaborator, provide snacks, and facilitate spaces for dancing that listens to the weight of my/your want.

Dramaturgy is care work when the responsibility to learn what care feels like and what care influences is redistributed amongst the collabo-rating constellation as we seek agreement on how we define care together. How I initially learnt of the formalized profession of a dramaturg, while in rehearsals that lacked care and held space for unnecessary opinions of my silenced body landed in my bones as destructive and isolating.

As I had the time to learn and realign who I collaborated with, I noticed what environments prioritized reciprocal listening. These places were where I connected my lived and learned experiences with the potential impact of dramaturgy – how witnessing and tending dances calls for a specificity of attention in listening and action to what we are building together.