MADISON MAE WILLIAMS

Written and performed by Madison Mae Williams.

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an opening (from the director/poet’s note)
- i wonder, where has my body been? sometimes, the languages that were stolen from me, my body remembers them like a lost melody, but it’s almost something and then it isn’t. i feel the ancestors sing in my skin and hum in my bones and i wonder what could have been. but i know that they are with me. 

- when the pain is so much that we want nothing more than to sleep, we have to believe in our ability to get out of bed, to stretch and sing, become dangerous. sometimes all we can do is imagine a different world within structures that negate a portion of our being, and that’s okay. it’s not bad to dream or imagine a world where we can thrive joyously and sing without fear.
- a dream of a new Black femme futurity is where this piece came from. growing up, i didn’t have many Black women in my life who could guide me, so i turned to music, literature, poetry, and film to find guidance and inspiration. these women (both real and fictional) walk with me in all the work i create, inspire me on the daily, bring spots of sunshine to my life. 

- this piece is about honoring those who have come before, with elements of my own experience woven through. this piece is a practice in vulnerability, in holding histories, and being tender with myself and where i come from. i am proud of myself for all that i have gone through and all that i will continue to go through. i am poet, warrior, scholar, warrior, warrior, warrior. like the ancestors, my body has been and will continue to be, for that is how i move to the end of my own rainbow.

 

Festival Production Manager: Kevin Mitchell

Festival Stage Manager: Hannah Jones

Lighting Designer: Dani Aldrich

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Photography by Emma Symanski.

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