Then Or Now (2020)
Co-commisionned by the Barbican

Choreography & Direction: William Tuckett 
Lighting Design: David Plater 
Costume Design: Yukiko Tsukamoto 
Poetry: Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) 
Director of Poetry: Fiona L Bennett 
Poetry recordings: Hafsah Bashir, Natasha Gordon & Michael Shaeffer 

Selected poems from Dark Fields of the Republic 1991-1995 by Adrienne Rich and used by permission of The Frances Goldin Literary Agency. 

Recorded Performance:
Daniel Pioro, Then Or Now – variations on a theme  by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber 
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber – Passacaglia for solo violin (1676) 

Is it necessary for me to write obliquely 
about the situation? Is that what 
you would have me do? 

Then Or Now by Adrienne Rich 
Dark Fields of the Republic, Poems: 1991-1995 

We are living through times where every action we take – responding to a  call to arms, deciding to remain passive – has become a political act. Small or  large, personal or public, our actions seem to hold more weight than before.  Creating work for Ballet Black in this climate felt very different to previous  collaborations; still exciting, but with great responsibility. Whose story should  the dancers be telling in a time of such political and social change? 
Having worked with poetry as a ‘spoken score’ for a while, I asked Fiona’s  help in finding a poet whose work spoke to this narrative conundrum. On  reading Adrienne Rich’s Dark Fields of The Republic, I was (and remain),  overwhelmed by her ability to call the reader to action; her rejection of  apathy, injustice and oppression; her reasoning that love is all – be it  romantic, social or political. Specific yet open, Rich provides space for  both the reader and the dancer. 

In parallel, I had been listening to Daniel’s recording of the Von Biber  Passacaglia, and thinking its ‘slippy’ structure, which makes it feel in the  moment and improvised, would be wonderful to create to. Daniel later  revealed that Biber did indeed intend the player to be actively involved in  the piece; to improvise and bring themselves to it as an artist.  Finally, combining the poems, Daniel, and the voices of Natasha, Hafsah  and Michael, our sound engineer Ian created a structure and soundtrack,  that enabled me to make this piece with Yuki and David. 

I remain immensely grateful to this hugely creative, creative team, Ballet  Black, and particularly the Adrienne Rich Estate for their wholehearted  support of this project. 

William Tuckett

We go to poetry because we believe it has something to do with us.We also go to poetry to experience the not me, enter a field of vision we couldnot otherwise apprehend… Someone writing a poem believes in, depends on, a delicate vibrating range of difference, that an ‘I’ can become a ‘we’ without extinguishing others, that a partly common language exists to which strangers can bring their own heartbeat, memories, images. A language that itself has learned from the heartbeat, memories, images of strangers. 

Adrienne Rich, from What is Found There, Notebooks On Poetry And Politics, 1994 

Adrienne Rich is one of the greatest modern poets of our time. She was born in Baltimore USA in May 1929 and during her lifetime published over 20 volumes of poetry and 8 books of non-fiction prose. A scholar, activist, and a writer whose work established new forms, she received numerous awards, fellowships and prizes including The National Book Award and The Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. She was a tireless activist and ambassador for human rights and social justice. She was an active force in the Civil Rights Movement, a leading voice in the Feminist Movement and spoke out against all forms of oppression and injustice. Her exemplary approach to political activism, her scholarly and artistic integrity make her a highly relevant and vital source of inspiration for our time. She died in 2012 and her legacy is a defining force in the ongoing development of poetry. 

When Will invited me to suggest poetry for a new piece with Ballet Black to explore ideas of belonging and home we began looking for poems that would serve this theme and that would also offer an exciting balance of sound, image, and story through which to create. We considered the works of many poets, past and present, and exchanged poems over a number of weeks. When I sent Will, What Kind of Times Are These? the opening poem from Dark Fields of the Republic, the question in this title and the sequence of poems as a whole, resonated so strongly with us that we knew we had found our source. As Will began work with the dancers and the collaboration between music, poetry and dance began, these astonishing poems, with their unique balance of tender intimacy and epic provocation, guided, challenged, and inspired us all. 

Dark Fields of the Republic is published by W. W. Norton and is available to purchase online. You can find out more about the life and work of Adrienne Rich through the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust: adriennerich.net 

Fiona L Bennett 
Director of Poetry, Then Or Now, 2020 

What kind of times are these?

There's a place between
two stands of trees where
the grass grows
uphill
and the old revolutionary
road breaks off into
shadows
near a meeting-house
abandoned by the
persecuted
who disappeared into those
shadows.

I've walked there picking
mushrooms at the edge of
dread, but
don't be fooled,
this isn't a Russian poem,
this is not somewhere else
but here,
our country moving closer
to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making
people disappear.

I won't tell you where the
place is, the dark mesh of
the woods
meeting the unmarked strip
of light —
ghost-ridden crossroads,
leafmold paradise:

I already know who wants
to buy it, sell it, make it
disappear.

And I won't tell you where
it is, so why do I tell you
Anything? Because you
still listen, because in
times like these,
to have you listen at all,
it's necessary
to talk about trees.

In those years

In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you.
we found ourselves
reduced to I,
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life,
and yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to.

But the great dark birds of history screamed and
plunged
Into our personal weather.
They were headed somewhere else, but their
beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying I.

To the Days

From you, I want more than I've ever asked,
all of it—the newscasts' terrible stories
of life in my time, the knowing it's worse than that,
much worse—the knowing what it means to be lied to.

Fog in the mornings, hunger for clarity,
coffee and bread with sour plum jam.
Numbness of soul in placid neighborhoods.
Lives ticking on as if.

A typewriter's torrent, suddenly still.
Blue soaking through fog, two dragonflies wheeling.
Acceptable levels of cruelty, steadily rising.
Whatever you bring in your hands, I need to see it.

Suddenly, I understand the verb without tenses.
To smell another woman's hair, to taste her skin.
To know the bodies drifting underwater.
To be human, said Rosa—I can't teach you that.

A cat drinks from a bowl of marigolds—his moment.
Surely the love of life is never-ending,
the failure of nerve, a charred fuse?
I want more from you than I ever knew to ask.

Wild pink lilies erupting, tasseled stalks of corn
in the Mexican gardens, corn and roses.
Shortening days, strawberry fields in ferment
with tossed-aside, bruised fruit.

RACHEL

There's a girl born in abrupt August light
far north, a light soon to be peeled
like an onion down to nothing. Around her ions are
falling
in torrents, glacial eyes are staring, the monster's body
trapped in the bay goes through its spasms.
What she opens her gray eyes on
is drastic. Even the man and woman gazing
into her unfocused gaze, searching for focus,
are drastic.
It's the end of a century.
If she gets to grow old, if there's anything
: anyone to speak, will they say of her,
She grew up to see it, she was our mother, but
she was born one of them?"

AMENDS

Nights like this: on the cold apple-bough
a white star, then another
exploding out of the bark:
on the ground, moonlight picking at small stones

as it picks at greater stones, as it rises with the surf
laying its cheek for moments on the sand
as it licks the broken ledge, as it flows up the cliffs,
as it flicks across the tracks

as it unavailing pours into the gash
of the sand-and-gravel quarry
as it leans across the hangared fuselage
of the crop-dusting plane

as it soaks through cracks into the trailers
tremulous with sleep
as it dwells upon the eyelids of the sleepers
as if to make amends

Then or Now

Is it necessary for me to write obliquely
about the situation? Is that what
you would have me do?

Innocence: 1945

“The beauty of it was the guilt.
It entered us, quick schnapps,
forked tongue of ice. The guilt
made us feel innocent again.
We had done nothing while some
extreme measures were taken. We drifted. In the
Snow Queen's huge ballroom had dreamed
of the whole world and a new pair of skates.

But we had suffered too.
The miracle was: felt
nothing. Felt we had done
Nothing. Nothing to do. Felt free.
And we had suffered, too.
It was that freedom we craved,
cold needle in the bloodstream.
Guilt after all was a feeling.”

Sunset: December 1993

Dangerous of course to draw
parallels Yet more dangerous to write

as if there were a steady course, we and our poems
protected: the individual life, protected

poems, ideas, gliding
in mid-air, innocent

I walked out on the deck and every board
was luminous with cold dew. It could freeze tonight

Each board is different of course but each does gleam
wet, under a complicated sky: mounds of swollen ink

heavy gray unloading up the coast
a rainbow suddenly and casually

unfolding its span
Dangerous not to think

How the earth still was in places
while the chimneys shuddered with the first
dischargements

DEPORTATIONS

It's happened already while we were still
searching for patterns A turn of the head
toward a long horizontal window overlooking the city
to see people being taken
neighbors, vendors, paramedicals
hurried from their porches, their tomato stalls
their auto-mechanic arguments
and children from schoolyards

There are far more of the takers-away than the take
at this point anyway

Then: dream-cut: our house:
four men walk through the unlatched door.

One in light summer wool and silken tie
One in work clothes browned with blood
One with open shirt, a thin
thong necklace hasped with silver around his neck
One in shorts and naked up from the navel

And they have come for us, two of us and four of them
and I think, perhaps they are still human
and I ask them When do you think this all began?

as if trying to distract them from their purpose
as if trying to appeal to a common bond
as if one of them might be you
as if I were practicing for something
yet to come

AND NOW

And now as you read these poems
—you, whose eyes and hands I love
—you, whose mouth and eyes I love
—you, whose words and minds I love—
don't think I was trying to state a case
or construct a scenery:
I tried to listen to
The public voice of our time
tried to survey our public space
as best I could
—tried to remember and stay
faithful to details, note
precisely how the air moved
and where the clock's hands stood
and who was in charge of definitions
and who stood by receiving them
when the name of compassion
was changed to the name of guilt
when to feel with a human stranger
was declared obsolete.

SENDING LOVE

Voice
from the grain

of the forest bought
and condemned,

sketched bond
in the rockmass

the earthquake sought
and threw

Sending love: Molly sends it
Ivan sends it, Kaori

sends it to Brian, Irina sends it
on pale green aerograms Abena sends it

to Charlie and to Joséphine
Arturo sends it, Naomi sends it

Lourdes sends it to Naoual
Walter sends it to Arlene

Habib sends it, Vashti
floats it to Eqbal in a paper plane

Bored in the meeting, on a postcard
Yoel scribbles it to Gerhard

Reza on his e-mail
finds it waiting from Patricia

Mario and Elsie
send it to Francísco

Karolina sends it monthly
home with a money order

June seals it with a kiss to Dahlia
Mai sends it, Montserrat

scrawls it to Faíz on a memo
Lenny wires it with roses

to Lew who takes it on his
whispery breath, Julia sends it

loud and clear, Dagmar brailles it
to Maureen, María Christina

sends it, Meena and Moshe send it
Patrick and Max are always

sending it back and forth
and even Shirley, even George

are found late after closing
sending it, sending it.

Sending love is harmless
doesn't bind you can't make you sick

sending love's expected
precipitous and wary

sending love can be carefree
Joaquin knew it, Eira knows it

sending love without heart
—well, people do that daily

Terence years ago
closed the window, wordless

Grace who always laughed is leaning
her cheek against bullet-proof glass

her tears enlarged
like scars on a planet

Vivian hangs her raincoat
on a hook, turns to the classroom
her love entirely
there, supreme

Victor fixes his lens
on disappearing faces

 —caught now or who will ever
see them again?

You were telling a story about love it was your story
I came and stood outside
listening : : death was in the doorway
death was in the air but the story
had its own life no pretenses
about women in that lovesong for a man
Listening I went inside the bow scraping the bass-string
inside the horn's heartbroken cry
I was the breath's intake the bow's rough mutter:
Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth
responding,)
Vigil for comrades swiftly slain . . .

I was telling you a story about love
how even in war it goes on speaking its own language

Yes you said but the larynx is bloodied
the knife was well-aimed into the throat

Well I said love is hated it has no price

No you said you are talking about feelings
Have you ever felt nothing? that is what war is now

Then a shadow skimmed your face
Go on talking in a normal voice you murmured
Nothing is listening

You were telling a story about war it is our story
an old story and still it must be told
the story of the new that fled the old
how the big dream strained and shifted
the ship of hope shuddered on the iceberg's breast
the private affections swayed and staggered
So we are thrown together so we are racked apart
in a republic shivering on its glassy lips
parted as if the fundamental rift
had not been calculated from the first into the mighty
scaffold.

Nina: By Whatever Means (2023)
Co-commissioned by the Barbican

Choreography and direction: Mthuthuzeli November 
Lighting design: David Plater 
Costume design: Jessica Cabassa 
Set design and scenery: Mthuthuzeli November 
Additional set design and construction: Richard Bolton & Alistage Ltd. 
Composers: Mandisi Dyantyis, Mthuthuzeli November and Nina Simone (1954-2002) 
Featuring the voices of the Zolani Youth Choir & The Ballet Black Company 

Mood Indigo (1958) from the album: Little Girl Blue 
Composer: Albany Bigard & Duke Ellington 
Performed by Nina Simone

Sinnerman (Live in New York, 1965) from the album: The Best of Nina Simone 
Composed and performed by: Nina Simone 

Nina Simone’s songs and speeches are licensed from the Nina Simone Charitable Trust and Rich & Famous Records, Ltd. courtesy of Steven Ames Brown. 

Cast: Isabela Coracy (as Nina), Ebony Thomas (the Husband), Taraja Hudson, Sayaka Ichikawa, Helga Paris-Morales, Love Kotiya, Megan Chiu, & Bhungane Mehlomakulu

With many thanks to: 

Charlotte Broom, Richard Bolton, Jessica Cabassa, Lily de-la-Haye, Kiruna-Lind Devar, Mandisi Dyantyis, Jethro Harris, Georgina Lloyd-Owen, Odwa Mvunge, Skye November, Cassa Pancho, The Ballet Black Company artists, Steven Wilkins,  Alex Wilson and the Zolani Youth Choir 

Dear Miss Simone, 

I have thought of many ways to begin this letter and after all these years my words still don’t feel quite as strong as my emotions.

The question I ask myself the most is, what would I have said if I got the chance to meet you? What would I have asked you? Would I dare to even come close to you or would I just freeze up and admire your presence from a distance? But after diving into your world and learning about you through your music and what you stood for, think I would build up the courage to just hug you and hope you’d know it was real. I wanted to let you know that we are doing a ballet in the hope of sharing a little glimpse of the life you lived. You should see it, all these beautiful Brown bodies on stage, fully invested with the platform to truly speak from the heart. This is part of what you fought for. It warms my heart everyday just knowing that I can express myself, that the suffering is a little better than what it once was. For this I am incredibly grateful.

I am part of a company that celebrates being a Black artist. As ballet dancers, we have had to endure a lot of injustice, criticism, and hateful remarks not only for the colour of our skin but because this art-form that we love so much has not been quite ready to accept us. I know your dream was to become a classical concert pianist and the circumstances of the time didn’t allow you to be that. The world was not ready for you Miss Simone, as a matter of fact even to this day so few people expect a Black person to do anything remarkable. I am saying all of this because just like you, we’ve trained all our lives to be great classical ballet dancers, but the doors haven’t been wide open yet. But we must continue anyway, as we should. 

I hope people understand that I am making this work because you mean a great deal to me. I pray to God every day to give me enough strength to make a beautiful work that honours you and what you stood for. Sometimes I think I can’t do it and sometimes you tell me that I can. You give me power every day. Aaah man you should see the people I work with each day; how beautiful they are. How in tune they are with their craft. You would love this so very much. 

I just realised I never introduced myself. I just feel nervous that’s all, as I am writing this, I have to take a pause to calm myself. My name is Mthuthuzeli, it’s a Xhosa name meaning comforter. I am the fourth child and second youngest. My mother gave me this name because she felt I was what she needed at the time. Being raised by a single parent has given me a lot to appreciate in life. She is so so beautiful she dances just like you. She is an incredibly force. 

There is a choir of young people in the township I grew up. They are called the Zolani Youth Choir, I always dreamed of working with them and I got the opportunity to do just that when I was making the music for this ballet. What a gift to see young people so dedicated, I was telling them that I am making a dance piece about you. From the little they know of you it was enough to make them smile and be involved in something like this. It made me realise how much you mean to everybody.

I was making music with someone that has become a good friend and mentor, his name is Mandisi Dyantyis. He asked me, why am I making a dance piece about you? I told him it was because I feel not many people know your story and maybe I wanted to bring that to life. While that’s true, I think mostly I just wanted to be next to you. I described this work a love letter to you, but maybe it’s not quite that either. Maybe I just feel like I can talk to you, like you talk to me through your music. Maybe that’s what I long for? I don’t know. Maybe it’s an attempt to ask people to learn a little bit more about you beyond the music. 

I guess what I am trying to say is THANK YOU, thank you Nina for everything. For all you have done. To this day you continue to inspire us.

Kindly,

Mthuthuzeli November
Senior Artist & choreographer of Nina: By Whatever Means

P.S WE LOVE YOU MISS SIMONE 

Composer, Nina: By Whatever Means 

Nina Simone was more than just a singer, songwriter, and pianist; she was a musical and political icon of the 20th century. Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in 1933 in North Carolina, she began playing the piano at the age of four and went on to study classical music at Juilliard School. However, her musical interests soon expanded to include jazz, blues, and gospel, which she seamlessly blended to create a unique sound that was both powerful and soulful. Simone’s musical prowess and emotive performances captivated audiences, and her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement further solidified her status as a cultural icon. Her politically charged songs, such as Mississippi Goddam and To Be Young, Gifted and Black, addressed racial inequality and social justice issues and inspired a generation to fight for change. Throughout her career, Simone faced obstacles and discrimination, but her commitment to her music and activism never wavered. 

She received several Grammy nominations, earned accolades from audiences and musicians alike, and continues to be celebrated as a trailblazer in soul, jazz, and pop music. Despite her passing in 2003, Simone’s influence on music and cultural landscape remains visible and her legacy continues to inspire artists and activists alike. 

Speaker 1:

Tremendous pleasure and honor to welcome to the 10th anniversary Montreux International Jazz Festival, the incredible, unique, and fantastic, one and only, Nina Simone.

Nina Simone:

Hello. I haven't seen you for many years, since 1968. I have decided that I will do no more jazz festivals. That decision has not changed. I will sing for you or we will do or share with you a few moments, after which I shall graduate to a higher class I hope, and I hope you will come with me.

We will start from the beginning, which was about a little girl, and her name was Blue.

(singing)

Speaker 3:

Yeah!
Come on, now.
Hey!
Yeah!
All right, now. Yeah!

(singing)

Martin Luther King Jr:

But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free.

(singing)

Speaker 5:

Dr. King, how are things shaping up now for tomorrow?

Martin Luther King Jr:

Things are shaping up beautifully. We have people coming in from all over the country. I suspect that we will have representatives from almost every state in the union, and naturally a large number of people from the state of Alabama. And we hope to see, and we plan to see, the greatest witness for freedom ever taken place, that has ever taken place on the steps of a capitol of any state in the South. And this whole march adds drama to this total thrust. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating, "For Whites Only."

They told us we wouldn't get here.

And there were those who said that we would get here only over their dead bodies, but all the world today knows that we are here and we are standing before the forces of power in the state of Alabama saying, "We ain't going to let nobody turn us around."

They are going to tell the city itself. They are going to say to...

Nina Simone:

I think what you're trying to ask is why am I so insistent upon giving out to them that Blackness, that Black power, that Black, pushing them to identify with Black culture. I think that's what you're asking. I have no choice over it in the first place. To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world, Black people. And I mean that in every sense, outside and inside. And to me, we have a culture that is surpassed by no other civilization but we don't know anything about it. Again, I think I've said this before in this same interview, I think, sometime before, my job is to somehow make them curious enough or persuade them by hook or crook to get more aware of themselves and where they came from and what they are into and what is already there and just to bring it out. This is what compels me to compel them. And I will do it by whatever means necessary.

(singing)

That's it!