Assembly in Black Aesthetics
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Paul C. Taylor in “Assembly, Not Birth,” suggests that black expressive culture cannot be understood in a binary system of us versus them, American versus African, white versus black. Instead, Taylor offers the theory of assembly to understand black expressive culture by addressing the racialization of blackness, the contradictions in black lived-experiences, and the desubjugation of black worlds. In other words, black aesthetics “is to use art, criticism, or analysis to explore the role that expressive objects and practices play in creating and maintaining black life-worlds” (Taylor 6). Furthermore, the theory of assembly allows one to understand Revelations by Alvin Ailey, in particular “I’ve Been Buked” as an artwork that aims to capture the black lived experience.
“[Black] songs to be heard truly must be sung by a group, and a group bent on expression of feelings and not on sound effects” (Hurston, 80)
First, the theory of assembly addresses the racialization of blackness in a manner that lighting, clustering and sameness demonstrates the ways in which black experiences were created in Revelations. According to Taylor, race is a “social factor” that intertwines “to produce our particular paths through life” in a manner that “personal whims or choices about individuality” is not completely, wholly available to one (9). In other words, Taylor points to the rhetoric and institutions that continue to mark and alienate black people which are beyond their hands. In “I’ve Been Buked,” the dancers begin in a triangle formation while inside of a lightened circle and a black background, as seen in the first picture above. One can interpret the beginning scene as the beginning of othering such that a group of people were placed inside of generalizations in order to contain them, isolate them. Additionally, there are moments in the circle where the dancers are in sync doing the same movement, such as holding their hands up in the sky and extending their body upward. The sameness can suggest the need to escape the continual racialization of their bodies. During “I’ve Been Buked,” the dancers spread out but come back to this circle, during the middle and end, such that the dancers can not escape the “particular paths” created by race (Taylor 9). Moreover, the racialization of black individuals is what makes black dance distinct from dance and black expressive culture from expressive culture generally.
“Every man trying to express himself through song. Every man for himself” (Hurston 81)
Second, the theory of assembly explores the contradictions of black lived experiences in Revelations in which each individual expresses a degree of difference while executing the same movements. Taylor’s assembly aims to “identify, gather together, and explore the linked contextual factors in virtue of which we might productively and provisionally comprehend various phenomena under a single heading” (3). In the case of “I’ve Been Buked,” individuality is emphasized such that it captures a broad range of black lived-experiences. When the dancers have to stay in formation together, whether it be in the same, clustered spot or doing the same movements, each individual is at their own pace. For instance, the picture below demonstrates different placement of hands although the dancers are at the same spot, with their hands held up, and their hands down. This speaks to the resistance of sameness and essentialism that only aims to misunderstand and marginalize the black community. The closing scene of “I’ve Been Buked,” the picture below this paragraph, ends with the hands of the dancers moving downward at different paces such that it rejects to “fetishize temporal landmarks or origin points” (Taylor 4).
“Hence, the harmony and disharmony, the shifting keys and broken time that make up the spiritual” (Hurston 80)
Lastly, the theory of assembly aims to desubjugate black life-worlds in the same manner Revelations breaks isolation and uniformation on stage. In “Assembly, Not Birth,” Taylor speaks of “racialized aestheticization,” in conversation with black aesthetics, in which “aesthetics get racialized not just at the level of managing access to specific practices, but also at the level of imaging the structure, meaning and content of the human endeavors” (21). In other words, Taylor is arguing that black aesthetics should not be confused with racialized aesthetics as black aesthetics give power to black lifes-worlds in which black people are taking back the narrative and deciding what is beautiful. In the case of “I’ve Been Buked,” there is a scene in which the dancers break free from the circle, the containment, and into full use of the stage in which every dancer is doing his or her own dance, whether it be jumping, twirling or in place. The lighting as well changes from a honey color to a warm pink-peach undertone that illuminates the full stage. The picture below this paragraph demonstrates a part of this scene of “I’ve Been Buked.” One can interpret this part as the making of black lived-worlds by black people such that it does not have to have an ulterior meaning in order to make the dance valid, it does not need a “‘definitive interpretation’” (Taylor 3). One can interpret the use of the stage as a symbol of freedom in taking up space without surveillance and control of black bodies. Or one can take the dance as is, as beautiful, as an aesthetic, a black aesthetic.
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References
Hurston, Zora Neale. “Spirituals and Neo-Spirituals.” The Sanctified Church, Turtle Island Foundation, 1981, pp. 79 – 84.
Mintz, Sydney W., and Richard Price. The Birth of African American Culture. Beacon Press, 1992.
“Revelations – Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.” YouTube, 7 December 2020, https://youtu.be/kDXerubF4I4. Accessed 17 March 2023.
Taylor, Paul C. “Chapter 1: Assembly, Not Birth.” Black is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics, John Wiley & Sons, 2016, pp. 1 – 31.