Ni'Ja Whitson Performance Responds To Audre Lorde At BRIC House

Wendy's Subway will present Slowly less and less. Although Sometimes I Still Long. I want it to become permanent., a newly commissioned performance-lecture by Ni'Ja Whitson that culminates the year-long program The Quick and the Dead, which has focused, in its inaugural year, on the life and work of poet, educator, and activist Audre Lorde (1934-1992). Following the performance, Whitson will be joined in conversation by poet Pamela Sneed and Cleopatra Acquaye-Reynolds and Kade Cahe from The Audre Lorde Project.

Drawing particular inspiration from The Cancer Journals (1980), Slowly less and less stages a dialogue with Audre Lorde, through the interplay of movement, original text, and Lorde's writing, creating a performative litany for survival. In this meditation, Whitson reflects on key texts by Lordeto develop a conversation around survival and death, cancer and loss, and silence and activism, drawing connections between body transformation and modes of survival.

* Excerpts from Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals

The Quick and the Dead is a yearlong, multi-phase project that highlights the life, work, and legacy of a deceased writer by bridging their work to that of contemporary practitioners. The program seeks to mobilize the creative and pedagogical potential of focused engagement with a single author through sustained reflection across a variety of public events and opportunities for cross-disciplinary encounters. The Quick and the Dead: Audre Lorde Edition programs included:

Audre Lorde: Your Silence Will Not Protect You!, a reading and discussion program facilitated by OlaRonke Akinmowo (September 2018 - March 2019)

Omniscient Tape Recorder: Audre Lorde Edition, a collaboration with The Poetry Project
Featuring Harmony Holiday, Tracie Morris, Gabrielle Richards, Meagan Washington, and moderated by Adjua Garzi Nzinga Greaves (February 18)

"I teach myself in outline": Audre Lorde's Pedagogy, a collaboration with Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative and the Center for Humanities at The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Featuring Miriam Atkin, Iemanja Brown, Erica Cardwell, Christina Olivares, and Conor Tomás Reed (April 9)

Queer Poets of Color: Nepantla Anthology Anniversary at Artbook @ MoMA PS1 Bookstore

Featuring t'ai freedom ford, Denice Frohman, and Donika Kelly, and moderated by Christopher Soto (April 27)

The Quick and the Dead: Audre Lorde Edition Creative Team includes Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves, Sanjana Iyer, Gabriel Kruis, Emily Reilly, and Rachel Valinsky, with graphic design by Studio Ghazaal Vojdani.