Circling Dantò's daughter: Reflections on Lenelle Moïse's performances of shamelessness. Issue 2 (4th May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Souffrant, Kantara
• Is Part Of: Women & performance. Volume 27:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 229
• Page End: 234
• Publication Date: 2017-05-04
• Subjects: performance studies -- diaspora -- queer -- Ezili Dantò -- vodou -- lesbian -- Black -- woman -- religion; Feminism and the arts -- Periodicals; Theater -- Periodicals; Women -- Periodicals; Women in the theater -- Periodicals; Women in the motion picture industry -- Periodicals; Women in television broadcasting -- Periodicals; Performing arts -- Periodicals; Women artists -- Periodicals; Vrouwen; Uitvoerende kunsten; 305.4201
• DOI: 10.1080/0740770X.2017.1315236
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0740-770X

Abstract

Abstract : This essay examines the poetry and performance work of Lenelle Moïse and how Vodou enables her to "circle the cosmograms, " to (re)turn to Haiti vis-à-vis (re)turning to Haitian Vodou as a philosophical and aesthetic ethos. The author combines her own visceral responses to Moïse's poetry, memories of her first encounters with the artist, and an analysis of her poems "Kissed There Myself " and "Rada Raincoat " to forward a reading of Moïse's work that embraces "shamelessness" in her return to Vodou as a second-generation, queer, Haitian-American woman. The author thereby positions Vodou as a spiritual and aesthetic platform for (re)connecting to Haiti and Haitian Vodou culture.