Keyon Gaskin:Ā A Dancer, A Performance Artist Speaks
Keyon Gaskin is a Portland, OR based dancer and performance artist from the Midwest: Arkansas, St. Louis and Chicago.
Seeing Keyon perform, itās not a thing, his latest work one night at Yale Union I had some questions about him as a person, as a dancer and as one of the only black avant guard performers in Portland, OR.
So we sat down on a windy Wednesday to talk about the most pressing things on his mind as an artist: itās not a thing, Identity Politics and Black Lives.
Kalimah
How did you feel when you were performing your piece?
Keyon
I felt sadness. I always feel sadness when doing it too. I feel super amped and charged up at other times. The piece, itās not a thing, is about doing things that I have contention about doing as well as the color black period. Itās dealing with blackness in these different waysā¦the color, in relation to people, abstractly, maybe absence, void, nothingness, death, witchcraft and space. So Iām dealing with its connotations and implications in society in relation to people: historically, culturally, socially and the international perceptions of black people.
One of the contentions is being really wary about presenting my body in this context to mostly white audiences and them framing my experiences. And we see it too in popular culture in how the black body is sourced, how black culture is sourced. Itās this thing of like how much do you get to frame your experience for yourself.
What Iāve seen is, it gets framed as this Black Lives Matter piece when thatās not what Iām doing. And I actually find that even kind of just as offensive in another wayā¦like oh, so anything you see of difficult things Iām dealing with itās about police brutality. You know? And this idea that, yes, I get that this is the current conversation, but this is not a new conversation.
Itās only new to people who havenāt realized for whatever insane reason, or because now we have video cameras that police have been this brutal to black people since forever. My worry is that folks just stop at seeing me as a black body. You just stop at this like, oh my god your life must be so whatever becauseā¦
Kalimah
And then it becomes edgy.
Keyon
Yeah, right. It becomes this other thingā¦
Iām also very interested in doing things that get people to not just sympathize but find themselves inside of as well. When you just other and say you donāt have access to that experience, itās that thing of just sympathy and not empathy. Of just likeā¦oh, it must be so hard for you? But no, letās talk about how itās hard for you too, and just pain in general. Letās talk about what this symbol means. Are you finding yourselves in this or are you yet again othering?
Kalimah
Itās interesting because as a black person, how can you not talk about it (police brutality)? Especially as an artist but as you said, at the same time itās not always about that.
Keyon
And itās not just that. You know what I mean? Because in a sense we canāt parse ourselves out, especially with art, it shows up in some way.
But what I liked about doing the piece was really having people more in the room than trying to watch me, moving people around and getting away from people. It was a lot of fun dancing really close and having people move around the room.
Kalimah
Yeah. It was totally like forget yāall.
Keyon
Haha. Right?! I wanted to engage and hold space emotionally while also being rigorous around concepts. A lot of what happens is emotionality gets really kind of demonized in a lot of ways in contemporary conceptual art. Not just in art making, but the kind of demonizing of emotionality that we see in professionalism.
Iām a very emotional person. Emotional intelligence is a very valid way of engaging and I think a lot of this world could use more of it. But itās also nice to talk to people and hear how people engage the work and that feels supportive. It feels like, yeah, this should have happened.
Keyon performing i_tās not a thing_ at Yale Union in Portland, OR
Kalimah
What is it like being an artist in Portland?
Keyon
Iāve had a lot of opportunities to explore work that Iām actually interested in and opportunities to tour and travel internationally with companies; specifically from a project at TBA called Turbulence. Through that show and those people Iāve had a lot of other opportunities.
I think a lot of it has to do with being one of the only black folks involved in contemporary, experimental, abstract, Avante Guard whatever the f**k sort of work weāre performing.
Iām not talking affirmative action sort of shit. I bust my ass. I love working with people. I love investigating and Iām very curious. Because of all of those things, and my drive to be involved, Iāve had a lot of opportunities.
For a while I was very much not intentionally dealing with race and blackness directly at all, because thereās a lot of things that interest me as a person that arenāt just about being black. We all have things that interest us, and there are so many ways of engaging.
I also did not want to frame myself as just The Black artist. However, being a black person in this world is very much apart of my experience. Itās not something that Iām interested in parsing out or something that I can. But there is this thing now, Identity Politics, and itās all the rage.
Kalimah
What is Identity Politics?
Keyon
As far as I can tell, when youāre working in something (like art) and dealing directly with your identity and how you navigate the world, thatās your identity politics. In my opinion, nothing that anyone makes is separate from how they navigate this world. Of course genres exist but thatās one way that assists in further othering bodies: black folks, folks of color, women and any othered none white male and itās highly dismissive.
I think a lot about the neutrality of maleness and whiteness and the neutrality of white maleness. For instance, someone that is part of the dominant power structure or dominant culture explores can be broader and more encompassing of concepts but something that another person explores is directly tied to their identity? How is yours not tied to your identity? It is!
I think it has a lot to do with who gets to decide what work is identity politics work. Are these artists saying that their work is identity politics work and if they are, is that because this is the category theyāve been told it is or that theyāve given themselves?
If weāre talking about academia assigning these things, how are people making these alliances or categorizations, and who gets to make those? These are all apart of this conversation that is not getting had to me.
Kalimah
How do you feel like youāre moving in the world right now?
Keyon
I feel like I am consistently sliding through, doing a get in where you fit in periphery sort of thing. I have had to squeeze myself in without necessarily going through the front door, and the right channels. I think about terrible credit, people not seeing your opinion as wholly valid or valuable, but also thinking about how can I get around that and still do what I want to do. I think about that even within movement. In leaving theater, I began to think how maybe that wasnāt the way that I could really have an impact the way that I wanted to or be saying the things that I wanted to say. So, I went to find a way: āwait thereās this dance thing. No wait thereās this weird dance thingā¦ā
Kalimah
It sounds like curiosity.
Keyon
Yes, and very much investigation. I am also interested in moving through periphery and cracks and trying to wiggle my way in and not wholly disturb, but kind of disrupt things. But I think the way things are happening now, itās getting to a level of doing things more forthright.
Kalimah
Do you feel like, at a certain point it gets tiring trying to wiggle your way through?
Keyon
I think it totally does but I donāt think being here is about it being easy and Iām not saying coming through the front door is easy either. But itās more satisfying to come at it from the side, and be like Aaaah; rather than, Here I am! You should expect me to be everything. I think coming through the front door is involved in a lot of cultural capital: political, social and economic power. I think about art stars. Thereās a lot of weird, f**ked up shit that goes along with that, and that I navigate in some ways but not on those levels.
Iād rather be the underdog. Thereās something about being the one whose opinion some donāt immediately respect but have to respect later on. But this is also how Iāve had to navigate the world.
*Photo by Intisar Abioto
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This is a poem about ghosts in a sublet...
I came back home two months ago. To Memphis. Where I was born and I have not moved much lately.
I traveled to Philadelphia 4 months prior to this. The days were warm then and mosquitoes were out. And there...there I got a job at a pizza shop near UPenn and ate juicy east coast slices. There I started this blog and felt inspired, and then I felt hot and queasy about facebook likes for the page. There, I was on food stamps. There I was lonely. There I was convinced the house was haunted. Ā There I was excited. Then I was convinced there were mice in my room (this was true). Then I got angry. There I found something of myself again. Then I went to DC where I was convinced all cities are haunted. There I had no plan. So I spent my money in a week (sort of...yea I did). Then I left. And There...does not matter now.
Ā I have judged myself, but that couldn't last.Ā I am learning the things my parents did not teach me. I have judged myself. I have judged them, but that couldn't last. Truth be told, I am learning what I did not know, and so are they. This is not the end. Never will it be. I'm learning about money, about stability in adventure, about loving myself, taking care of myself, standing up for what I believe (not something I believe others believe)... being a real big sister. That means making decisions. That means choosing. That means living in the moment. And that is great. That is a revolution.Ā Ā That means something...that typa stuff.Ā
I am remembering the things that my parents taught me - that my grandparents taught. that is cherished information. holding that in my heart. I am remembering that little girl before school began. She was cool. She would cartwheel. explore the outdoors. climb things. love shoes. be of her own time. in her own world. caught up in a tree be-feathered like a bird. kissing girls.Ā
It's easy to hide things. Sometimes it's just better to let it go. I am 27 years old. I'll remember this year and bits of 2013. The years in which I had no plan, no house, and that culminated in courage. I think a lot of people feel this way. Shut in. Shut out. Afraid to say what it really is or what it really was. What happened. But today, I'm not afraid of this.
In time, sometimes, we feel that we are alone. This is not true.Ā
I have not moved much on the outside, but on the inside I am twirling.
I am twirling. And so I have moved.Ā
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