Black Theatre Beyond the Politics of Representation

A Black History Month conversation
with Stacie McCormick, PhD, & Wind Dell Woods, MFA/PhD, hosted by Jasmine Jamillah Mahmoud, PhD

What are the tensions embedded in the politics of representation for Black theatre artists? How can Black theatre become a liberatory space that pierces the veneer of how blackness gets to be represented on stage? Intiman Theatre presents a virtual conversation that centers these questions alongside the work of Stacie McCormick, author of the 2019 book Staging Black Fugitivity, and Wind Dell Woods, playwright of Aaliyah in Underland. Open to all.

Tuesday, February 23rd 2021, 5pm-6pm pacific.

Tickets are Free for Everyone. Reserve yours today to receive the Zoom link to join.

Watch ON DEMAND

Meet the Panelists:

Stacie McCormick, PhD

Stacie is an Associate Professor of English, Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies and Women and Gender Studies at Texas Christian University. She is the author of Staging Black Fugitivity (Ohio State University Press 2019) which examines how contemporary Black drama represents and engages with slavery. In addition to her work in Black drama and performance, she researches and writes on corporeality, visuality, and life-writing in Black womenā€™s expressive culture. She recently edited the special issue ā€œToni Morrison and Adaptationā€ for College Literature and she is developing a manuscript in process entitled, Notes on Creating Livable Futures: Black Motherhood, Medical Inhumanity and Reimagining Care which takes up Black womenā€™s critical engagement (via text and performance) with obstetric racism and the medical industrial complex.

Wind Dell Woods, MFA/PhD

Wind is a playwright, scholar, and educator. As a theatre artist, his work explores the topics of race, gender, identity, community, and memory. His ten-minute play, The Black & White Minstrel Show, has been produced in Chicago, San Diego, Boston, Los Angeles, and New York City. His full-length plays include Jonny Mayā€™s Soul Kitchen, Skylark Dreams, A Bronzian Tale, Harold and I, and Aaliyah in Underland. Woods’ research interests are in the fields of Hip Hop Theatre, Hip Hop aesthetics, narratology, blackness and performance, as well as the themes of death and rebirth, identity, gender, and slang. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Puget Sound. ā€‹

Jasmine Jamillah Mahmoud, PhD

Jasmine is Assistant Professor in Performing Arts & Arts Leadership at Seattle University. She is a performance historian, urban ethnographer, and curator whose work engages contemporary artistic practices, arts/cultural policy, black aesthetics, embodiment, and spatial racism. She is the Board Chair at Intiman Theatre, a board member at On the Boards, and a Washington State Arts Commissioner. Her research examines how artistic practice, race, and policy influence urban geographies and processes of neighborhood change such as displacement, dispossession, and gentrification, as well as models for equitable neighborhood practices and anti-racist, decolonial urbanism. Her writing has been published in Modern Drama, Performance Research, TDR: The Drama Review, and Women & Performance. Invested in public scholarship and art criticism, she has written for Canadian Art, The Common Reader, Howlround, Hyperallergic, the South Seattle Emerald, and the Urban Cultural Studies Blog, where she is an Assistant Editor. In 2009, she co-founded and edited The Arts Politic, a magazine dedicated to solving problems at the intersection of arts and politics. She recently curated, Abstractions of Black Citizenship: African American Art from Saint Louis, an exhibition and series of public programming that transitioned to virtual engagement amidst Covid-19.Ā  In 2019, students in her ā€œPublic Policy and Advocacy in the Artsā€ course (Seattle University) built the Seattle Arts Voter Guide, engaging Seattle City Council and School Board Candidates on their arts platforms.