Sistah Poets-A Choreopoem

I have been blessed to have a number of very close girlfriends...sisters actually. Let's see there is Ruha, Asali, and Angela who I grew up with who are now living in DC, California, and Georgia. Then there is Ody, who I am closest with who lives here in South Carolina and also Windi. Then Lacey and Karen in Chicago and Nancy in Haifa and Kat in Korea and Nica in DC.

Yesterday Asali, Angela, Ody and myself talked on the phone with children yelling or talking in the background in three of the homes. Of course I was driving back from Columbia so I must have looked really odd laughing my head off on the phone...which is what I was doing most of the time. Then I remembered something a couple of us had done years ago.. before marriages and children and travelling.

Some of us would get together and read our poetry. Nothing formal...just to have something to do. An idea cropped up to start a live poetry group called "Sistah Poets". It was so organic and beautiful that it was never meant to last. We performed once at Barnes and Noble in the coffee shop to rave reviews. We were interviewed beforehand and people showed up. I think it was like a breath of fresh air. None of us were professionals but we brought ourselves, with our diverse experiences, talents and abilities to the table. That was the point. So there was singing, dancing, and a display of poetry completely diverse in its delivery and style...people loved it. The poetry had been arranged to follow a story line and that was easy because we simply created a set like one of our living rooms and talked as women do.

The four way conversation reminded me of an idea I had had a long time ago. I started writing choreopoems after reading Ntozake Shange's choreopoem "for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf" I was inspired by its powerful simplicity. I have written two chorepoems since and have always had two more in the back of my mind...one is called "Sistah Poets". I want to re-create that organic expression in a way that it can be experienced more than once. Bascially a choreopoem, for those who don't know, is a play written entirely in poetry and monologue with dance and song as an integral part. There are very few lines where the actors directly dialogue. The style lends itself to limitless creativity.

There is a part of me that wants to capture this moment in life. To have something to look back on in my advanced years and smile at. The beauty of spiritual connections with women as we have moved from youth into adulthood.