The two places where I feel most free aren't actually places. They're moments. The first is inside of dance. Somewhere between rising up against gravity and the feeling that the air beneath me is falling in love with my body's weight. I'm dancing and the air is carrying me like I might never come down. The second place that I feel free is after scoring a goal on the soccer pitch. My body floods with the chemical that they put inside of EpiPens to revive the dead, and I am weightless, raceless.
有兩個地方, 讓我感到最自由, 它們其實都不算地方。 它們是時刻。 第一是在舞蹈中。 在對抗地心引力升起來, 到感受到我底下的空氣之間, 我會愛上我的體重。 我在舞蹈,而空氣帶著我, 好像我永遠不會落下一樣。 第二個讓我感到自由的地方, 是在足球場上射門得分之後。 我的身體湧入放在腎上腺素筆裡面 那種用來讓死者復甦的化學物質, 我沒有重量, 沒有種族。
My story is this: I'm a curator at a contemporary arts center, but I don't really believe in art that doesn't bleed or sweat or cry. I imagine that my kids are going to live in a time when the most valuable commodities are fresh water and empathy. I love pretty dances and majestic sculpture as much as the next guy, but give me something else to go with it. Lift me up with the aesthetic sublime and give me a practice or some tools to turn that inspiration into understanding and action.
我的故事如下:我是 一間現代藝術中心的策展人, 但我不相信不會流血、 流汗,或哭泣的藝術。 我想像在我孩子所居住的時代, 最珍貴的商品是乾淨的水和同理心。 我熱愛好看的舞蹈和壯麗的雕塑, 就和旁人一樣, 但給我其他和它搭配的東西。 且美感的崇高把我抬起, 給我一場練習或一些工具, 來將那靈感轉化成為了解和行動。
For instance, I'm a theater maker who loves sports. When I was making my latest piece /peh-LO-tah/ I thought a lot about how soccer was a means for my own immigrant family to foster a sense of continuity and normality and community within the new context of the US. In this heightened moment of xenophobia and assault on immigrant identity, I wanted to think through how the game could serve as an affirmational tool for first-generation Americans and immigrant kids, to ask them to consider movement patterns on the field as kin to migratory patterns across social and political borders. Whether footballers or not, immigrants in the US play on endangered ground. I wanted to help the kids understand that the same muscle that they use to plan the next goal can also be used to navigate the next block.
比如,我是個熱愛運動的劇作人。 當我在創作我最新的作品 《peh-LO-tah》時, 我想了很多關於足球 對我自己的移民家庭的意義, 在美國的新背景中, 培養出一種持續、 常態、共同體的感覺。 在這仇外心理 和攻擊移民身份的時刻, 我想要想清楚, 比賽如何能成為一項認同工具, 給第一代美國人和移民孩子使用, 要他們想想在場上的移動模式, 就像是跨過社會和政治 邊界的遷移模式。 不論是不是足球員, 美國的移民者都是 在受到危及的地面上玩球。 我想要協助孩子們了解 他們用來規劃下一次射門的肌肉, 也能用來引導下一次的阻擋。
For me, freedom exists in the body. We talk about it abstractly and even divisively, like "protect our freedom," "build this wall," "they hate us because of our freedom." We have all these systems that are beautifully designed to incarcerate us or deport us, but how do we design freedom? For these kids, I wanted to track the idea back to something that exists inside that no one could take away, so I developed this curriculum that's part poli-sci class, part soccer tournament, inside of an arts festival. It accesses /peh-LO-tah/'s field of inquiry to create a sports-based political action for young people. The project is called "Moving and Passing." It intersects curriculum development, site-specific performance and the politics of joy, while using soccer as a metaphor for the urgent question of enfranchisement among immigrant youth.
對我來說,自由存在於體內。 我們談論它的方式 很抽象,甚至很分歧, 比如「保護我們的自由」、 「建立這道牆」、 「他們因為我們的自由而討厭我們」。 我們有這麼多體制 完美地設計來監禁我們或驅逐我們, 但我們要如何設計自由? 為這些孩子,我想要把這想法 追溯回到內在的東西, 沒有人能奪走, 所以我發展出了這門課程, 它有一部分是政治科學課, 有一部分是足球巡迴賽, 我把它放在一個藝術節中。 它能取得《peh-LO-tah》的 研究調查領域, 來為年輕人創造出 以運動為基礎的政治行動。 這項專案計畫叫做「移動與傳球」。 它貫穿了課程發展、 特定地點的表演, 以及帶著喜悅的政治, 同時用足球當作象徵, 比喻迫切的問題: 將公民權授予移民年輕人。
Imagine that you are a 15-year-old kid from Honduras now living in Harlem, or you're a 13-year-old girl born in DC to two Nigerian immigrants. You love the game. You're on the field with your folks. You've just been practicing dribbling through cones for, like, 15 minutes, and then, all of a sudden, a marching band comes down the field. I want to associate the joy of the game with the exuberance of culture, to locate the site of joy in the game at the same physical coordinate as being politically informed by art, a grass-laden theater for liberation. We spend a week looking at how the midfielder would explain Black Lives Matter, or how the goalkeeper would explain gun control, or how a defender's style is the perfect metaphor for the limits of American exceptionalism. As we study positions on the field, we also name and imagine our own freedoms.
想像一下,你是來自 宏都拉斯的十五歲孩子, 現在住在哈林區, 或是出生在華盛頓特區的十三歲 女孩,父母都是奈及利亞移民。 你熱愛球賽。 你和你的伙伴們在球場上。 你剛剛在練習盤球穿越圓椎障礙, 練了大約十五分鐘, 接著,突然間一支軍樂隊來到場上。 我想要把球賽的喜悅 和文化的豐富性拉上關聯, 以在球賽中把喜悅放置在 和在透過藝術來增長 政治見識相同的實體座標上, 一間長滿草的自由劇院。 我們花一週的時間, 看著前衛如何解釋「黑命貴」, 或守門員如何解釋槍枝管制, 或後衛的風格如何能完美地象徵出 美國例外論的限制。 當我們研究場上每個角色的位置時, 我們也說出及想像出了 屬於我們自己的自由。
I don't know, man, soccer is, like, the only thing on this planet that we can all agree to do together. You know? It's like the official sport of this spinning ball. I want to be able to connect the joy of the game to the ever-moving footballer, to connect that moving footballer to immigrants who also moved in sight of a better position. Among these kids, I want to connect their families' histories to the bliss of a goal-scorer's run, family like that feeling after the ball beats the goalie, the closest thing going to freedom.
我不知道,足球就像是…… 地球上唯一我們都同意 能夠一起做的事。 你們知道嗎?它就像是 這顆旋轉地球的官方運動。 我想要把球賽的喜悅連結到 不斷在移動的足球員, 將那移動的足球員連結到 看到為得更佳位置而移動的移民。 在這些孩子當中,我想要 將他們的家庭歷史連結到 射門得分者高興奔跑的極樂, 家庭就像是在球打敗了 守門員之後的感受, 那是最接近自由的東西。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)