In the 1978 film The Wiz, Diana Ross plays Dorothy to Michael Jackson’s Scarecrow. These new friends—along with the others they meet along the way—need something, and getting what they need is enabled by these chance fellowships that reveal themselves as vital. In DIANA ROSS DREAM, Black being-together is both community and sanctuary. Our togetherness is precious and fortifying—and it creates the condition for the possibility to express what is historically and perpetually silenced. We understand expression as the sensual imperative of emotion – we have to feel in order to live. And we have to live. Our true expression disturbs the violent placidity maintained by the systems that structure our waking world. This work is a rehearsal for the performance of the every day: here we elect to be seen being—being total—understanding movement as a technology of and for feeling. Our togetherness is not uncomplicated: we take seriously the mystery of the other, practicing the listening we believe to be the central apparatus of love. In DIANA ROSS DREAM we are dancing relation, our movement motivated by the energy of encounter— with each other and with uncertainty itself. Our vesselhood, both ancient and ordinary, connects us to each past for which we are the dreamt-of future.
“I am working on encounter: on dancing together To face the other and to not resist nor insist upon the joining of eyes To have an orientation that acknowledges The cosmos within and therein To situate one’s body in rhythm and in space—to play air To antennae In pleasure and in need To listen To await To be told: The information is in the form of Desire Fear Resistance Knowing To be willing to discover Ceaselessly To arrive and arrive and arrive and arrive To meet the mystery The boundless mystery of the other and The terrifying unknown of the self To dance listening To let yes mean yes To let no mean no On our bodies In DIANA ROSS DREAM I am studying the mechanics of loving.' — Aisha Sasha John
Aisha Sasha John is interested in choreographing performances that occasion real love. She’s passionate about the creative potential of surrender, and through her choreographic work builds structures that allow for experiences of entrancement. The expressive possibilities exclusive to Black being-together is her ongoing research interest. John’s duet DIANA ROSS DREAM (Danse-cité) premiered in fall 2022 and was developed during a 2019-2022 Dancemakers choreographic residency. Her first full-length solo work debuted as the aisha of oz at the Whitney Museum in 2017, and in 2018, iterations of the aisha of is were presented at MAI and Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival. From 2015-2017, John choreographed, performed and curated as a member of the collective WIVES, presenting ACTION MOVIE at Théâtre La Chapelle (2017). With Julia Thomas, John choreographed and performed WE ARE HANGING OUT RIGHT NOW (Videofag and Buddies 2016). John’s video work and text art have been exhibited in galleries (Doris McCarthy, Oakville Galleries) and was commissioned by Art Metropole as part of Let’s understand what it means to be here (together), a public art residency in which John and four collaborators made performances in Union Station’s west wing. A celebrated poet, John is the author of the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize nominated collection, I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart 2017), THOU (Book*hug 2014), TO STAND AT A PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED (UDP 2021), and is currently at work on her fourth collection, total.
Website: https://aishasashajohn.tumblr.com/