Review: Back to Afro-Futurism

Afrofuturism is a literary, cultural and otherwise artistic aesthetic that combines elements of science fiction, history, fantasy and magic realism to address issues concerning people of color. So where does queerness fit into this aesthetic? Some answers could be found in afroFUTUREqu##r, a four-day festival of sorts, that went up at the JACK theatre last week in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Thursday's show opened with EVIL N-GGER -- GAY GUERILLA, a piece by the bird-bodied Jonathan Gonzalez, which set the tone of catharsis that would take the spotlight for the rest of the night. With raw talent as both a vocalist and a mover, Gonzalez displayed great potential to rise to prominence as an African American, queer choreographer.

What can I say about the tremendous performer that is Orlando Hunter? With a seamless blend of acting, poetry, ritual, song and dance Mutiny/When Will You Re-Cog-Nize was a powerhouse solo performance. Hunter's extremely diverse movement inventory spanned the gamut from modern/contemporary to a more martial vocabulary to folkloric foot and hand movements that could have been derived from an East Indian cannon as much as a West African one. The result was choreography that was precise, dynamic, versatile and bold married with veritable emotion encompassing pride, anger, mania, coquetry and other aspects of the human experience. I've never seen a male performer oscillate so easily between ferocious warrior and prancing queen. The audience was cheering and singing long after he left the stage.

Visually stimulating and humorous in its simplicity Miseria, a short film by Karina Aguilera Skvirsky, featured a color-shifting alien singing Spanish love songs on the backdrop of a psychedelic sky and a dead city.

The last entry in the night was multiple art practices by Niall Jones. Experimenting with the barriers between stage and audience, personal and performance space, Jones created the illusion (?) of a predominantly improvised performance. Whether casually breaking the fourth wall to ask the artistic director a question, enlisting a friend to painstakingly drag him across the stage and prop him on random audience members, or doing a dance I couldn't see somewhere among a sea of captivated onlookers, Jones showed much promise as an up-and-coming avant-garde performer.

AfroFUTUREqu##r was curated by niv Acosta and Thomas F. Defrantz, the founder of SLIPPAGE: PERFORMANCE|CULTURE|TECHNOLOGY.

Photo Credit: Lamar Stephens

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