jumatatu m. poe and Jerome Donte Beacham in Let ‘im Move You: Intervention, Photo by Tojo Andrianarivo

Let ‘im Move You: Intervention (October 2, 2021), is the brainchild of jumatatu m. poe’s and Jerome Donte Beacham’s research into expression of J-Sette Drill performance. Originated by Shirley Middleton and Hollis Pippins (1971— 1975), J-Sette incorporates polished drill performance, character, and academic performance. poe and Beacham are choreographers, dancers, and researchers who collaborated with CalArts REDCAT in Los Angeles and On the Boards in Seattle to present Let ‘im Move You on the closing weekend of Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s (PICA’s) Time-Based Art Festival.

It began as an evening walk and achieved apotheosis through the looking glass. You couldn’t call us a young crowd, old crowd, college crowd, or rich crowd. We were just a crowd. The vibe was easy. We wore expressions behind masks adding to our comfort, giving up the ghosts of divinining expressions we would have mistranslated anyway. To look at a mask knowing it is one; moved by actions instead. Called, our heads turn as a flock to the west. Three persons— all skins in sculptural tones cast bronze, and with patina are moving.

Their bodies spoke femininity. I expect shouts and music, but I receive silence. They begin a dancing walk and we follow. There were nostalgic moments. I remembered how children can see more clearly than adults when a young girl with long dark hair standing on the porch of a house observed us. She chuckled when she watched us watching them. I’ve never heard a kid chuckle, definitely not at a group of very grown, very bill paying, calendar keeping adults. When we turned on Monroe I remembered their inquisitiveness. First two, then three young girls with olive skin and golden brown hair were ready to play along if they could divine a good game:

“What is going on?”

“Is it a parade?”

“Is it the end of the world?”

I remembered that Paris is Burning and I don’t think anyone wants to put it out. I remembered in high school standing in a circle playing Little Sally Walker, and before that in elementary:

“‘she didn’t know what to do so she jumped in front of me’”

I had prepared for intervention by placing a robe over my preconceptions of intervention. The dancers stopped at a house and their arms moved overhead.The colors of the houses called back red, green, orange, yellow. The performer’s hips swung the mallet of a bell between metronome arms. At stops, they posed with hands on hips and palms up as though holding a tray. I thought of Nefertiti, Cleopatra, hieroglyphs, masks, and mistaken divinations. I followed their tradition to hear their story. Time moves in a circle. Their dance began at the end and ended at the beginning, or in the middle, or to the side, or to the other side. If it’s a circle that we did not draw ourselves, how can we say where it began? We can only move within the orbit of narrative, divining and creating, or as Let ‘im Move You with creating the divine.