Creative Greensboro welcomes poet and performer Jennif(f)fer Tamayo for a Residency at the Hyers as they present “In the Meadow of Y(our) Ancestors,” a multimedia poetry showcase. The residency will include a series of creative writing and performance workshops and three public performances. Performances are Saturday September 7, Friday, September 13, and Saturday, September 14th at 7:00PM at the Stephen D. Hyers Theatre in the Greensboro Cultural Center, 200 N. Davie St.  Entry to the performances and workshop are free with donations accepted. 

About “In the Meadow of Y(our) Ancestors”

“In the Meadow of Y(our) Ancestors” is a choreopoem - a dramatic poetry performance combining poetry, visual media, video and sound - that explores themes of home, belonging, migration, queer love, Black liberation and Indigenous sovereignty. Each public performance will also feature 1-2 nightly guest poets/writers, who will open the show. Performers include local poet & organizer Trin Dixon, activist, teacher and cultural worker D. Noble, reporter and writer Priya Dames, and Afro-Indigenous storyteller & multidimensional artist Dominique Daye Hunter.

About the Residency

The residency will support the development of a new poetry project which will include a combination of free community poetry workshops and pay-what-you-can public performances.

The programming (workshops and performances) are inspired by themes from Jenni(f)fer Tamayo’s forthcoming poetry collection, “In the Meadow of Y(our) Ancestors.” The poetry book attends to their experiences as a formerly undocumented, queer, latinx migrant detained at the U.S./Mexico border now making a more permanent home in Guilford county. They explore questions of migration and belonging –and  what it means to rekindle broken connections to language and land. 

As part of the residency, Tamayo will also offer three different types of public engagement opportunities that connect the core of their practice: poetry, performance and community organizing. In “Performance, Poetry & Body Memory” participants will explore the connections between poetry and embodied performance through writing and movement activities.  With the local arts collective, WAYWARD, Tamayo will offer the workshop “The Poetics of Abolition,” a poetry workshop that explores Black feminist writers and poets exploring the concept of abolition. Their final offering is a writing workshop designed specifically for local Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) writers and poets interested in connecting with other local creative writers.

During each of these workshop offerings, Tamayo and their collaborators will provide participants writing prompts that invite them to consider home, migration, indigenous language and culture, memory and belonging. With permission from participants, Tamayo will use some of their writing and exploration in the public performances at the end of the residency.

Schedule of Free Events

• Poetry Workshop: The Poetics of Abolition (Saturday, August 24, 2:00-4:00PM)

Thinking with the work of Black feminist writers, this poetry writing workshop unpacks contemporary practices and theories of “abolition.” Abolition is, as Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore reminds, “about presence, not absence. It’s about building life-affirming institutions. ” This workshop, co-facilitated with the local arts collective WAYWARD,  explores the connections between poetry and abolition through the writings of Angela Davis, Saidiya Hartman, Audre Lorde, Joy James, among others. We invite writers, poets, organizers, makers, healers and all community members for an afternoon of creative writing and discussion.

• BIPOC Writing Workshop  (Saturday, August 31, 2:00-4:00PM)

We invite local Black, Indigenous, People of Color creative writers to this writing workshop co-facilitated by Jenni(f)fer Tamayo and Priya Dames. Bring your journal, laptop and other writing materials for a hands-on writing workshop and creative mutual exchange. Snacks provided!

•  “Performance, Poetry & Body Memory” (Wed. September 4, 6:30-8:30PM)

Join us for an on-your-feet workshop delving into what it means to explore poetry through embodied performance. Using our bodies, voices and basic props, we will practice making poetry come off the page and land on the stage. The workshop is open to poets, performers and all who are interested in experimenting with embodied performance to reflect on concepts of home, belonging, memory, body and land.  

• Question & Answer Reflection (Saturday, September 14 8:15-8:45PM)

Immediately following the final performance on Saturday, September 14 stay for a brief Question & Answer (Q&A) session with poets Jenni(f)fer Tamayo and Dominique Daye Hunter who will answer questions and share insights about the performance’s themes and intentions.

About Jennif(f)er Tamayo

Jennif(f)fer Tamayo (JT) is a poet, performer and community organizer whose works reimagine the narratives about and politics of undocumented figures in the contemporary U.S. In their books, performances, and digital media, the “illegal” immigrant is recast as a punk figure that queers the norms of personhood and citizenship. They are the author of the visual art & poetry collections [Red Missed Aches, Read Mistakes] selected by Cathy Park Hong for the Gatewood Prize, YOU DA ONE (Noemi Books), to kill the future in the present (Green Lantern Press) and the endurance performance series QUEERADOR@. Their most recent book, bruise/bruise/break - a journey into creative autonomy and pleasure - explores the colonial legacies of U.S. poetics, migrant futurity, the power of kinship and belonging. Their writing is widely published and has been anthologized in Best American Experimental Poetry, New Latin@ Writing, and HarperCollins. JT has received fellowships from the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, Hemispheric Institute’s EmergeNYC, CantoMundo, and the University of California Berkeley’s Arts Research Center. They have staged performances at The Brooklyn Museum, BAMPFA, Midtown Arts & Theatre Center Houston, and La Mama Theatre. JT teaches composition and creative writing at North Carolina A&T University. They are a formerly undocumented, uninvited visitor born on Muisca territory (Bogota, Colombia) and are currently building a home/skool on the territories of the Yesah Confederacy (Piedmont region of North Carolina). 

About Featured Local Performers & Collaborators

Trin Dixon (they/them) is a poet and organizer from a small suburb of Georgia. Radicalized by police brutality at a young age, Trin turned to writing as a creative outlet to process the trauma and grief of being Black while living in the United States. Trin currently resides in Keyauwee and Saura, Eno, Catawba and Saponi territory otherwise known as Greensboro, North Carolina as a grad student and continues to write about mental health, social justice, and themes of race while advocating for marginalized groups here and abroad.

Demetrius Noble (better known as D. Noble) is an activist, teacher, and radical cultural worker. He currently serves as an adjunct professor in the African American & Diaspora Studies department at UNC Greensboro. His research interests include Black liberation struggle, Black class antagonisms, African American literature, popular culture, and Hip Hop studies. His work has been published in The African American Review, The Journal of Pan African Studies, The Journal of Black Masculinity, Socialism & Democracy, Works and Days, Cultural Logic, Red Wedge and other leftist digital and print publications.D. Noble is a member of Greensboro Revolutionary Socialists and is a cultural worker for Black Workers for Justice.

Dominique Daye Hunter is an Afro-Indigenous storyteller and multidimensional artist living in Akun:čuk (Durham, NC) & working everywhere. The author of Seeds: Stories of Afro-Indigenous Resilience and the CEO of D. Daye Hunter Designs LLC, she has a Bachelor’s degree in Nonprofit Leadership Management with an emphasis in American Indian Studies.

wayward is an arts+politics collective dedicated to smuggling anti-capitalist & anti-fascist ideas into our local community to inspire and support revolutionary change. They screen movies, pubish books + zines, host tabletop gaming events, and welcome makers + organizers to stay at their home for short residencies focusing on land care and creative stewardship. They are based on Yesah territory.

Priya Dames is a freelance reporter and writer based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her work has been featured in The News & Observer and Triad City Beat. In addition to her journalism, Priya writes short stories about nature, mystery, and personhood.