In celebration of Black August, MetaMove collaborated with Bronx-based organizations, The Cypher and Uptown & Boogie Healthy Project to produce a 4-part political education performance series about the history of Maroons in Jamaica. The series, 'Cyclical Lessons: Marronage , Liberation , and Co-Creation' took place underneath the Gun Hill Road train station in the Bronx, located in a historically diasporic Jamaican community.
More about Cyclical Lessons:
Started in 2019 as part of Gallery of the Streets', [b]reach: adventures in heterotopia Abolitionist Opera, 'Cyclical Lessons: Marronage , Liberation , and Co-Creation' is a 4-part participatory performance that will take us through the history of the Trelawny Maroons, Jamaican junkanoo and traditional dance forms, and incorporate elements of play in its Ancestor communion, world-building and remembrance. Through the legacy of the Haitian Revolution and Marronage, this project results in a transformative justice lesson through socially engaged art practice as a means to prototype skills and lifeworlds that uplift autonomy and liberation for soon-to-be liberated peoples.
More about The Cypher:
"We focus on transformation – creating and holding generous and joyful vegan space for Trans* & Queer Black and Indigenous folks. We are a Black femme-focused and led QTBIPOC formation with the goal of forwarding Black Trans and Queer liberation with food, gender and environmental justice. This is an intergenerational, multi-experiential space that pushes past the status quo to embrace African ancestral ways of knowing from a diasporic lens. This formation holds Black space as sacred and necessary for survival – Black Trans* & Queer space even more so."
More about The Uptown & Boogie Healthy Project:
"The Uptown & Boogie Healthy Project aims to increase access to locally grown farm fresh food, promote micro-mobility, and reduce waste through composting and textile recycling in Harlem and The Bronx. Through the creation of the Kids Club and additional community engagement strategies, interactive sessions will be held at local farmers' markets to encourage good nutrition as part of a growing movement towards a healthier, better-fed, and more educated community."