Do Hashtags Make BLM?

A solo work performed in the dance-theatre genre of choreopoetry, is a deft exploration of the many innocent black lives that have been lost to police racial profiling and abuse. Exploring the nuances with engaging theatre, dance and politics intersectionally, utilizing practice as research and research-to-performance methods, this work challenges the desensitization of racialized police brutality due to this fantasy about the disposability of black life [which] is a constant in American history. Do Hashtags Make Black Lives Matter? is a poignant social statement that humanizes the black community’s hyperpolicing crisis in which the U.S. currently finds itself. This project addresses the following inquiries:

 

1) What do hashtags do in front of the names of dead black bodies? #JLAustin: 

2) What is the performative utterance of hashtagging in this instance? #speechacts: and 

3) How are the hashtags #blacklivesmatter, #ifidieinpolicecustody, #icantbreathe, #handsupdontshoot changing the social reality they 

are describing? 

My rhetorical performance argument is, hashtags in this instance are not only acting as a warning to black America, #icouldbenext, but also as a reminder to #neverforget 

the very real and present danger of historical anti-blackness globally.

Music – Original soundscore by Ayo Walker.