standing ovation

for Saturday's staged reading in Oakland of Bwagamoyo: The Father.

And terrific feedback.

Thank you EVERYONE who came, and everyone who emailed support before and after.

Huge appreciation to my co-actor, Zac Drake, who, quite simply, killed it.

His hair was the third actor, said one audience member. You had to be there to understand why :-)

His neck-shoulder line absolutely lived up to the moment.

That deep, resonant male voice really made the reading three-dimensional, was another comment.

Other highlights:

The pioneering radical activist poet, Nellie Wong, was in the audience. When she announced in the Q and A that it was her birthday, we all burst into a spontaneous rendition of Happy Birthday. I wanted to cry. Nellie Wong came to my reading on her birthday!

My voice coach from Migritude I, Kate Rowland, drove all the way in from Orinda. I was seriously intimidated by her being there, as I have so not been diligent about my voice work. I winced internally every time I heard myself slip off-voice in the performance. But she told me afterwards that I was a "tour-de-force." Even typing that puts a huge grin on my face.

People got it. The song of the individual body embedded in the body politic. Intimate violence inextricably melded with the violence of history. Hierarchies of bone and muscle mirroring national and international structures of power and dominance.

Thank you, fabulous Oakopolis people - Jan Camp, Joell Jones, James Minton, for making it all happen.

Thank you, David Borsos, for being there 200% for setup, breakdown, and everything in-between and after.

Thank you, Lea Arellano, for documenting the Q and A feedback.

Thank you, Lisa Martinovic, Pina Piccolo, Mai Palmberg, Kirstin Holst Petersen, for invaluable comments and feedback on earlier versions of the script.

And yes, we got some strong video, shot by Andrew Kaluzynski. As soon as I've had a chance to review it and pick out my favourite bits, they'll go up on youtube.

Finally, my debt to the African Guest Writer Fellowship at the Nordic Africa Institute, for time, space, resources, and community to complete and premiere the script of Bwagamoyo, is incalculable.