(driving music) - Hello.

My name is Tyrone Aiken.

I'm Chief Artistic Officer with Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey.

And what you're going to see today is a piece called Heart and Home.

It was originally created as a response to the question about immigration, about place, about borders.

And so as an artist, that's something that I think we need to talk a great deal about, who is in or out.

It's something that is currently a topic that we're talking about.

This poem was written by Sheri Purpose Hall, who was my collaborator in this, and then also Kennedy Banks, the dancer.

And I think that it's a wonderful opportunity to have a discussion around place and immigration, and why borders matter, or maybe they shouldn't.

- [Sheri] My heart wonders what a home is, resides in a vacated chest cavity, mutilated region of strife in the search for opportunity.

Home isn't always where the heart is.

Home may be the land where you live without threats of annihilation or starvation.

Home may be housed under a bridge, safer than any house where code infractions cause killings, safer than my previous trafficking.

Home could be a place where I exist.

Stare blankly as my heart didn't always survive.

Its narrative cut short of forced surrender, pumping life force mechanic.

Its valves shutting for the final time, like the chapter close a door.

Shut to a home, a place of no return, a locked out thing roaming a strange land, attempting to create a new while retaining the old world traditions.

I only wanted to manifest a destiny like how I go into myself.

Like God told Abraham, nomadic hearts and anchored soul cause a rift.

When body takes flight, it breaks the spirits.

I tried with all my might to make it, and still my heart has found home in the bottom of oceans, the bottom of bottles, the bottom of beds.

My heart remains unhealed and startles awake, replaying bug shed.

My heart is a three-year old limp body washed ashore in a cage bound.

My heart has found itself the main attraction, the spectacle bred in captivity and sold.

And when this heart's body dusted the wind, my heart had its story told and sold.

Its newspaper clipping and magazine headline, and this poem.

My heart is a dollar bill worth to everyone, but isn't valued.

My heart got injured in a war, declared by people who didn't look like my soil.

My heart's arteries clogged with artillery.

My heart told the heart it was tied to to go save itself.

So I watched my heart rip itself out, (Kennedy yells) watched my heart float away.

My heart is a sepia colored relic residing with my children in a locket, the only thing they have to remember me by.

My heart is the thump under a gavel, six years old and separated from parents.

My heart was forced to be its own lawyer in a sea of lawlessness.

My heart is a knock on wood type of injustice, a rabbit's foot for the demon, as if nefarious characters ever needed luck.

So my heart is searching for righteous rest some place it can call.

My heart wonders what a home is, wonders where home is, wanders wanting what home is.

Homeless is this heart.

- Hi, I'm Jennifer Owen, and I'm the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Owen/Cox Dance Group.

We are pleased to share with you a piece called Keeping Time.

The choreography is by Caili Quan, and the music is by Stacy Busch.

The work was commissioned by Johnson County Community College for their New Dance Partners Series.

We created the work back in the fall of 2020.

The piece was rehearsed entirely on Zoom with the choreographer working from her home in New York, four of the dancers in Kansas City, one of the dancers in Denver, and another dancer in Minneapolis.

Likewise, the piece was shot in locations around the Kansas City area, including the Nerman Museum, as well as locations in Minneapolis and Denver.

We hope you enjoy this performance.

(eerie music) (percussive music) ♪ I see you walking ♪ ♪ Walking right beside me ♪ ♪ I see you striding ♪ ♪ I'm just keeping time with ♪ ♪ We keep on dancing ♪ ♪ Dancing as the days pass ♪ ♪ It's alive, we're styling ♪ ♪ No one else inviting ♪ ♪ I see you walking ♪ ♪ Walking right beside me ♪ ♪ I see you striding ♪ ♪ Take me to New Zealand ♪ (women vocalizing) (mysterious music) (percussive music) (light music) (percussive music) ♪ I see you walking ♪ ♪ Walking right beside me ♪ ♪ I see you striding ♪ ♪ I'm just keeping time with ♪ ♪ We keep on dancing ♪ ♪ Dancing as the days pass ♪ ♪ It's alive, we're styling ♪ ♪ No one else inviting ♪ ♪ I see you walking ♪ ♪ Walking right beside me ♪ ♪ I see you striding ♪ ♪ I'm just keeping time with ♪ ♪ We keep on dancing ♪ ♪ Dancing as the days pass ♪ ♪ It's alive, we're styling ♪ ♪ Take me to New Zealand ♪ (percussive music) ♪ Take me to New Zealand ♪ (vocalizing) ♪ I take flight for you ♪ ♪ I take flight for you ♪ ♪ Where we know the truth ♪ ♪ Is there hope for you ♪ ♪ Birds fly right to try to save you ♪ ♪ I take flight for you ♪ ♪ I take flight for you ♪ ♪ Where do you pick a fight ♪ ♪ When do you know it's right ♪ ♪ Is there any hope for you ♪ ♪ Is there any hope for you ♪ ♪ Is there hope for me and you ♪ ♪ Am I you ♪ ♪ Am I you ♪ ♪ Am I you ♪ ♪ Am I you ♪ ♪ Am I you ♪ ♪ Am I you ♪ ♪ Am I you ♪ ♪ Am I you ♪ ♪ Am I you ♪ - Sorry, I don't look like the rape poem you're used to.

Not Western beauty standard, waif thin, pale too.

Black woman strong for you to imagine forced, held down, controlled.

Sorry, I'm not white feminist crying on microphone enough for you.

Skin and land of origin not exotic enough for you.

History of slavery, not human trafficking enough for you.

Sorry, my continued survival doesn't scream damaged enough for you.

Audacity to still think myself as sexy, not post-traumatic enough for you to stress over.

Sorry, I don't fit into what you think it is to be raped poem, beautiful and emotionally messy.

Sorry, your stereotypes weren't wide enough to include fat or Black, but I assure you we exist.

I know rape poems.

Read the force love italics, the deafening blank spaces containing no edits for heroes.

The irregular stanzas all containing fragmented sentences, void proper punctuation, except for periods.

At some points, we all hope our periods come.

I suppose the unfathomable to be true that rape in some sick twisted sense is better than you, more politically correct than you, isn't racist, ageist, ableist, sexist, or shallow like you.

Rape accepts anyone in it can hold on to.

I know rape poems whose names are Jim, Tom, and Ed, rather than Monica, Shironda, or Sue.

Rape poems that don't even identify as men or women.

Rape poems confined to wheelchairs with cerebral palsy.

Black, Yellow, Brown, overweight, pimple faced, permanently disfigured rape poems that weren't even scripted, til they were in their eighties.

I had the opportunity to teach a group of young middle-school girl poems once, and found that eight out of nine of them also identified as rape poems, and the one glimmer of hope I had, the one that wasn't was transformed into violated calligraphy two weeks later.

So I'm sorry if I, we don't fit into your law and order SVU version of a beautiful fair flowing haired, blonde collegiate goddess, outspoken rape poem.

Sorry, but I won't be your token episode.

Sorry, but I won't get up on a microphone, pour out all the gory details, cry you a river, give you rape poem porn.

Sorry, you can't get your rocks off to this one.

Sorry, these sorrys don't come with legitimate apologies.

I'm sorry!

I ain't sorry.

(gentle music) ♪ Land of the free ♪ ♪ Home of the brave ♪ ♪ Some grown ups used to say ♪ ♪ They forgot to mention ♪ ♪ Despite good intentions ♪ ♪ 400 years and ain't much changed ♪ ♪ They tell the story of American glory ♪ ♪ But the dream got in the way ♪ ♪ Scars and, scars and, scars and stripes forever ♪ ♪ Scars and, scars and, scars and stripes forever ♪ ♪ You could think that I should forgive and forget ♪ ♪ But I haven't even started my healing yet ♪ ♪ Just scars and, scars and, scars and stripes forever ♪ ♪ The world is watching ♪ ♪ And still we're marching ♪ ♪ On the lands that were betrayed ♪ ♪ My body matters ♪ ♪ My heart is shattered ♪ ♪ But I'll keep singing anyway ♪ ♪ To tell the story of American glory ♪ ♪ But they won't wash our part away ♪ ♪ Scars and, scars and, scars and stripes forever ♪ ♪ Scars and, scars and, scars and stripes forever ♪ ♪ You could think I should forgive and forget ♪ ♪ But I haven't even started my healing yet ♪ ♪ Just scars and, scars and, scars and stripes forever ♪ ♪ Lady Liberty, your torch shines for me ♪ ♪ Hope one day you get to see your people living free ♪ ♪ On that day, we'll see ♪ ♪ Will that freedom ring ♪ ♪ The chorus of our voices thundering through humanity ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Land of the free ♪ ♪ Home of the brave ♪ ♪ 400 years and ain't much changed ♪ (orchestral music)