- [Dana] The Cartography Project, as I understand it
is singularly important
because it helps us experience the emotions
and process the emotions that are happening
in our current social and political climate.
But it also helps us as artists process
and also give voice
to those who may not be able
to speak for themselves on the national stage.
And it helps us as a country
to think about what has transpired
in a different perspective.
And bring a momentum out of it
that is not centered only in grief and anguish.
(piano music)
- [Junauda] I feel like being from Minneapolis
is interesting 'cause it's like the Midwest.
I don't think a lot of people
even think Black people, live in Minneapolis.
There's just like a very complicated, yet rich,
yet -- you know -- at times there can be tensions
as far as the quality of life
for certain people versus other people.
So, I certainly feel like that's sort of the sparks
that really blossomed after what we experienced
with George Floyd was sort of on the surface.
Still waters run deep.
- To be honest, I was nervous about taking on this project
because I didn't live in Minneapolis
at the time that Mr. Floyd was taken from us.
It became an opportunity
to again, work alongside people who were there.
- And I lived four blocks away
from where George Floyd was murdered.
And matter of fact, I went to that spot
that called the police on him
often to get my little rolling papers and whatnot.
And I have been an activist,
Philando Castile also happened in the twin cities
and countless other Black folks
and people with mental illness and native folks
and other folks have been murdered and assaulted by police.
- [Liz] I was not expecting to be able to publicly reflect,
to be able to constructively experience this event.
I am a collaborative composer
and so from its inception,
it was about working alongside people
who experienced the same thing we all experienced.
But a little bit more intimately,
you create a piece that was collective.
- [Junauda] There was this moment of magic and heavy,
and terror, and transformation.
And for me, I really was interested
in getting into this idea of sweetness
and abolition within myself
as an antidote to what was happening around me.
And I think that is a thing I wanted to bring
into the piece for Black folks.
It's like how are we getting to luxuriate
in softness, and sweetness, and healing
when so much of what this American experience
wants us to live is terror and fear?
Sort of like this repressed existence
that continues to uplift white existence
at the detriment of our own soul journeys.
- [Liz] Yeah, so it begins with listening,
strong listening, quiet listening as well.
So I didn't just listen to
the responses to questions
that I was posing to a small group of people.
I listened to their body language,
to their breathing,
to their hesitations,
to their excitement,
to the joy that just kind of like permeates
even when we're remembering tragedy.
We still have this joy
that just seeps through in everything.
- [Junauda] When Liz and I were talking about this piece,
a lot of it was not wanting
to sort of default to the sort of trauma
that is so associated with the Black experience.
Obviously, Black folks are aware and cognizant
of how we live in a anti-Black white supremacist society.
But just the sort of rich, kind of irreverent joy
that we're always able to find and make.
So for me that was,
what I really wanted to hold in and also Liz.
We sat with a lot of people,
Black folks in Minneapolis
and just wanted to listen where their hearts were at.
So wanting to add multi-dimension into those feelings.
Because I think there's always this singular understanding
of oh, Black people, oh gosh,
we should all go sing and be paid.
Like all of these sort of like,
ways that almost they like seeing us down like that.
And what I really was so present to
was just how much joy and wildness
was a part of the resistance
of what was happening in Minneapolis.
I think for me listening to the words now,
alongside that music,
and having, last year almost quite immediately
after the George Floyd thing,
me and her were working on this piece.
And it kinda, when you're making art it,
can feel like, okay this is just like a haze,
it's coming out but I also needed the distance.
'Cause I do feel like the last year and a half,
my life has been,
like a lot of many Black Minneapolis activists
have been consumed and subsumed in this experience.
But to now at this moment hear,
the piano and the voices and the strings,
and you feel the alchemy of every sort of wild,
sort of moment and sadness and tear,
and smile and sort of wild like cosmic moment,
sort of condensed and distilled
into all of these magical sort of creatives.
And just to me is really cathartic.
- [Liz] I think that we have a duty and a responsibility
to continue paving the way.
I think it's kind of the only thing that we know how to do.
Because in the piece,
she says, "We so free."
Like all we know how to do is get free.
And I think that really is represented in both this piece,
as well as in the project itself.
All we know how to do is continue fighting for liberation.
All we know how to do is to be ourselves.
All we know how to do is to be trailblazers,
and to be magnanimous as a people.
And so it's inevitable that the field
is going to change.
- [Junauda] Divine, like for me,
it does feel so divine to sit
and witness via this musical interpretation
so much of the trauma and sadness
and how it feels in the piece
is like just melancholy and like heavy,
but also juicy and kind of irreverent.
So to me, I just loved
that that was able to be maintained.
- [Liz] I hope that it allows.
For what?
It's not my job to determine.
But for whom? Us.
(tranquil upbeat music)
♪ We ♪
♪ Eternity ♪
♪ Everyday ♪
♪ Cycle circles back ♪
♪ Sankofa ♪
♪ Facades falling back ♪
♪ Falling back ♪
♪ This is where ♪
♪ My heart breaks ♪
♪ I am ♪
♪ Who I am ♪
♪ Can't subtract ♪
♪ Sweetness from my hands ♪
♪ Swagger from my thighs ♪
♪ The smile from my lips ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ This is where ♪
♪ My heart breaks ♪
♪ It's been falsetto in the lungs ♪
♪ Ever since the 4th of July ♪
♪ An ancestor born four blocks away ♪
♪ A crossroad to the other side ♪
♪ Waxing crescent, even if it ain't ♪
♪ What the gramma's gramma called it ♪
♪ On an avenue of conquerors ♪
♪ Neighbors on the corner ♪
♪ Popping all kinds of fireworks ♪
♪ A hazy mist of us, setting fireworks off ♪
♪ None of our ancestors was free ♪
♪ But they was a vibe ♪
♪ It felt more loud for him ♪
♪ Needing extension of bang and kaboom. ♪
♪ At night outside my window, ♪
♪ Sparkly emotions, alight, step away ♪
♪ And behold the whimsical patterns ♪
♪ Pops, sparks, and flashes and then so much smoke ♪
♪ Through the fog they silhouette and laugh and smile ♪
♪ Into their ritual ♪
♪ Just the fire and sparks made for us, by us. Independence ♪
♪ And we aint free ♪
♪ We so free ♪
♪ You ain't ♪
♪ You ain't gonna stop ♪
♪ Black folks from Barbequeing ♪
♪ Because that's how actually free we are ♪
♪ All we know how to do is become more free ♪
♪ Joy in heart ♪
♪ Hold it fiercely just dance ♪
♪ Twirl in joy, even witness the grief you can't imagine ♪
♪ We speak true abolition, pleasure ♪
♪ And the divine heat of liberation ♪
♪ In tiny, medium and thick gestures ♪
♪ Slowly backbend me towards the arc of justice ♪
♪ The imagination of desire is this moment ♪
♪ Change and transform the stars in myself ♪
(piano music)