To commemorate the year that was, we invited an array of artists, writers, filmmakers, designers, and performers to share a list of the most noteworthy ideas, events, and objects they encountered in 2019.
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko is a Nigerian-American choreographer, performance artist, poet, and curator originally from Detroit. He is a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography, 2019 NPN Development Fund Award, a 2017–19 Princeton Arts Fellow, 2019 Red Bull Writing Fellow, 2018 NEFA NDP Production Grant recipient, 2017 MAP Fund recipient, and a 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Fellow. His creative practice draws from Black study and queer theories of the body, weaving together visual performance, lecture, ritual, and spiritual practice. His most recent works, Séancers (2017) and the Bessie nominated #negrophobia (2015), have toured internationally appearing in major festivals including: Tanz im August (Berlin), Moving in November (Finland), Within Practice (Sweden),TakeMeSomewhere (UK), Brighton Festival (UK), Oslo Teaterfestival (Norway), and Zürich MOVES! (Switzerland), among others. He is the author of two chapbooks and his poems and essays have been included in The American Poetry Review, The Dunes Review, and The Broad Street Review, among others. His next work, Chameleon: A Biomythography, will premiere in April 2020.
1.
ROBIN THEDE, A BLACK LADY SKETCH SHOW
Black ladies to the front! This show discusses everything from Black female erasure, sexuality, gender, theory, and religion. It’s really all the things I look for in a TV show. Season one featured Angela Bassett, Laverne Cox, Kelly Rowland, and THE Patti LaBelle to name just a few celebrity heavy-hitters.
2.
NORA CHIPAUMIRE’S NORA#PUNK 100% POP *N!GGA AT THE KITCHEN
Inside this live performance album, Nora exclaims, “Do you know how to read? You better learn how to read my Black African body! Fix your face!” With these words, she makes it clear how important it is for the westernized canon to study Africa and African diasporic artists and culture. She is an artist on a mission, with no plans of stopping any time soon. Where is her MacArthur Genius Award already?
3.
SLAVE PLAY BY JEREMY O HARRIS
Nuanced and controversial, examining some deep dark realities embedded in the American psyche, this work features Rihanna’s reggaeton/dancehall anthem “Work,” full-frontal white male nudity, and a pretty large sex toy. Basically, it’s everything I’ve wanted to see in a Broadway show, but never have til now!
4.
SHIKEITH’S RUDE / EMERGENCIES AT LTD LOS ANGELES
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Shikeith, Rude/Emergencies
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Shikeith, What The World Sees, Seeing Him
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Shikeith, Brush Your Blues
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Shikeith, The Beauty of Recovering What Has Been Lost
Shikeith is a kind of visual mystic. He seems to cast spells that center themes of intimacy, queerness, the erotic, and the complexities of Black masculinity, among others. The work feels personal, honest, and crafted with urgency. His are images that simultaneously bring me to tears of heartbreak and joy.
5.
JENNIFER HARGE’S FLY / DROWN AT DETROIT ARTISTS MARKET
Jennifer Harge’s work blends themes of labor, Blackness, and womanness into tangled webs of performance installation glory. She is a complex, mature mover and practitioner. In Harge’s words, she says, “Fly | Drown uses Black migration routes as a point of departure to invoke lineages belonging to Black domestic spaces in the Midwest and gestures toward practices that honor and queer ancestral legacies.”
6.
CINDY MILSTEIN’S REBELLIOUS MOURNING: THE COLLECTIVE WORK OF GRIEF
Let’s open this book and learn about grief, about mourning, about coping. This collection of essays continue to teach me every night as I cry through all my feelings about the state of our country and our planet.
7.
BONG JOON HO’S PARASITE
This film punched me in my gut with its mix of macabre humor and impactful performances. One of the most striking films in 2019, sharply depicting the pressures of capitalism and its inescapable violence.
8.
JACKIE SIBBLIES DRURY’S FAIRVIEW AT SOHO REPERTORY THEATER
I saw this work over the summer at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn. I am grateful to know many members of the creative team and was thrilled in how they came together to create a deeply moving work. Jackie is a playwright to be afraid of (in the best way possible). And, while she writes plays, she’s not playing for a single moment with the pressing issues of this, here, contemporary American landscape.
9.
ALEXIS PAULINE GUMBS’S M ARCHIVE: AFTER THE END OF THE WORLD
Alexis is a down to earth scholar. She’s a pleasure to be around as much as her words are to read. Her writing is clear and poetic. I love how she thinks about the world or, rather, the end of the world. She writes, “…there is no separation from the black simultaneity of the universe also known as everything also known as the black feminist intergenerational sphere.” And I say: Yes, Alexis! Come through with all this knowledge!
10.
“VIRILE” FROM MOSES SUMNEY’S HIS FORTHCOMING ALBUM, GLAE
I’ve been watching this artist for years, and just taking notes. With a unique musical style and a voice that stirs my spirit and my prostate, Moses is destined to go down as one of the greatest to ever do it. His new single, “Virile, is no exception, called “a stirring, crashing piece of work” by Stereogum.
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