Black wounded healers: A reflection on multimodal expression through a spoken word play in five movements

Abstract

Through the medium of performance, this reflection is a personal account of multimodal expression as a means to disseminate research and share historical memories in an interdisciplinary manner. Multisensory, multi-arts, and multidisciplinary processes were utilized to create the work. Wounded Healers was informed by multiple ways of knowing that occurred through the interplay of song, music, dance, visual art, and spoken word. Theoretical foundations were based in Africana and Black studies, Critical Race Theory, and neuroscience. The choices I made in the conception and design of the piece served a as way to share very dense narratives with audiences in ways that made them more accessible. The play is 65-minutes in length, covers over 400 years of history, and expresses the ways in which Black bodies have suffered, transcended their own pain, and fostered healing through creativity. The impact on me and the other performers was profound in that multisensory and multimodal expression penetrated all our central nervous systems in different ways. This type of expression allowed us to be authentic conduits, circulators of memory, necessary to remember how we heal.