“I see you; you are not invisible…”
Black artists are not often afforded the luxury of creating works devoid of societal critique. Our works often have an immediacy and urgency, drawing inspiration from our consciousness and experiences; our works are inherently ethnographical and always political. This is particularly true in a country that is comfortable with our death, subservience, and erasure.
Because, after all, Black people is movin’ the history and context that prefixes our bodies.
(Or)
After all, we “shakin’ the chains.”
Put Away the Fire, dear, is a
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experimental dance-theatre piece that intertwines themes of memory, storytelling, and rage, rhyming with the works of other Black hermeneuts tasked to interpret and present the Black Body/Spirit Complex while also drawing inspiration from the magical realism found in works like Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.”
This production, a sepia dreamscape with an overtone of anarchy, features a cast of important archetypes throughout history: Kayla Farrish as “Ethel Waters after she leaves the sink,” Martell Ruffin as “the music man with no story,” Junyla Silmon as “Root of Beloved & a Dorothy Dandridge Femme Fatale,” Christian A. Warner as the “Invisible Man,” Makaila Chiplin as “Zora Neale Hurston and Octavia Butler,” and Jessica Alexander as the “the Director and the Traveler who is tasked with debunking the ‘masters’ narrative.” This complexity is held and transformed by Alex MacKinnon’s otherworldly instrumentation.
After its initial showing as “Put Away the Fire, dear Part 2” at La MaMa Experimental Theatre’s La MaMa Moves in 2023, the piece was presented again at the Underground Uptown Festival’s “Works and Process” at the Guggenheim and ODC/SF in 2024. Now in its most complete form, it has premiered at Chelsea Factory on Thursday, March 6 – 8, 2025. This iteration has developed into a 100-minute performance, complete with intermission, representing two years of meticulous creation. In a world where our prefrontal cortex demands conciseness for experimental work, Black dance works, 100 minutes felt like a lot. But, as I walked away that evening, I realized Kayla had only given us a taste.
When we begin
will to see
Black
men
as
Human?
Although the setting and period are rooted in the past, they resonate strongly with the present. The textiles that evoke the antebellum era, the gathering of Black bodies within the space, summon images of Jim Crow. I felt anxiety and mental strain at the top of the show. Are we about to witness a horrific lynching drama—a form of dance theater that is prevalent in the work of Black dance artists—or something different? As Farrish articulates in her work, we find ourselves “somewhere between Jordan Peele and Tyler Perry.” Indeed, we laughed, were captivated by raw rage, and were given the freedom to envision a bright future of liberation. The theatrical design, conceived by Dyer Rhoads and Yannick Godts, along with the costuming by Caitlin Taylor in collaboration with Farrish, served as an entryway into the “house” of Farrish’s imagination, revealing later that she contemplated burning it all down!
In a moment of grounding clarity, performer and collaborator Martell Ruffin orders the audience, “Stop Telling Me I Haven’t Seen What I’ve Seen; I’ve Seen It!” illuminating: The search for truth or evidence as a central theme of this work. Imagine being told that what you have just experienced did not actually happen the way you experienced it, that it was actually just a collection of dissonant apparitions created by your own strained need to link unrelated events together. For Black people in this country, this is not a moment of imagination; this is often our lived reality. In an attempt to not overuse the word “gaslighting,” I will call the previously described phenomenon “psychological abuse,” a type of harm that has lasting effects on the minds of people who experience it.
As social epidemiologist Dr. John R. Pamplin II has identified, there is a connection between structural racism and the elevated prevalence of schizophrenia and psychotic incidents in countries wherein the dominant ethnic and cultural identity is not representational of the oppressed. *cough cough* (Black, Caribbean, African people in the United States.) This paradigm (pathological occurrence/ pattern?) is addressed fluently in Put Away the Fire, dear, with the use of theatrical design.
A large sheer curtain frames the upstage left corner. Whenever performers occupy that space, they transition into the foreground and appear glaucous and illusory, causing us to reckon with them as either echoes from the past or visions from the future or completely made up. Behind this translucent film, we witness tender moments of a soothing embrace, an argumentative partnering sequence, and a dissociative tea time while the “house starts to shake.” It becomes clear that the space behind this film is a portal to multiple points in time where the “house” has begun to “shake,”… and the “shaking” the “smoke” is a metaphor for the primordial Oya energy that sweeps through civilizations and causes great change usually through the escalation of social unrest. As Farrish states in the work, “ Would it be so bad if the house burned down?”
Dear Kayla, the house is falling apart. The foundation is built out of bone and blood.
Burn it down. At least the ashes will enrich the earth… do it.
Language is rooted in bodily feeling. The dancing body and language are in a flowing, responsive relationship. In this relationship, knowledge & interpretation, meaning & thing, image & word cannot be separated. (and that’s on mama’s! <—see how my language just indicated to some that I’m from the hood? case in point.)The way Farrish & cast use and build scripted language in Put Away the Fire, dear is sophisticated, complex, and multidimensional. In the performance, words and movement often inhabit the same space and time. The performers are often mid-soliloquy when they dynamically execute movements.
One significant phrase in the work is “Here lies the truth;” a statement that goes beyond a simple declaration that facts are about to follow; rather, it highlights the falsehoods we have chosen to accept and believe. An example of these kinds of falsehoods are attempts by the United States government to erase Black history from official government websites, suggesting that Black Americans do not have a history that is safe for white Americans to engage with.
Yet another important use of language is a chant: “Mamie mommy made you, mammie mommy made you, mammie mommy made you.” Not a silly word game sprinkled frivolously in the work as the dancers play, instead, it is repeated like a childhood chant to elucidate the antiblackness that is fed to us as children and that we have practiced consuming and accepting. Merely hearing these words and phrases presented in Put Away the Fire, dear, instead of deeply listening for their significance, is like eating without chewing or vice versa. Language and experience implicate each other; the language in Put Away the Fire, Dear is built from the lived experiences of the majority of the cast, their families, and their communities. Declaring these carefully crafted words as banal would betray our senses and deny us the complex experiences full of color and poetry to which Farrish & the cast invite us.
Farrish’s dancing is, well, Full-out! A spirited dynamic mover, Farrish seems to play the stage like an instrument, knowing which cords to pluck and which rests to take. How she directs her focus is a masterclass on how to choreograph a viewer’s attention toward what is important. A large feather in her cap is her ability to suspend for a period of time, which makes the dancers in the audience gasp, wondering if she might ever come down… Spellbinding, enchanted, and unbelievably strong.
Analogously, watching Jessica Alexander dance is like listening to a seasoned player in a symphony; each movement is a note played with intention, contributing to an overall harmony that captivates and resonates with the audience.
Makaila Chiplin captivates the audience as she dances with fire swirling around her feet. Each movement ignites the performance, adding a fiery intensity that transforms the atmosphere. Her dancing is like a burst of cayenne pepper, infusing the entire show with a sizzling heat that pops on the palate. Spirited and dynamic, she brings an electrifying energy that leaves spectators breathless and craving more.
Martell Ruffin embodies the essence of jazz. With his towering stature, he moves gracefully, utilizing his long limbs to create fluid, captivating dance movements. There’s an undeniable quirkiness to his style; he often infuses unexpected twists and playful gestures into his performances that keep audiences on their toes. His sharp wit shines through not only in his dance but in his interactions, where he effortlessly blends humor and insight, making him a truly engaging presence on the stage.
Junyla Silmon’s dancing possesses a radiant intelligence that draws people in. Her captivating presence lights up the stage as she enters, leaving a lasting impression on the audience. With an air of youthful energy, she approaches challenging movements with distilled clarity. Quick on her feet, both physically and mentally, she navigates through tasks with remarkable agility and finesse, effortlessly driving the work’s introductions of new situations and ideas.
Christian Warner’s performance is utterly astounding, regularly forcing the audience into a nonplussed gasp of astonishment while witnessing Warner’s expansive, directionally capricious dancing. Warner moves as if the laws of earthly physics are merely a suggestion and time, space, and gravity are tools that can be halted or altered. Boundless. Jaw-dropping. Black liberation personified, presented, and performed, we are at the whim of Warner’s oppositional gaze: we ain’t watch in’ him, he watchin’ us! Not allowing us to dehumanize him, not allowing us to make him a god… Warner is wonderfully human, emotional, and heartbreakingly beautiful— the kind of performer that comes along once in a lifetime. Then he takes the mic and sings to us with a voice as pure as a friend holding your hand.
Put Away the Fire, dear, is a visceral theatrical work that captures the stories of so many. As it unfolds, we are reminded that our histories are not up for debate, nor have we remembered it all incorrectly. We’ve seen what we’ve seen. As the ontological aspect of our lived experience, our memories are a testament of our survival and essential to our quest for liberation. As Farrish and Cast proclaim in layered polyrhythms,
“I am somebody.”
“I am free.”
“I am somebody to remember.”
Farrish’s work requires her viewers to dissolve their detachment from the people performing before them in the solutio of current events; her work is an invitation for us to work towards dismantling structures that would require her to make work that unreservedly identifies erasure and psychological violence as a problem. Farrish’s work is urgent!
In the end, it is clear that the house may tremble and the ashes may fall, not for naught, but for rebirth and renewal. The fire, in this case, is not a mere act of destruction but a catalyst for generation and transformation—a chance to build anew, rising from the ashes of the past into a future filled with the opportunity that memories will be valued as legitimate artifacts and the lives of the oppressed cherished.
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