by Mingsi Ma
As I walked through the dark theater space by the stage, a narrow maze appeared in front of me, with countless white “roots” made of paper and twine dripping from the ceiling. This was my introduction to Kelly Strayhorn Theater’s presentation of 3 RITES: Liberty by Brooklyn-based choreographer and performer Edisa Weeks.
Walking through the roots. Edisa Weeks / DELIRIOUS Dances – 3 Rites: Liberty. Photo Credit: Delaney Greenberg
At the end of the maze, the space suddenly opened up, and I was released to the stage. As soon as I looked up, I locked eyes with the character “Liberty,” played by Edisa Weeks. She sat still on an elevated platform and stared straight at the audience being seated, without any emotion on her face. Her hair was tied to different items, including a light bulb, a Bible, a wig, a watermelon, a black dildo, and a pair of sneakers. Her body was taped with polka-dotted balloons, which looked like tumors in the shadow cast on the white screen. Her face was painted in white, like a clown.
An overwhelming silence occupied the room until weeks subtly shook her body. Awe, intimidation, and anticipation filled the room.
The performance began abruptly with a sharp, illegible cry from Weeks. She shook her body and the balloons fiercely. She alternated from whiteface to blackface by whipping the color off on stage and reapplying. While Weeks was the only performer, her solo performance was more powerful than enough to create artistic tension: Throughout her performance, she radically changed her movements and facial expressions, aggressively pulling the audience into her world. Weeks’s character seemed to struggle with aphasia (face blindness). She was whimsical and playful all at once, and mournful, enraged, and pained the next moment. Her performance seemed to ensemble multiple personae all at once. The audience was immersed in the emotional rollercoaster evoked by Weeks’s performance.
To our surprise, Weeks pointed at the water jar set up among the audience. We all looked at each other, didn’t truly understand her intention. All of a sudden, my friend Chris decided to become the center of the room and volunteered to bring her water. As an introvert, I looked at Chris with respect. He joined Weeks as part of the performance. Weeks’s character looked very happy when she saw him responding to her request. Although I didn’t quite understand how this “improvision” tied to the theme of the performance, Weeks brilliantly broke down the space between the bizarre world on stage and the silence off stage.
There seemed to be something charming to the unintelligibility of her actions and movements. The first part of the performance involved minimal lines, giving the audience unlimited room to interpret the causes and meaning behind those drastic emotions.
At one moment in the performance, Weeks intensely pulled her braids, which were tied to black ropes suspending different objects in the air. She broke the shackles by untying her hair. She turned to storytelling. The following part of the performance is “an invitation for the audience to engage,” per the artist. An audience member was asked to choose from a stack of flashcards corresponding to the items tied to Weeks’s hair.
The performance became a duet between Weeks and the audience. The audience had the opportunity to influence the direction of the performance. Weeks performed two stories according to the audience’s choices, the “dick” and the watermelon.
As she began to tell the stories, I heard the sounds of the shackles coming under my seat. The first story was soul-shaking. She took us back to history, to the time when her character’s enslaved father tried to escape from the slaveowner.
In a tearful voice, she performed as a kid, retelling the violence the slaveowner did to their father as the father tried to escape. It was a heavy and unsettling story surrounding Buck Breaking, an extreme sexual violence, public humiliation, and dehumanization towards the male slaves. Her intense performance gave me goosebumps. I was overwhelmed as if I was drowning in the story, feeling suffocated. The first-person narrative made the story feel even more frightening and traumatic.
The second story was a family story about watermelon. Weeks fondly recalled her grandma who was an exceptional watermelon farmer. After emancipation, Grandma got to support the family by growing prize-winning watermelons. However, after the Reconstruction era, African Americans faced severe discrimination linked to watermelons, forcing them to forgo the fruit that once brought them pride and financial independence.
Edisa Weeks cutting a watermelon on stage. Edisa Weeks / DELIRIOUS Dances – 3 Rites: Liberty. Photo Credit: Delaney Greenberg
While Weeks was telling the story, she sliced the watermelon and passed it to every audience member. It was red, sweet, and delicious. Sharing the same watermelon with all the other audience brought the room together. Eventually, Weeks exists from the stage in the sound of a call-and-response she initiated with the audience.
The performance was a beautifully executed piece of installation art. By having the audience walk through a narrow entrance, brushing their shoulders against the roots hanging from the roof, Weeks cultivated an intimate relationship with them from the beginning. Seating the audience on the stage instead of the regular theater seating drew the audience emotionally closer to the artist. The objects tied to Weeks’s hair were easily recognizable icons associated with African American experiences, constantly reminding the audience of the story’s theme visually without the need for words.
At one point, the audience picked up another icon — a light bulb — but Weeks responded that she wasn’t ready for that story, as it was about the future. Her performance traced back to the disheartening and oppressive history, as well as the toxic system. Yet, her performance did not provide any direct answer on how to fight against racial violence. I was left with a profound sense of unease and many unanswered questions. Probably Weeks herself didn’t have the answer to “undo the toxic system” either.
At the end of the night, Prof. Kevin Jarbow, Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University and co-facilitator of the Pittsburgh Racial Justice Summit, was invited by Kelly Strayhorn Theater. He led a brief discussion to unpack the difficult feelings evoked by the performance. It was reassuring to hear people opening up and talking straightforwardly about racism.
I left the space pondering. Walking down the street, I was occupied with the thoughts I got from Weeks’s performance. Is her performance leading us somewhere? I honestly didn’t know. Perhaps the most significant solution Weeks offered to address the toxic system was by creating a platform for open discussion, allowing people to channel their sentiments, confusion, and frustration regarding the traumatic history and connect it to present events. By immersing in the same performance and eating from the same watermelon, audience members across all backgrounds are drawn into the shared dialogue.
Disclosure: Mingsi Ma works at Kelly Strayhorn Theater as the Marketing Specialist.
Mingsi Ma (she/her) is a passionate music and cultural industry professional and arts writer. Previously, she lived in Chicago and New York City, and now happily resides in Pittsburgh. She takes pride in her work and firmly believes in the profound impact of the arts on empowering individuals, uniting communities, and creating an inclusive society. She often jokes that the arts are her one true love — though her friends suspect she’s not entirely kidding. Mingsi earned her B.M. in Music Business with a double major in East Asian Studies from New York University, and an M.A. in the Humanities, focusing on Ethnomusicology and East Asian Languages and Civilizations, from The University of Chicago.
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