American African

Abstract

American African is the story of my maternal line of Ancestry dating back to my great- great grandmother, Mary Patmon, who lived on a Native American land reservation located in Crescent, Oklahoma. It is the story of how grief and displacement can manifest in the emotional development of future generations. American African is an exploration of Native American and African intersections through movement. This choreographic interpretation traverses through the parallel lifestyles, shared struggles of slavery, dispossession and the ultimate union of two Nations. The commonly documented union between Native American and African American -Red and Black People in this country came out of a necessity to survive under the unimaginable circumstances which they were forced to endure by White settlers in the United States. Due to the fact that Africans were brought to this unfamiliar soil and terrorized, it was imperative that they escape in order to survive and the Natives of this land helped them to do so. In so many

cases, Native Americans were enslaved right alongside the Africans and as a result, life long bonds were formed. My grandmother, Dorothy Pleasant Stevens, is a product of this union. Red and Black blood runs through my veins and so many other African Americans in the United States. This thesis is a documentation of my process of researching and choreographing my family history.