Naomi Ayala is a very talented poet in two languages, English and Spanish. Kira and I have had the pleasure of working with her on other projects before, and we’re delighted that she is participating in Call + Response: Textures. Here’s what she had to say about the challenges and rewards of mixing artistic genres:
For a while, I collaborated closely with a dance company on call-and-response pieces onstage. I had been a closet dancer for many years and having to join others in improvising dance responses to my poetry in public was a challenge I’ll never forget. The fear and the thrill helped me push the boundaries of how I conceptualized rhythm and, adding movement to the creative-fire mix, fueled new work, new ways of “seeing.”
I have also had the great fortune to collaborate with musicians—two blues bands and a Dadaist poetry-music ensemble that performed in New York City and throughout New England. They made me a better poet, propelled me to think expansively about my work. This is the great gift of interdisciplinary collaboration in the arts.
Among my many blessings are long-time friendships with artists and artisans, among whom figure a dozen or so painters. I’ve always felt that painters really “get me” when it comes to the inner workings of my poetry mind, and the sensualist bends that are a product of my culture, my love for the natural world, and just being a person of the arts. We must sniff, scratch, look over, into, beneath… We are our senses, and love to be engaged with the world in a dialogue about all the ebbs and flows.
Thrilled to be invited to take part in this year’s Call & Response, my mind took me whirling in a thousand directions. I wanted to catch a Jungian psychotherapist I know off guard and ask “What does texture mean to you? Really, don’t analyze it, just tell me.” And jot his response down.
I wanted to ask my friend Pepe Gonzalez, an accomplished bass player who once performed with Miles Davis… Martin Obeng, a Ghanaian master drummer with whom I’ve spent countless hours of my life discussing sound… Sal Colbert, a Cherokee “Spirit Helper,” and other friends—a pilot, an environmental lawyer, a nonprofit comptroller, a biologist, the two sisters who own the bodega down the street, the gardener next door, an architect I worked with on a construction project who once told me he was ready to “articulate the space.” I knew that what they shared with me, collectively, would give me texture itself. Frenzied, I made lists, envisioned a structure for this choir of voices.
In the end, it was another experience that led me to write “Eyes Looking,” my piece in the Call and Response show. Yet, the journey beforehand made me open to potential collaborations I had not considered. To continue to grow, those of us who live and practice our art in the District need to create more and more opportunities for such exchanges. Articulating our creative lives with interdisciplinary collaborations brings new textures to our work.
Tagged: guest post, naomi ayala
