Interspecies Collaboration: Ayesha Jordan’s Eco-performances 06.08.2024

In early May 2022, I packed my little family plus a friend and her baby into our car and set out on the road 100 kilometers south of Oslo to Talberg nedre farm. The spring weather was doing what Norwegian spring weather typically does: succumb to its bully brother winter. It was rainy and chilly with intermittent pockets of sun peeking through the clouds. As we set off on the hour-long journey to artist Ayesha Jordan’s day-long immersive event entitled Gather (g)Round my husband and 4-year-old asked where we were going and what exactly we would be doing. I confessed: “I don’t really know.”

In describing multidisciplinary performer and creator Jordan’s practice, you’d find an easier time listing what she doesn’t do. At any given event, you can find her teaching someone seasonal growing patterns, instructing participants to write lyrics and then leading a group sing/rap-a-long as her performance alter ego Shasta Geaux Pop or giving a lecture about the parallels between the reaction to the spotted lanternfly infestation in North America and inhumane Western immigration practices. Jordan acknowledges that her practice defies traditional description writing: “My practice is a bit like the sea. It is vast, sometimes hard for me to comprehend, and has many layers and undiscovered realms (both conscious and unconscious). Swimming in it allows one to feel what it is as opposed to looking at its currents and ripples.”

After spending the day at Talberg, I learned that Jordan is deeply invested in creating community ecologies. Even before the event officially began, Jordan’s working practice was at play in the days leading up to Gather (g)Round. She was busy organizing carpools for participants to make the journey to the farm, going so far as to hire a bus to charter groups from the nearby town of Fredrikstad where she earned her Master’s in Performance at the Norwegian Theater Academy. The day at the farm, and neighboring forest, was spent with almost 50 other people eating, laughing, communing and gently being herded around to witness and participate in various performances, rituals and encounters.

In February 2024, I sat down with Jordan to discuss her ongoing multi-iterative research project Gather (g)Round as well as her new project Shasta Geaux Pop presents: Shasta Greaux Crops.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor: What’s in season right now?

Ayesha Jordan: Most plants are resting. It’s time for rest where we are physically located in Norway. You would put most things in the ground prior to the winter frost. Spiritually, rest is in season, relaxation, taking time, reflection, regeneration. Politically what is in season, revolution, evolution. Protest is in season, being local is in season.

JLET: At your most recent gathering “Soft Landings” at Southnord in Stockholm, there’s a moment where you are handing everyone in the audience small paper cups half-filled with dirt and seeds to plant in them and your recorded voice over the speakers says: “So many people have affected who we are, so many trees and plants and mushrooms and molecules of the living, so many animals and bird songs and water people.” What about this circular family connection with land and water and animals resonates for you and your practice?

AJ: Reciprocity. There’s something inside of that, that’s really valuable. The more we consider how we’re affected by all the other living and non-living beings around us, the more thoughtful we are, not only with each other, but how we move through the world and on the land on a day-to-day basis. Just that little bit of awareness to thank all the things that make me who I am, that make up this body and this sort of configuration, just how it affects choices that we make. And how we care. That’s really important because we’re living in a time where there’s a lot of extremes of people not caring being considerate. The planet is clearly damaged, and it’s not because of the other living species primarily, it’s because of the human species. If humans can reconnect to land and if we can allow ourselves to be the nature that we are inherently, it could shift, I hope, the way that we move. I think about all the funerals I’ve gone to and how many caskets I’ve witnessed going into the earth. And thinking: “Oh dang, these things will never get to feed the other things in the soil.” If it weren’t for earthworms, half of us wouldn’t have food because they’re keeping the soil healthy and providing nutrients. If we were all taught these things, and maybe some people are and we forget, if this idea of reciprocity and this thoughtfulness to what allows us to exist outside of our own human exceptionalism, maybe we wouldn’t continue, pardon my French, fucking shit up, messing things up, making the world a harder place to live in.

JLET: How did you arrive at this state of environmental consciousness? Charting your path from a performance artist interpreting other people’s work to making your own work as Shasta Geaux Pop to now working with permaculture and regenerative ecosystems, can you chart that path?

AJ: Right after college I joined the Freddie Hendricks Youth Ensemble of Atlanta. This was all devised work. So, this was my first taste of collaborating with other people, making performances. And you had to do everything, you had to sing, dance and act. It was very rigorous but also powerful work. All the work was socially themed, so that planted a seed for me early on in terms of creating and writing and the importance of it. And also challenging oneself to be able to do multiple things inside a performance. I did some work for a few years after that doing traditional theater and some children’s theater. I moved to Europe eventually where I was working, doing devised work. I was working with a Black (owned and operated) theater company in Amsterdam called Made in da Shade. We did a show called Diggydotcom 2.0 and this was my first experience doing work that was using interactive design technology, which was super exciting, because they were doing more edgy work that I had never seen or heard before. Since this was a Black company, it was extremely impressive. We were throwing in our ideas and making collective work, which was kind of reinforcing this desire to be able to make my own work. In 2003 I went to dance school in London (Trinity Conservatoire of Music and Dance) for a year and got my diploma in dance studies, which expanded on top of that. Because we had to take choreological studies inside of that, we learned about phenomenology and play and ritual and all these things. And phenomenology for me was like: “Oooh!” I got really excited. And so I was like: “Experiences!” I want to make work where people have experiences.

JLET: What’s phenomenology?

AJ: It’s about having a lived experience. I want to make work where people come and it’s not just watching something, you’re actually in it. You’re interacting with what’s happening and you’re not just a spectator, you’re involved. That’s why I like to call audience members participants instead of audience members because you are literally in this together, I can’t do this without you. So, if anything you can say Freddie Hendricks was the planting of the seed. Moving to Amsterdam was when the seed started to sprout and take roots. Laban, my training there was when the roots started digging deeper. And it’s like: “Oh okay, I’ve got some leaves and I’m slowly starting to photosynthesize.”

JLET: In your essay for the Danish publication Peripeti, you write that you had a “realization that being a conventional artist would not fulfill my purpose or desires. If the world came tumbling down tomorrow, was I capable of surviving the apocalypse?” The world is, in many different ways, tumbling down. What do you mean by not being fulfilled by being a conventional artist, and how can we chart a path towards better conditions for artists to resist convention?

AJ: Personally, I want to do work that means something to me but could also potentially be meaningful to someone else. And not to say that conventional art can’t do that, but the work I want to create digs deeper than just this spectator/performer relationship.

I want something that’s involved in creating and maintaining a sense of community and doing things that exhibit a certain type of care for the people and exchange where we’re all learning, receiving, and being fed. I don’t think conventional work, for me, fulfills that. My purpose is something else that is involved with things that take more time, things that require a different type of creative output, and involve a non-hierarchical process. And being in conversation with other people and other beings and other species. And how can this have some inkling of change or affect on the world. Ideally for the positive. Yeah, and you know the industry is an industry.

JLET: The art industry?

AJ: Yes.

JLET: Thinking about working conditions for artists and resisting conventions … It doesn’t exactly pay to be an artist who is interested in collaborating with the audience and calling them participants and getting their feedback and having that feedback create a loop that informs the next stage of your process … It pays to be an artist who goes to art school and works alone and doesn’t take influence from the outside world.

AJ: We’re taught to, I don’t know if this is also just being American, the competitiveness that’s ingrained in us but also this idea that we have to pursue, that we’re not succeeding unless we achieve these sorts of like, status markers. As a theater person, you’re not successful until you are on Broadway or in a book, a TV show or a film. There’s this idea that if you’re not famous, your work is not really as valuable. And I disagree with that wholeheartedly. I don’t know if the art scene will change but the only way to create new opportunities is to do things that are not traditionally done. And what I’m doing may have already been done a thousand times over by other people. So, thanks to those people who I may not know of whose wavelengths I’m floating on and getting information from that feeds what I’m trying to do. It’s important to just follow your instincts and gut and allow yourself to be brave enough to not feel like you have to follow these patterns that have already been set. I realize that I’ve been fortunate enough to go to schools like my undergraduate program at Clark Atlanta University, HBCU (Historically Black College/University). We had so little money in our theatre department. One of Clark Atlanta’s mottoes, which can be seen as a good or bad thing is: “Find a way or make one.” Which in a way makes you extremely resourceful. There are ways in which we can work with people that don’t require us to be wasteful and get a bunch of materials to build a massive set which you’re going to throw away you know, and it just becomes garbage in a landfill.

JLET: This speaks to the collaboration in your work. There’re always many different hands in your work, you’re never exactly in the centre, even as the maker. And you’re always in conversation with the participants who you’ve invited.

AJ: Number 1, I think it’s fun [laughs]. I want work to feel fun, I don’t want it to feel like a pain, I want it to be pleasurable. But also, I learn a lot through that process, it makes me a better artist. What you get when you have multiple voices is a much richer, diverse sort of experience. And not just the experience but the work itself. When I was working with some of my collaborators in the spring, we got to know each other even more on the farm, Talberg nedre. The way that it allowed for a certain intimacy in the space. Two of my collaborators, [costume designer] Cecilio [Orozco] and [sound artist] Vjolla [Emiri; Oslo based] had never met the [NYC based] artists Justin [Hicks], Keneda [Miller-Hicks] and Jo [Collura]. And it’s like spending this time together, even in conversation and hanging out outside, it allows for a certain type of trust, which you don’t always get when you’re just doing one-off things or when you’re doing things that don’t take into account like how you’re communicating or connecting to other people. It establishes a certain type of trust. We went into a studio and we’re making work together and what is able to come out creatively just has more depth and richness and it also doesn’t feel like there’s just one voice. Everyone feels like they want to contribute because we’ve all become friends, family. It’s the same with the audience. The audience can be involved with the process as well. I [can] go buy a ticket to go see a show. If it’s captivating, I’m invested in that way, but do I think about it? Do I care about the actors after I leave? Am I wondering “What are they doing now?” versus something that is an experience where I’m like these people actually care about what I’m doing right now, or they want my opinion on something. It just has a different impact.

JLET: And one of your goals for this human interaction is to lead to more care and interaction with each other and that bleeds over into care for the land …

AJ: You can’t expect this to happen to every person that comes to every event, you know, but if there can be just a certain kind of turn up of consciousness, like ‘“Oh you know what? I wanna try to grow some herbs, yah that would be cool, maybe I can grow some of my own vegetables’” because maybe it starts small because not everybody has access to land and space. “Maybe I’ll look into this local urban garden.’” If you think about the resources that are being extracted in so many places and you have so many people that are like: ‘“I don’t wanna stay where I have to deal with war, famine, extraction, all of these things. Let me go. Let me follow our resources that have been taken from our land.” It’s a broad sort of comparison but on a micro/macro level you can look at it and see that maybe we can reconsider how we view these things, even in the smallest way. How are we taking care of the land around us? How are we considering what we grow and how we grow? For people who do live on land where they can grow things, am I creating an environment that is conducive to multiple species? And ideally in the events and performances that I’ve hosted if I just plant the seed of awareness or even just a network that gives people the resources to investigate further if they want to or to ask questions. Because I’m not an expert, I have so much to learn. So how can we use this (event) to create this network or community that allows us to build on these conversations and tools that people can walk away with to feel like they have a little more information that they can then be actionable.

JLET: One of the writers who you introduced me to, Katherine McKittrick writes about “the possibility of undoing and unsettling—not replacing or occupying—Western conceptions of what it means to be human.” There is a running theme in your work of questioning what being human means, what being in this realm of our little corner of the universe means. In these extremely fraught times we are living through, how can we be more human with each other? Or should we work towards being less human perhaps?

AJ: Consideration is a thing for me, how do we consider each other? How are we caring? Her book Dear Science and Other Stories (Duke University Press, 2021) made me think about what happens if we all take responsibility. What if we all started from a place where no one was innocent, then what would that look like? What I mean by that is there’s a certain self-importance we have, as humans. And we can all accept that “Okay, no, we’ve all done some level of wrongdoing”. Everyone is complicit in something.

JLET: Everyone is responsible.

AJ: Even thinking about our cell phones. What’s happening in the Congo. As my laptop is being repaired, I think: “‘Okay, I’m responsible.’” And I have to consider that. And it’s not like something that you can do to change that thing that’s happening right now, specifically. But what else can I do to contribute to another possibility or another way of moving through the world that can create some type of restoration? It’s a thought that I think I’m still trying to articulate. I don’t know that we can undo what’s already been done. So, how can we, loosely quoting McKittrick, imagine a new future? What does it look like? And particularly, what does it look like for Black and Brown people, people from the Global South? Especially thinking about all the traditions and knowledge, traditional technologies that have been lost thanks to colonialism, white supremacy, the Transatlantic slave trade. How can we regain some of these wisdoms or tap back in or connect with people who have them? And begin working towards creating something new because clearly, we live on a different planet than we lived on as a species 100 years ago. So, what do we do now? What can that look like?

JLET: Your project Gather (g)Round is about creating communal ecosystems through performance and permaculture. Is this your strategy for what we can do now? What does a communal ecosystem mean to you?

AJ: For one, it was a way for me to not have to use the word community because that’s so specific. There’s a certain thought that comes to people’s minds when they think of community, and it tends to just involve people. Whereas a communal ecosystem is not just the people, it’s also thinking about an ecosystem as is something bigger and more interconnected and there’s this reciprocity that has to happen in order for an ecosystem to be healthy. There’s a certain level of biodiversity in an ecosystem for it to thrive and be healthy, and so I’m like “How do I create that?” And so ‘communal’ meaning coming together and literally communing but also community and then the ecosystem being inclusive of like, people, plants, water, rocks, the soil, the microbes in the soil, the insects, and so on. We’re all together and we’re all connected. I can’t grow food without other collaborators and in the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer: “I have to see them as family.”These are my kin. How do we relate? And sometimes I’m not the best family member. Sometimes I’m not doing all my duties as I should because I’m imperfect. If there’s a way to create these communal ecosystems, we can have something that can exist and thrive that doesn’t necessarily have to be a part of this sort of capitalist, commodified, art complex and this industrial complex. And we live inside these places and spaces so they’re hard to avoid, but maybe it can open a space for us, like a little ‘crack’. That we can do things for us that allow us to have a different type of freedom.

JLET: What’s your process when it comes to approaching the soundscape of a new work?

AJ: There’s something about music that connects everyone. You hear a certain sound, and it triggers certain things like I don’t know if it’s the sound waves or what it is, but it’s effective. Collaborating with music is the most exciting thing because what you get out of that collaboration makes it 100 times better. Because I also have amazing collaborations. Like Justin [Hicks] – he’s incredible, an incredible songwriter, producer and vocalist. Anytime I’m working with Justin, it’s like turning everything up 20 notches. And also, the back and forth that we get to have. With lyrics, the things that you can say lyrically and depending on what kind of mood you want to set or what you want to achieve in a moment, it’s like: “Oh, this is the thing that will get people dancing or loosened up and relaxed.” Or: “This is the thing that will make people feel some type of way.” Or: “This is the sound or noise that will make us contemplative and quiet, meditative.” There’s something that’s very powerful.

JLET: Of the 12 permaculture principles, which ones are your favorites? How do you apply the 12 permaculture principles into your immersive events, and if so: Which principle did you use at the Talberg nedre farm event?

AJ: Talberg was “use edges and value the marginal” (principle no. 11). That approach was really about the marginal and thinking about how to get as many Black and Brown people out in the space as possible, giving them access to this rural landscape that a lot of people don’t necessarily have access to. That was (also) creatively “use and respond to change” (principle no. 12) because it was a big event in terms of we were there the entire day, I’m also trying to feed people and there’s other people guiding and leading things. Also, the weather: We have to be adaptable, it was raining. How do we manage that? And then thinking about what the land needed on that day in addition to what the people needed. I do like “repeating patterns in nature” (principle no. 7) because nature gives us so many of the tools that we need. For instance, people who grow food forests are repeating patterns in nature. We go to Kalvøya and you see these big, tall trees and then you’ve got the understory and then the shrubs and then the things that grow closer to the ground. These trees do a service for these bushes which are also doing a service for these smaller plants that are growing closer to the ground which are also doing a service and it’s like there’s a pattern there. That’s why Indigenous folks from Turtle Island: US, North America, Canada, Central America etc., have what they call the Three Sisters: corn, beans and squash. You’ve got the corn tall; you’ve got the beans which will use the corn to climb and then the squash that grows close to the ground. They’re all in relation to each other and serving each other. For me, what’s interesting is: What are things we can do that reflect this?

JLET: Finally, Congratulations on your Princeton University Hodder Fellowship. What will you work on as a fellow?

AJ: My next project is called Shasta Geaux Pop presents: Shasta Greux Crops. “‘Shasta Geuz Pop’’ is … I’ll call her a friend, who is a pop diva superstar and Hip Hop music artist. All of the shows with Shasta have been these immersive parties where the music that we perform is a lot of satire and comedy and it’s political and funny and we touch on specific issues around sex, police brutality, food etc. I’m merging that world with Gather (g)Round so it’s sort of, Shasta meets this ecological space. We’ll have this crazy mashup.