OYSTERKNIFE
OYSTERKNIFE—a name derived from Zora Neale Hurston’s essay “How It Feels To Be a Colored Me”—was formed in late 2017 out of a longtime creative friendship between Gabriele Christian and Chibueze Crouch. Nourishing a desire to subvert our collegiate theatrical training, which often ignored our complex Afro-Diasporic queer experiences, we found that interdisciplinary, somatic-based, experimental approaches made for fuller work, allowing us to interrogate sociohistorical norms and institutions while freeing our bodies. Both members of OYSTERKNIFE bring a wealth of creative experiences, meshing theater, ritual masquerade, video, extemporaneous movement, song, and text. Central to every work we co-create are: an attention to archives (documenting the voices both seen and unseen), collectivism (who is here and who is missing that we need to invite), and multimedia immersion (seamlessly blending disciplines and breaking the audience/performer divide). We have produced three full-length shows in the Bay: “mouth full of sea” dug into presumptions around complicity in the transatlantic slave trade; “mouth//full” excavated BlaQ testimony and African indigenous spiritual practices in the Christian Church; and the site-specific “Time of Change” narratively reanimated the majority Black Haight-Ashbury neighborhood that was eclipsed by the counterculture movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s. We have also been commissioned by the University of Santa Cruz, CounterPulse, Campo Santo/Crowded Fire Theatre, Theatre Bay Area, ODC, National Queer Art Festival, and the Black Choreographer’s Festival.
For a full list of OYSTERKNIFE collaborations and shows, please see my CV/Resume.
mouth full of sea
The first installment in OYSTERKNIFE’s “mouf” trilogy, this wordless performance used ritual masquerade, video, poetry, an immersive soundscape, and improvised dance to explore complicity and personal inheritance within Afro-Diasporic lineages of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade.
Presented at the African American Arts & Culture Complex for the 2018 National Queer Arts Festival, as a sponsored project of the Queer Cultural Center.
In addition to live performances by OYSTERKNIFE, this production included contributions from: Davia Spain (text/video performance), Neha Spellfish (sound design), Uzoamaka Nwankpa (movement consultant), Celeste Martore (set design), marlow magdalene (video design), Rashad Pridgen (movement consultant) and Amadia Djali (body art & ALA sculpture).
All photos by KaliMa Amilak.
Still image of Chibueze performing a masquerade ritual in "mouth full of sea," presented at the 2018 National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco.
Still image of Chibueze performing in "mouth full of sea," presented at the 2018 National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco.
Still image of Chibueze and Gabriele performing in "mouth full of sea," presented at the 2018 National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco.
mouth//full
mouth/full was an evening-length, work-in-progress performance presented as part of CounterPulse’s 2019 Performing Diaspora Artist Residency in San Francisco. In this second installment of our trilogy, OYSTERKNIFE asked: how do we survivors of TransAtlantic horrors remember how to pray? How do Black folks continue believing - in themselves and each other? What does unshakeable faith look, feel, smell, taste like? By mining our personal relationships to faith - within and outside religious institutions - we created a new space where all can feel truly welcomed, safe, whole, and holy. During each “Mas(s),” we conducted a service/ceremony to activate, prepare and bless the space for incoming communion. Arranged to look like a traditional Black Christian or Catholic church, with pews onstage and a pulpit Gabriele and Chibueze each testified, sharing stories of how faith impacts their respective family histories and personal lives through dance, song, video, masquerade and participatory ritual with the audience, including a pre-show for Black folks only. The climax of each show involved a “praise break” that changed each night, featuring a different Black and/or queer artist sharing their personal faith testimony. Featured praise break performers included: Mutima Imani, Monica Hastings-Smith, Tyler Holmes, SPELLLING, jose e. abad, Wizard Apprentice, brontë velez, Europa Grace, Stephanie Hewett, Rashad Pridgen, and Indira Allegra.
All photos by Robbie Sweeny.
Still image of Chibueze singing an original song during "mouth//full," presented in 2019 at CounterPulse's Performing Diaspora Artist Residency in San Francisco.
Still image of Gabriele Christian performing during "mouth//full," presented in 2019 at CounterPulse's Performing Diaspora Artist Residency in San Francisco.
Still image of Rashad Pridgen performing during "mouth//full," presented at CounterPulse in 2019 as part of their Performing Diaspora Artist Residency in San Francisco.
m|ou|f
m|ou|f was a multimedia performance presented at UC Santa Cruz’s SURGE Afrofuturism Festival in 2022. Having explored the legacies of violence and faith for BlaQ communities in our prior collaborative projects mouth full of sea and mouth//full, mouf completes our triptych about Afro-Diasporic testimony, hoping to reclaim Black iconicity from the maw of consumer celebrity culture. This work is a meditation on hypervisibility, opacity, sexuality, and the desire of and for queer(ed) Black stars. Inspired by longstanding rumors around Whitney Houston and Prince, we explore queer ancestry, sexual legibility, and the limits of language for Black LGBTQ+ folks, using drag, ritual masquerade, original music, video art and choreography.
All photos by Daris Jasper, Culture Saving LLC.
Filmmaker marlow magdalene recording live during "mouf," presented at UC Santa Cruz in 2022 for their SURGE Afrofuturism Festival.
Gabriele and Chibueze performing during "mouf," presented at UC Santa Cruz in 2022 for their SURGE Afrofuturism Festival.
Chibueze and Gabriele dancing during "mouf," presented at UC Santa Cruz in 2022 for their SURGE AfroFuturism Festival.
Chibueze assembles the set live as during the performance of "mouf," presented at UC Santa Cruz in 2022 for their SURGE AfroFuturism Festival.
Original set design by OYSTERKNIFE for "mouf," presented at UC Santa Cruz in 2022 for their SURGE Afrofuturism Festival.
Gabriele and Chibueze performing in masquerade during "mouf," presented at UC Santa Cruz in 2022 for their SURGE Afrofuturism Festival. Costumes designed and created by Pamela Rodriguez.
Time of Change
Time of Change, was a site-specific, multi-media, roving performance hosted on the streets of San Francisco’s storied Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. This production was co-directed by OYSTERKNIFE, Melecio Estrella (BANDALOOP) and Joe Goode (Joe Goode Performance Group). Each director created their own section of the show with a unique cast, narrative and route, culminating in a final performance at the historic Doolan-Larsen house. For OYSTERKNIFE’s section of the show, we used original music, poetry, dance, ritual, video projection, and recorded interviews with San Francisco residents and icons to examine the untold Black history of the Haight. Excavating the memories of what used to be a majority Black neighborhood, before the hippies’ eventual arrival, we explored themes of loss, nostalgia, gentrification, socio-political turmoil, and radical creativity that defined the city’s 1960s counterculture era. Interviews included conversations with Danny Glover, Rhodessa Jones, Amara Tabor-Smith, Felirene Bongolon, Andrew Pollack, and many others. In addition to OYSTERKNIFE, our cast featured performances by Clarissa Dyas, Jarrel Phillips, and Levi Maxwell.
All photos taken by Chani Bockwinkel.
To learn more about Time of Change, and to see our full list of collaborators, check out the Press section of my website.
A video excerpt of Chibueze performing aerial dance and an original song in “Time of Change” at the Doolan-Larsen house. This song was a re-written cover of “San Francisco” by Scott McKenzie, co-written with Ben Judovalkis, including lyrical contributions from SF-born playwright, Ashley Smiley.