Reclamation Dramaturgy
What is reclamation Dramaturgy?
The act(s) of recovering, restoring, and reasserting the relationship between black people, their humanity, and their cultural heritage through the rituals of black art making and black storytelling.
How does it work?
In practice, the Reclamation framework engages in four activities for generation and analysis: Mapping the Wake, Mapping the Activities and Architectures of Reclamation, Mapping the Participants, and Mapping the Beyond. These activities help identify a work’s unique reclamation scenario. With the reclamation scenario, deeper conversations about the work can happen.
Why does it matter?
Too often black art making and storytelling are evaluated through Eurocentric systems of criticism that dismiss race and cultural knowledge when it comes to art that carries diverse reflections of who we are and how we experience the world. Reclamation Dramaturgy works to answer the question: How do we shift our lens and understanding from the white gaze to black embodiment?