I first wrote this 2 years ago following the Ravinia Festival Performance here in the Chicago Metro area. I am publishing it here, now as an example of how I view the significance of art from a sociological perspective and within the “field” (to use Bourdieu’s frame here) of African/Black Diasporic artistic production.
“Fondly do we hope, Fervently do we pray…”
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company
A Spectator’s (Re)View
Lincoln’s Bicentennial at Ravinia Festival
September 2009
Constructing Lincoln in an Ambivalent Democracy
© 2009 Abra M. Johnson
Fondly Hope. Fervently Pray. Those words are more than an affirmation or even a call to action. Jones’ title words serenading his Lincoln Opus reflect/articulate one glaringly clear understanding of the complex and complicated historical (re) construction of Abraham Lincoln within the post-Civil War scope of postmodern U.S. history. Even more than that, there is the grander notion that this understanding is not just Jones’ and Company but far more collective–it is a prevalent awareness among U.S. citizens that have inhabited these boundaries at minimum, since the Civil War.
Jones’ title and choreographic construction reveal that we are all in on this secret, on the problematic positions in which we have placed Lincoln’s presidency. In many ways, we are all responsible both to and for his presidency–and ultimately, what happened to him.
At the critical juncture of maintaining the unity of our Union, we find Lincoln, at the precipice of this piece and in the apex of his presidency, both beloved and despised, worshiped and reviled during his life and after his death. Few of us have ever been in such a static and precarious position.
But if Lincoln as historical figure, as Civil War president is fraught with our collective demons of race, class, and power, pining for democracy, it is because we were and remain fraught with these tensions. For Lincoln did not historically write or place himself into the annals of U.S history; we did. Whatever he was and has become, all that he means now is what we have constructed, and some might say, scapegoated him to be, to mean. This, through Jones’ representation, is the how and why Lincoln lives on within our lives.
Thus the modalities by which Lincoln articulates and ultimately enacts some position, have become the dualities by which we view or divide support to various Civil (and other) War polities.
This is also where we find ourselves connected to Lincoln in Jones’ piece and through it. Lincoln has been constructed as much by our perceptions of him as his own writings about the man he is or wants to be.
Jones uses Lincoln’s own words and pronounced influences but also our own “knowing”–our perceptions of Lincoln–as Jones’ company explores Lincoln’s Civil War presidential life while more deeply weaving him into the contemporaneity of all of ours.
Jones’ Lincoln is cautious about the state of the Union, indeed, about maintaining it; yet he, equally fervently, wants to maintain it, at least a modified version of it. In this presentation, we are both cautious supporters and conscientious objectors to the Union–and of Lincoln.
Jones’ congressional reenactment in this spirit is very poignant. The bodies in all their structured randomness revive that fated Congressional hearing producing the Civil War. In a theatrical cacophony of bifurcated politics, we see more than a struggle to settle our Nation’s stance on slavery (this we know); we actually get to eavesdrop on the debate, to hear the personal feelings of Congressmen about slavery, Lincoln, this new nation, and democracy; we listen in on this process as slaves would have as outsiders looking in on the decision of our lives without input; yet all the decision-makers know fully that we are there and listening…
We hear Lincoln in his own words on the impossibility of changing a staunch Confederacy yet the absolute resolve to contain the Confederacy and refuse its spread to new states entering the Union; above and beyond the cluster and clutter of arguments, what we really hear is an ambivalence about a democracy constructed with more than a hint of hypocrisy.
With 21st century ears, we may listen and find this disturbing perhaps by its disturbingly similar reflection of contemporary congressional hearings and federal politics generally. Similarly we hear and see incompatible yet inextricable economic interests fueling not only national economy but social fabric. We hear and see from who many may interpret as an ethical and concerned leader who’s search for a just resolution is marred by his refusal (or inability? powerlessness?) to first alter existing injustices. We hear and see class inequalities articulated in tropes designating degrees of humanity, a humanity bound in a thoroughly capitalistic sensibility, focused on things rather than people and rather than people owning actions instead.
We experience hypocritical democratic discourse, wherein the congressional discussants–southern plantation owners and educated northern elites (fully invested in and/or otherwise benefiting from plantations)–can all argue that they are entitled to the fruits of national free labor and human rights. Yet they are starkly divided as to whether or not this democracy extends to the actual laborers; specifically they are at odds about slavery. Are slaves (or their descendants) really human? Are we exploiting them, exploiting their labor? They (we as invisible spectators/onlookers?) are slaves but to what extent should we profit–while slaves and their descendants can never profit–from maximum utility of their labor at minimum costs to slave owners?
In the intensity of this scene and much like real life, there is no satisfactory (or just) conclusion. We are simply left with the stinging void where the bridgework of national rhetoric and rituals of democracy leave us with barely built bridges that never really met; these seem to be as far from each other as we remain from Lincoln. Democracy for us, in this sense, has been and still seems to be, all talk and spectacularly so.
However, I am clear that all of this is perhaps just my own perspective, not merely as an individual but also as an African-American woman, born and raised in the U.S. Further, I am equally clear that Jones know this: that the viewing of this piece will be experienced in nuanced differences, especially among blacks and whites, the two primary groups between which this chaos and conflict of a pseudo-democracy are portrayed. Moreover, regional distinctions in interpretations ought to be expected and not simply for individualist reasoning. Those of us growing up in the North or South will likely see Lincoln, and thus, this piece, differently yet deeply personally. But what of those of us with long Civil War family histories and who are American-born in one region but raised in or by parents and family from another? Haven’t we experienced Lincoln multi-valently or exponentially?
Of which Lincoln have you long learned or read? What sort of Lincoln, what kind of Lincoln presidency and U.S. democracy have you experienced? Experienced courtesy of Jones’ company? Though it is impossible for me to really know or at the very least, for us to finalize our Lincoln portraits or verdicts on nation, on this nation, on our nation, I can say this with certainty: we fondly hope for our Lincoln lore(s) to emerge victorious, fervently praying we were not wrong about him. In any case, these collective historic benedictions are far less important than the recognition that our Lincolns of legend and our persistent fables of democracy are but fond ideals constructed and recycled in historical moments as needed, never actually existing except, perhaps in these send-ups of hope and prayer.
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