Abstract

In this article, I assert that Ntozake Shange and Victoria Santa Cruz engage in a “diasporic dialogue” through their dramatic poetry—a dialogue that transcends genre, language, form, and geographies. I believe they do so not through the actual exchange of words, but rather through the Afro-diasporic aesthetics and Black Feminist messaging at the heart of their respective works: for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf and “Me Gritaron Negra.” I am invested in the conversation between their pieces—and the consciousness transformation such a conversation allows. By placing these works in conference for the first time and investigating the ways they “talk” to each other, I seek to demonstrate the unique vitality of theatre pieces—especially those led by Black women from across the African Diaspora—as embodied practices of liberatory politics and the transforming (and transformational) Black Feminist thought of the 1970s. Furthermore, by honing in on and getting up close to praxes and articulations of self-acceptance, self-definition, and self-determination in both Shange’s and Santa Cruz’s works, I will demonstrate the usefulness of this kind of embodied performance to something we might think of as the radical political potential of self-love.

Keywords: Black Feminism, Black Women's Drama, Black Diaspora, Theatre, Poetry

How to Cite:

Thomson, P., (2024) ““¡¡¡SOY NEGRA!!!”/“i found god in myself”: Shange, Santa Cruz, and Self-Love as Savior”, the Black Theatre Review 3(1), 17-32. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/tbtr.6019