24 GAY PEOPle's ChroNICLE SEPTEMBER 15, 1995
EVENINGS OUT
Jewelle Gomez tells a Gilda story with Urban Bush Women
by Doreen Cudnik
Noted African-American lesbian poet and novelist Jewelle Gomez will be in Columbus on Thursday, September 21 along with the dance troupe Urban Bush Women, who will be dancing to a piece based on Gomez' novel, The Gilda Stories.
The novel won Gomez two Lambda Literary Awards-for fiction and and for science fiction. While in Columbus, Gomez will also make a stop at An Open Book, a gay-owned book store in the Short North, to read from her new collection of
poetry. Oral Tradi-
tion.
"I'm really ex-
cited because I've
The performance piece with the Urban Bush Women, an African-American dance company, has been evolving for over two years. Gomez has been working with their artistic director, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and composer Toshi Reagon on the piece, titled "Bones and Ash: A Gilda Story," which combines spoken and sung text with original music and choreography.
The Gilda Stories chronicles the life of a young woman who escapes from slavery in Louisiana and is taken in and raised by two women who are lovers and partners in a New
'Hey, there's this really cool, intense, hot, black lesbian who existed before many of us were born, and she is part of the reason that we are who we are today."
only been to Ohio once and that was at Ohio State University when I did a talk and a reading on campus, so I didn't really get to be with the [lesbian and gay] community," Gomez said.
"Oral Tradition is a collection of old poems and new poems, because I self-published my first two books of poetry, which was a really great experience and the 'books all sold out," Gomez said. “I realized that since I self-published, I couldn't make very many copies. Everywhere I went one or two people would always come up and ask where they could pick up copies of Flamingoes and Bears or where they could pick up a copy of The Lipstick Papers, and I realized that they just weren't going to get them unless they went to a lesbian archive or something like that. So I decided to pull together some of what I thought were the better poems from carly on and combine them with some new poems-and that's what Oral Tradition is," Gomez said.
Orleans bordello. The two women educate the girl and eventually initiate her to their vampire community.
"I'd done a lot of research on vampires, because I was very interested about what this mythology was in the world. And since I wasn't writing from a Christian, Victorian, white perspective, I wanted to get a sense of what vampires meant to the rest of the world. And it was clear that vampires were a part of almost every other culture. They weren't wearing "Dracula” outfits, but the idea was certainly there. I'm not that surprised, because I think that the idea of being able to cheat death is a very common one," Gomez said.
The idea of the vampire that must live at any cost-even if the cost is someone else's life, is one of the things that The Gilda Stories completely refutes. “This idea of an "all or nothing" character is something which I consider to be a male, patriarchal trait," Gomez said. The vampires in her novel do not kill in order to live, but instead take blood
and leave whatever vision, idea, or dream the
Jewelle Gomez
person is seeking. In effect, they are nurturers and healers-and warriors if need be.
Gomez' most current project is a book aimed at young people about the life and work of Audre Lorde, with whom she studied creative writing.
"I'm very excited to be doing this book on Audre, because there is a way that Audre has become beatified, as if she were a saint, which is all her due. But the more important story is the story about what an ordinary woman with extraordinary talents does with her life. And that's, I think, the lesson that will be more helpful to all of us.”
"Lesbian and gay youth don't know who some of the wonderful people were who
VAL WILMER
provided the opportunity for us to be out as lesbians and gays. So I'm really interested in creating a book that's an adventure; that's an exciting story that will let people know. 'Hey, there's this really cool, intense, hot. black lesbian who existed before many of us were born, and she is part of the reason that we are who we are today.'
Gomez will be at An Open Book, 749 North High Street in Columbus on Thursday, September 21 from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. The performance of "Bones and Ash" with the Urban Bush Women will take place at the Wexner Center for the Arts on Saturday September 23, at 8:00 p.m. For ticket information, call 614-292-2354.
"...furiously funny...superb timing, pace and structure..." Sydney Morning Herald
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