DIRECTOR- Cleopatra Mavhunga
Trauma is, above all, ugly.
Conversations surrounding trauma have a nasty habit of focusing on its transformative power. The wisdom, growth, and, most importantly, strength gained from undergoing tremendous, unbelievable hardship. Survivors of all types of trauma are encouraged to see the lesson, the knowledge, and the power that can be gained from undergoing such a thing.
Many who have struggled to free themselves from the suffocating hold of trauma understand how painful it is to be encouraged to look back at your pain as a “learning experience.”
Sometimes bad things happen for a reason. The car doesn’t start because we forgot to turn off the headlights. Sometimes bad things happen because the world is simply a place wherein just as fortune can strike us randomly, misery can strike us with the same unpredictability.
Not all trauma is something to be dissected in order to find a source of strength. Black women have unfortunately had to take all of their traumas and find strength. The pressure put on Black women to look into the barrel of unbelievable pain, take the bullet, and then walk tall and strong proclaiming that the pain was nothing but a pinch is unmatched.
The expectation of resilience in the wake of trauma is an unforgiving cage wherein
any behavior that remotely resembles weakness is met with punishment, scrutiny and/or humiliation.
To my Black sisters:
This story is one wherein Black women are not expected to find strength in the midst of the impossible. This story is sad, painful, and downright miserable at times. And this show exists to affirm and give space to the vulnerability and humanity of Black women. To the Black women whose pain has been labeled as an anomaly, something strange that needed to be fixed, a burden, or simply “doing too much”: Your pain was valid. It is valid. It will always be valid. You have the right to grief. The right to anger. The right to confusion. The right to humanity.
Black women deserve the freedom to fall apart.
The Black women of Kore deserve the freedom to fall apart.
