![]() In returning to Africa in order to re-educate herself about, and reconnect with, her roots, Sears demonstrates her uniqueness among other Africans who were born, raised, and/or live in the diaspora. 138), whereas the journey is at once physical and metaphysical, and is marked by defining ‘discoveries’, including the renaming of herself as well as an encounter with performative resources that ultimately distinguish her oeuvre of works from others. For him, Sears’s journey “turn into a circular run whereby travelers keep returning to the same place they started” (p. Whereas Olsen ( 2014) imagines that for such a journey to be successful, it ought only to be performed physically. 199), as Gourdine ( 2003) who contends that Sears’s performance should be read as an enactment of “the relationship between present and past locations: the geographical spaces we occupy, the cultural borders with which we place ourselves, and the intellectual positions we take” (p. Peter Nicholls ( 1994) argues that “past energies and events erupt onto the scene of the present,” and in doing so, they function as “a phantasmic space to be reinhabited and repossessed” (p. “Memory is always re-call and re-collection,” write Plate and Smelik ( 2013), which implies “re-turn, re-vision, re-enactment, re-presentation: making experiences from the past in the present again in the form of narratives, images, sensations, performances” (p. Memory plays a crucial role in this task of reconstructing the past. The role of literature and other aesthetic endeavors in the articulation of the historical and political imperative of challenging racism through identity formation have been a subject that Deck ( 1992) explores. I think it’s hard to form one definite identity that is based on so many things… lot of my work is about questioning home, and looking at this idea of what home means, whether it’s in terms of literature or whether it’s in terms of culture or cultural voice” (Sears qtd in Buntin 2004). “We are neither this nor that we are both. Contemporary black writers, and Sears in particular, have focused on slavery as a fit subject to articulate the difficult condition of the lives of Black people under racism and the dilemma of claiming home in the New World, “claiming home and … navigating this territory between where you’ve come from, and where you are” has always been a difficult question. 1–20), while other scholars have explored the effects of slavery, racism, and exploitation on the lives of Black people and the deliberate neglect of their history and contributions to the development of Canada ( Simmons 1998, p. ![]() Block and Galabuzi ( 2011) in a study, decry the role that both racism and skin color play in the uneven nature of employment in Canada despite the country’s unprecedented economic growth and an increased diverse population for which it prides itself as a multicultural society (pp. Sears experienced both the hardship and complexity of her place, both as an immigrant and a black person, in Canada that is noted for her history of racial discrimination. Sears recalls that as the only black girl in her school, she was molested by her mates who asked to touch her hair her teacher treated her with contempt because of her skin color and a particular landlord from she tried to rent a room some years later also insulted her because of her race. Born in London to Jamaican and Guyanese parents, and moved at age fifteen to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, Sears (the protagonist of the performance) recalls being called “nigger” by her classmate, and told to “go back to where you come from” ( Sears 1990, pp. Afrika Solo “begins with a reenactment of the Middle Passage, a powerful rendition of the forced movement that led to the enslavement of blacks throughout the African diaspora” ( Brown-Guillory 2006, pp. ![]() In light of Yoruba (of southwest Nigeria) ritual and performative aesthetics, and as an example of the Sankofan spirit of “going back to get it,” this essay examines the African-Canadian multiple award-winning playwright, performer, and director, Djanet Sears’s a one-woman performance, Afrika Solo, in which she dramatizes her journey to Africa, a performance that she describes as her “autobiomythography” (“Afterwards”).
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