A Seat at the Table: Slavery and Soul Food
by: Wynterrose Hill
Nothing can get you right quite like soul food. The collective experience of basically starving yourself all day before a gathering because you need room for later; showing up to the gathering at least an hour after the original time, because that is always when the real gathering starts. The house greets all with a familiar warmth and an alluring aroma. Family and friends gather around the food for prayer; it will either be very quick or very long-no in-between. My plate is full, all space taken by rice, collard greens, beans, ham, macaroni and cheese, and yams. Each bite is an ambrosial ritual, a warm embrace, a dance on the tongue.
The nature of soul food is one of great cultural significance. But there is also a historical significance that still affects the African American diet. Food has aways been a sacred, celebrated thing in Black culture. This is especially so after slavery, which reduced African people’s diets to mere waste products and scraps and is a part of the foundation of soul food. Black Americans have developed habits and customs not only in effect of surviving slavery, but also transforming food into a positive symbol for Black culture.
The components of soul food trace back to the diet of African slaves. Slaves were barely fed enough for themselves or their families. The little food they did receive was a combination of scraps of the bad parts of meat and corn/cornmeal. Prominent figure and former slave, Booker T Washington, wrote of the struggle of the slave diet in his autobiography. An article entitled; The Slave Diet references his exact descriptions as such:‘The family got their meals like “dumb animals get theirs. It was a piece of bread here and a scrap of meat there…a cup of milk at one time and some potatoes at another. Sometimes a portion of our family would eat out of the skillet or pot, while someone else would eat from a tin plate held on the knees using nothing but hands…to hold the food’ (Slave Diet, 4).
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Black people were forced to eat hardly anything regardless of the hours of labor they had to endure. This has caused Black people to have different perspective on food that is much stricter on waste. I used to think it was a bit excessive how being shamed for throwing away even the smallest amount of food seemed to be culturally engrained in the culture. But Black people could not afford to waste any food no matter its quality, not then and still not today. Food had become more than just a quick meal. Food became a privilege, a reminder of what our ancestors did not have before us. As my Great-Grandmother used to say,” You don’t live to eat, you eat to live.”
Despite all the odds, Black people flipped the script on food. From barely anything, Black people heavily influenced Southern cuisine and birthed a new genre of food derived off the backs off our ancestors. They used the small number of resources allowed to them to create a new culture for food and community. It is best said by Tracy Poe, “Communal eating, a hallmark of the slaves' social life, became increasingly important to freemen. Eating traditional foods together forged a spiritual connection between those present and the ancestors of the past, as each family cobbled together what little they had into the great feasts described by Southern black authors like Zora Neale Hurston.18 For all these reasons - economic hardship, personal pride, and the concept of commensality - food came to represent the resilience of the African American people in the South” (Poe, 12).
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Soul food forged a new culture with new traditions still preserved today. Communal eating, Sunday dinners, and the specific holidays for which soul food must be on the table; it all represents the love and tenacity of those before and those after. Soul food will always be a comfort food. The rice and peas, beans and ham, cornbread and hams- are a tradition and home. How we used to eat was a reflection of slavery and colonialism. But the way we put love into food is not.
Broadway Gone Black: The Impact of a Pandemic on the World’s Liveliest Art Form.
by: Rachel Ullman
March 12th 2020 was the day that all of Broadway went black for an unprecedented 18-month closure. While COVID-19 impacted the entire arts industry, some artists were able to continue their work to a certain degree. Musical artists could continue to release songs from home, films continued production with new protocol in place after brief closures, but Broadway was another story entirely. Musical theatre is an art form that relies on community to function. Not only does musical theatre require the community of a cast of actors interacting much closer than 6 feet apart to perform 8 shows a week, but it also depends on the community of audience members to show up and participate in order for the show to go on.
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The shutdown affected the theatre community in a myriad of ways. One of the instant realizations was that several theatres would not be able survive the closure for long. With the average show costing anywhere between $300,000-$600,000 per week to remain open, even prior to COVID selling enough tickets to keep a production up and running was an impressive feat. Many Tony nominated (and Tony winning) shows were closed amidst the shutdown because they could no longer afford to keep shows running with only small production companies left to fund them. Once doors re-opened in the Summer of 2021, even popular shows like “The Phantom of the Opera”, which opened on Broadway in 1988 and has been the highest grossing show on Broadway to date, announced that it would be closing due to inability to sell enough tickets to continue to run the show. With household productions like Phantom closing their doors, it left little hope for newer up and coming shows to survive.
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Secondly, the impact the shutdown had on musical theatre performers was irreversible. Some celebrities such as Sabrina Carpenter, a pop music icon, had just had her Broadway debut performing only two shows in “Mean Girls: The Musical” (Tony Nominated) before Broadway shut down. Originally cast for a 3-month long run, after the pandemic she was never able to return to the production. Even more severe than celebrities missing out on a life-long career goal, was the impact on lesser-known Broadway performers who earn their life’s wages performing on a stage. Many chorus actors rely on these shows for survival, and when they are not performing, they are teaching workshops on Broadway as a way to make ends meet, and keep up skills essential to their craft. With both options of revenue disappearing at the start of the pandemic, actors were not only out of work, but unable to train and maintain their skills. Due to New York City being the most dangerous city for the Covid outbreak, artists who already survived on very little income were confined to apartments no larger than the average suburban bedroom. With no room to dance, no auditions to attend, and nowhere to go, this took a toll on some who were forced to give up on theatre entirely and move to other states. Many actors spend 20 or more years training in order to simply have the possibility of gaining a career in a very competitive field, and COVID kept many hopefuls and veterans alike from ever returning to the business.
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Despite the odds stacked against theatres and performers alike, the very thing that musical theatre requires to function is also what keeps it resilient. Community. Many prominent figures in the theatre community, such as Lin Manuel Miranda who burst into stardom with his hit musical, “Hamilton” made the decision to record the production live and move it to streaming services like Disney+ in 2020. This was both a bold, and beneficial move for the arts. Recording live theatre for streaming was something that had previously been frowned upon within the community, however moving it to streaming became the best promotion for excitement surrounding live theatre’s return during the pandemic. Moves like this brought new audiences back to theatres shortly after Broadway re-opening. Many actors moved to TikTok to create mini musicals, or promoted Zoom productions for viewing, finding any way possible to stay connected to the pulse of musicals. Groups of performers who were able to weather the storm came together post pandemic with a renewed passion for pursuing the art that they love.
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Overall, the Broadway theatre community has rolled with the punches of the pandemic in the only way fitting of people who fight to pursue their dream every day- passionately. The shutdown, while unbelievably tragic, connected performers and audiences all around the globe like never before. It has brought a new type of revival to Broadway, and is ushering in a new era of talent. After a period so dark for the entire globe, the theatre community’s resilience has shone like a beacon of hope, similar to the beacon of the ghost lights left on in the dark of their stages.