Episode 03: The Body as Archive, the Body as Resistance
Welcome to Cara’s podcast!
In this episode of Roots & Points: Understanding Acupuncture Medicine, we’ll explore the vibes of Spring, the work of Congolese choreographer, Faustin Linyekula, and how art teaches us to harness the creative qualities of Liver Yin energy to soften and reconnect with the ancient power within.
Listen to the full episode:
Link to Studios Kabako documentary
View this episode’s full transcript:
Hey friends, I'm your host, Cara Mafuta Raboteau from Acupuncture In Motion, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Welcome to the third episode of my podcast, Roots and Points: Understanding Acupuncture Medicine!
Happy New Moon week. Sunday’s new moon was a supermoon and the closest one of the 2024 year. I hope this lunation and its accompanying spring tide finds you cared for.
“I’m black, I’m solitary, I’ve always been an outsider.” -Octavia Butler
This episode is about art, namely that of Congolese artist, Faustin Linyekula, and how the sacred texts of black lives and questions posed by black artists working outside of mainstream power systems embody, stimulate and spring forward societal and environmental change. As an acupuncturist and artist, and as a human living with chronic illness, I’m often dwelling and negotiating within nuanced, liminal and somewhat marginal/outsider spaces, both physiologically and systematically, and I look to cultural workers for guidance to locate and re-locate myself in the surreal existence we call space and time. As a child of someone who identified as a black outsider (my late father was a self-described atheist & loner from a large and devout Christian Kinois family, and an immigrant in the US) I feel in my bones I’ve inherited these lonely feelings. I identify as a religious outsider too, and I’m drawn to stories of people who veer from the faith systems they’ve been indoctrinated into by their family of origin and cultural systems to unconventionally create new identities, co-create new relationships, and ultimately discover personal meaning.
We are exiting the peak yin time of year - Fall/Metal and Winter/Water seasons and entering Spring/Wood season. Yang energy is slowly building and the wind is picking up, ushering in change. Spring is the season of plants, birth, and nu, anger. Liver yang energy is conceptualized as upward moving, organized, and focused - think of a forest of bamboo, or a collective protest.
As a child of people born in a dictatorship who are determined to build new futures, it can be a complicated task to get stories about the past and so, you are left with so many questions all the time. In my culture’s patriarchal society, I know to be delicate in my pursuit of answers.
With my father, his stories always came in fragments, and I found myself left to imagine the connections between certain events, particularly during silent pauses when I knew not to press further, lest I exacerbate the effect of his reliving traumatic memories. I heard a lot when his voice trailed off after lamenting, “I wish I could take you to the forests I explored as a child, they’re just not passable now.” With my grandpère/koko, when I asked what the tribal marks etched into his cheeks meant, his shy response was simply, “to make me beautiful.” On another occasion, my father remarked how his mother wept when she saw him for the first time in decades after he left the country at age 17, as her last memory was of him - a boy - saving her life. From what/whom? And how did he do it?
Like my grandmère/koko, my father was full of jokes, so I’d learn to make connections between what he said and what was left unspoken. Attempt to insert serious questions here and there without disrupting the salve of laughter. One time, he joked that his brother froze in fear one night at the boarding school they attended in a remote region in Kinshasa that had no electricity. Why was tonton frozen, papa? “When I looked at what he was trembling at, it was a snake climbing up the wall, haha…” You eventually realize that the reality of life in Congo is a matter of perpetually confronting the fragility and fine line between life and death on a daily basis. So you ask questions and learn to accept when the information you’ve been given is enough - quite generous, in fact - and don’t press more.
Liver energy is our inner visionary, the inner artist, and creator, the dreamer. It strategically plans the most efficient ways to get from point A to point B. It moves up and out, quite quickly, and doesn’t have time for fluff. It is our inner miracle worker and corresponds to the early childhood period of life. Its emotion is anger, or nu, as represented by the Chinese pictogram image of a female slave under the oppressive hand of a master - we know that she’d be angry, but she must suppress it to resist complete annihilation. What’s so compelling to me about this idea is that anger is conceptualized as a response to oppression. It is this nu, this energy, that is thought to activate a plant to push hard enough to defy earth’s oppressive force - gravity - to create and birth new life.
Faustin Linyekula is a contemporary dancer based in Kisangani, DR Congo who originally dreamed of becoming a poet, but after encountering the closing of his local university, and spending time in exile, he evolved his dream into becoming a dancer. His work is highly collaborative with other dancers, artists, and cultural workers. He established Studios Kabako in Kinshasa, named after his late friend, who died tragically of the bubonic plague. Much of his work is very personal - he considers himself a storyteller primarily, and has focused on themes ranging from reconciling with Congo’s brutal past, telling individual stories, attempts to remembering his name, retrieving lost stories of his maternal ancestors and stories of women in his family, and imagining and building futures for and by Congo’s people. He attempted to set up an art school in Congo but encountered infrastructure challenges that prevented that dream from manifesting. He grew interested in becoming involved in the decentralization of power away from the capital city and decided to relocate his studio to his hometown, Kisangani, in northeastern Congo, and initiated a project to leverage resources for a water treatment plant, as outlined in mini-documentary Studios Kabako (check the link). He calls this movement urban, or architectural, acupuncture. This was no politician sweeping in grandiosely, this is simply the labor of an individual working hyper-locally to effect change in his immediate environment. He often works to balance energies, infusing popular street culture motifs into classical spaces, and classical motifs into street culture spaces.
I first encountered Faustin Linyekula’s work at my old job where I had worked the box office front desk at the Painted Bride Art Center many moons ago. It was an affirming joy, to relive the memory of the parties of my youth in a new and different way at Faustin’s choreographed all night fête! My heart delighted as one dancer sashayed around dressed in feathers and a glorious afro, and kept saying, dreamily, “hey dove” over and over again, the music was continuous, and sounds of politicians' voices played meaninglessly in the background. Most importantly, I heard the music again, but also the abstracted symbolism of the contradictions at work validated and rescued my lonely younger feelings. Politics and their power imbalances seep into family dynamics, so children often understand more than they’re given credit for - to me, this aspect of Faustin’s performance installation highlighted that inner child’s knowing. He created an environment, however surreal, that accurately portrayed truth - or at least a truth that I could relate to. To me, part of that truth was that family - both nuclear and extended - can be a political microsystem, and wellness and existence within that system is a very precarious dance, and often depends on how one aligns, or doesn’t align all the time, with those most empowered in multiple and various contexts.
Years later, I was pleasantly surprised to see Faustin would be part of a panel at the Kongo: Power and Majesty exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, which featured art from the Kongo with a K region, so both Congos and Angola - from the 16th to 20th centuries. It was a massive exhibit and powerful, yet excruciatingly painful, given Congo’s brutal past and present. It told history through the lens of sculptural art. Some of the pieces, particular the nkisi, or power figures, which were vessels used for communal spiritual protection, showed evidence of having been tampered with by their original owners before they were forced into foreign hands. The idea is that our ancestors removed some significant ritual materials as a form of spiritual resistance.
As a human, and especially as a black person, it felt impossible to not feel physically and metaphysically injured, taking stock of King Leopold’s so-called Free State of the Congo - a covert pillaging and mass murder of between 5-10 million Africans, not to mention several more million Congolese dead over the last 20+ years from wars, starvation, chaos, corruption, global exploitation, opportunism, and indifference. With this knowledge in my body and mind, I felt my anger and grief growing and growing as I walked the museum halls. I fantasized about the black museum-goers smashing those glass displays and reclaiming the art our ancestors created, taking-back the power figures to our homes and villages worldwide, sticking more nails and needles in them to conjure up more hope, agency, and self-determination for our own futures. Obviously I didn’t pillage the exhibit. But one can dream, right? Anyway, it was really important to me to hear from Faustin that day. Though he doesn’t know me at all, I consider him one of my distant mentors in that he is a role model who simply answers questions my family never could, or would.
What struck me most about his contribution to the panel, was the humanity he brought to that stage. I kept thinking about how ironic it was that a room full of hundreds of black people at an exhibit about the Kongo’s power and majesty was positioned to listen to a stage of experts that only included one black person. I felt empathy for the weight he might have felt with bearing that responsibility - to be a tokenized spokesperson for millions of people. He offered a lot of insight, but what I remember the most was how I felt when he got up out of his chair, diverted his gaze away from the other panelists, and started to walk and talk to us, the people, the heirs of this spiritually artistic collection. I pondered the question of who the power figures were in that room, and on that stage, and how society’s material power figures - people with lots of cash - claim ownership of our power figures, our minkisi.
But, let me tell you, when he got up, I could feel an undercurrent of anger in how clipped his tone was - in acupuncture, the energy of the wood element corresponds to the shouting sound, which can sound like actual shouting, but can also be more low-key, and staccato. To me, at this point he stopped answering questions intellectually, and more from the heart. He said something at some point to the effect of “you know, the people are still there [in Congo]”. [uncomfortable pause] At some point, he also said “I know the regime is watching me.” He started actually beating on his chest and activating his body into a dance. I felt something in me awaken at that moment. The panel discussion finally became accessible to me. The chest pounding and improvisational movements felt hella local, I mean we were in the birthplace of hip hop after all, and these movements reminded me of the dances of my youth. Most importantly, I felt his returning to his body, inspired and freed me up to return to mine, my grief, my rage, both individual and communal. Faustin told us as he tapped on his chest and legs, that though much of our pre-colonial history is unrecorded, his body, and therefore, our bodies too - was a living history and that archives upon archives could be accessed at any moment by simply reconnecting with one’s own inner knowing and inner being.
And then he sang to us in one of his mother tongues - though I’m not anywhere near fluent, I thought it was Lingala, but it could have been Swahili or another, as he is multilingual. At any rate, in that moment, though I didn’t comprehend the literal meaning of the words, the inflections and intonations were familiar on a diasporic level. I felt the hardness in my interior start to soften, his healing song literally soothed my Liver and Lung qi. It was a relief to feel seen and understood. This was obviously an offering. If Faustin’s medicine in those moments was a flower, I’d liken it to the therapeutic effects of peony.
Peony root, bai shao, of the ranunculaceae family, treats Liver & Spleen channels, tonifies Liver blood, and nourishes and augments Liver and Spleen yin, extinguishes wind, stops spasmodic pain, and is bitter, sour and cool in flavor. The Liver is a hard and edgy organ, and “favors dispersal.” This herb calms and grounds Liver yang; by “softening and comforting” the Liver, preventing the floating ascent of Liver yang. It regulates the Sea of blood and supports the Spleen when it’s attacked by unrestrained and rebellious Liver qi.
It became obvious to me that perhaps - in Faustin’s simply being himself, perhaps he was embodying the role of the nganga - the ritual expert, the individual who offers protection for those seeking relief from hardship, the healer (Jason Young, Rituals of Resistance, 2007). When he sat back down, a European expert asked him to translate what he just sang to us, the people. Faustin smiled, laughed a little maybe?, in a very private, knowing and constrained way, took a moment to prepare a response, and slowly - pointedly - said he was often asked for transparency by the academy that chooses to be continuously opaque with him. He concluded, “I too, get to be opaque. No. I will not translate,” and concluded that it was tremendously sad the exhibit was not for those currently suffering the worst of Congo’s brutal history.
While Faustin Linyekula doesn’t explicitly identify as an environmentalist, I believe his creative work of developing what he calls small “spaces of resistance” has tremendous impact environmentally in that he works at root levels with careful discernment of how to focus and expend his energy. This personal practice of sustainability has a ripple effect to those around him. He works to remove barriers to environmental cooperation and wellness by questioning his society’s - and even his own - beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions in very physical, emotional, and spiritual ways, with constant self-critique as he moves.
Faustin Linyekula’s mention of acupuncture theory as applied to design and collective action, brings to mind the Huang Di Nei Jing Ling Shu, a medical classic on Chinese needle therapy, which was revolutionary in the time it was introduced during the first Han dynasty of ancient China approximately in the first and second centuries BCE. This text existed in the shadows for a long time, as it was counter to the dominant culture’s assertion that power and individual health were dependent on the religio-political regime of emperors, politicians, and their ability to control and manipulate supernatural forces. The Ling Shu - whose authors remain unnamed, likely due to the high cost of voicing any theory that would be interpreted as undermining political authority at the time - asserted simply that one can directly affect their own health without appealing to higher authorities to negotiate supernatural forces. It asserted that living in accordance with nature itself was possible and within reach of every individual, and that politics and medicine were inextricably linked in that an individual’s social environment was the primary determinant of one’s ping, peace and he, harmony, or, in modern terms, health. The text is formatted as a conversation between Huang Di, the “Yellow Thearch,” who is seeking instruction from Qi Bo, a tutor, or wise adviser, who is privy to a long established system of healing that Huang Di was previously unaware of.
Huang Di Nei Jing Ling shu (Translation by Paul Unschuld, 2016):
Chapter 29: The Transmissions from the Teachers
Huang Di:
I have been informed that the teachers in former times stored certain [knowledge] in their heart, and did not write it down on tablets. I wish to be informed of this and store it myself. [I will] consider this as basic rules and practice it to order the affairs of the people in general, and to order/cure individual bodies in particular.
Thereby [I wish] to achieve the following: All the people will be free of disease; upper and lower [social echelons] will be near each other in harmony.
Virtue flows down for enrichment; children and grandchildren will be spared sorrow. The transmission continues through future generations and will never end. May I be informed?
Qi Bo:
This question is far reaching, indeed!
Now, To order the affairs of the people and to order one’s own conduct; to order there and to order here, To order the small things, and to order the major items; to order the country and to order one’s family, Such an ordering has never succeeded where there is movement contrary to the norms.
Now, It is only through a movement in accordance with the norms that a cure is possible. A movement in accordance with the norms, this applies not only to discourses on the movements contrary to and in accordance with the norms in the yin and yang vessels. One should see to it that one acts in accordance with the expectations of all the people, the entire population.
Huang Di:
How is that, a “movement in accordance with the norms”?
Qi Bo:
One enters a [foreign] country, and enquires about its customs. One enters [someone else’s] household, and enquires about their taboos. One enters [someone’s ancestral] hall and enquires about the rites to be observed. One attends to a patient and enquires about what will ease his condition.
Huang Di:
To ease a patient’s condition, how is that done?
Qi Bo:
Now, when there is heat in the center, with melting dan-illness, then cold will ease [the patient’s] condition. In the case of [ailments] related to cold in the center, heat will ease his condition.
And later,
Huang Di:
The stomach longs for cold beverages. The intestines long for hot beverages. Both are opposed to each other. How is it possible to ease a condition [under such circumstances]? And further, Kings, dukes, and eminent personalities..persons in powerful positions…they are arrogant, they follow only their own desires, and they look down upon the common people. Hence it is impossible to approach them with prohibitions. If one were to prohibit them something, this would be against their mind. If one were to follow their [desires], this would aggravate their disease. To ease their condition, how can this be done? To cure them, what is to be done first?
Qi Bo:
The intrinsic nature of humans is such: there is no one who does not abhor death and enjoys life. Inform them of what will destroy them… Guide them to what will ease their condition. Open their minds to everything that will bring suffering. Even if these people who don't follow the WAY, why should they not listen?
I’ll conclude with these wise words by Faustin Linyekula taken from interviews with African-American dance scholar and writer, Brenda Dixon-Gottschild, and writers Jonathan Stein, and Sean O’Toole.
https://brendadixongottschild.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/outside-the-box-with-faustin-linyekula.pdf https://www.frieze.com/article/faustin-linyekula-my-true-country-my-body https://thinkingdance.net/articles/2016/09/28/Faustin-Linyekula-A-Contemporary-Dance-Griot
Linyekula speaks:
“My work is spoken of as dance, theatre, music, noise, agitation, whatever. What do I know? Most of the time I feel like someone who has escaped some catastrophe and whose heritage is a pile of ruins.
“The greatest heritage that my generation got from our fathers was a pile of ruins…But these are not only physical ruins, they are also ruins in our hearts and our heads.
“I never set out on a mission to change Congo, it was realizing my own personal necessities. If you want to make it possible to live and work [in Congo], you have to build something. A water treatment facility, a theatrical stage, a recording studio: infrastructures that shift the emphasis from isolation, loss and ruin to community, possibility and fragile opportunity. I work with choreographic movement, energy, rhythm, the body and its physical presence – the challenge to remain standing, vertical in spite of a crushing environment. I am showing the individual in a context where there is no space for individuals.
“My only true country is my body.
“The work we develop in the Congo is constantly trying to find ways of being in dialogue with the city at large, “I don’t see the future changing with the current structure of the predatory state, “I know the state will never help us, but their capacity of nuisance is so big that they can stop any project. In such a context, I cannot say: ‘Fuck the state!’ That will be signing up for the end of everything, including my own life.”
“Everything has collapsed, even the earth has collapsed…Macbeth is not the Congo I deal with every day. It is possible to be in the Congo and dream.”
From Brenda Dixon-Gottschild’s interview, from “Outside the Box, with Faustin Linyekula”:
Brenda speaks:
I then asked if I’d miss out on anything, being neither a native French speaker nor Congolese. In responding he showed the wisdom that comes with experience and skilled craftsmanship, regardless of age. He is convinced that it’s important to “accept that there are certain things we just cannot get…If we can just be humble enough to accept that, hey, we can’t control everything, that there’s room for mystery, and it’s important to keep certain things that way and not go and shake all the trees because you don’t know if there’s a snake up there, and maybe we don’t want to enter into contact with that snake.”
Thanks for listening. Stay tuned for the next episode of Roots and Points. If you’re interested in trying acupuncture medicine, contact your local licensed practitioner. Take care.