Queendom- Dr. Juhanna Rogers
Queendom: Saturday, August 20th, 4-6pm
Purchase tickets. Proceeds support Queendom's artists of color.
Queendom is an in-process interactive outdoor performative experience that explores the dream and possibility of reparations. Written and directed by Dr. Juhanna Rogers, Queendom conceptualizes the promise of “40 acres and a mule.” The experience begins with an invitation to walk the perimeter of a 40-acre plot of land, followed by cabaret-style monologues and original songs performed by select Queendom actors, and concludes with a reception.
Forty acres of land and a mule were to be bestowed upon enslaved peoples that were freed in America in the reparations package approved by President Lincoln’s administration; it was a promise later retracted after Lincoln’s assassination. In Queendom, Dr. Rogers imagines a world where enslaved peoples are granted resources and funds to help establish lives in America, post-slavery. In the fictional town of Queendom, located in the American South during reconstruction, women prepare for the Kuumba festival. On the eve of this annual festival, the women of Queendom discuss traditions of being Black in America, their dreams, and the traumas that still haunt them.
QUEENDOM EVENTS SUMMER 2022
June 17-19th: Queendom's Artist Festival
Join artist-scholar Dr. Juhanna Rogers for a weekend of art, music, entertainment, and events with readings from Queendom, and opportunities to meet the artists shaping this seminal work. Learn more and purchase tickets from Eventbrite.
July: private table readings
August 20th: live performance of Queendom on the land at Stone Quarry Art Park
More information about Dr. Juhanna Rogers and her time at Stone Quarry
Below is an excerpt from a conversation with Dr. Juhanna Rogers, Stone Quarry's artistic director Sayward Schoonmaker and CEO Emily Zaengle.
Sayward: Can you share with us how the Art Park’s landscape makes you feel, your experience of being on the grounds, and the transition from living in urban spaces to the rural?
Juhanna: I sometimes get up in the mornings and I have to walk. I have to move around the space. Christa Núñez of The Learning Farm in Ithaca talks about this and I never thought about it in this way before: Urban life can restrict how you utilize space. Like I could spend a month upstairs and probably be totally comfortable and never go outside because the space of the Art Park is a little foreign. What do I do with it? The tick thing. Where do the paths lead? Do I need to get hiking boots? I don’t have enough independent knowledge to navigate all of that. So, you have all this space, but it can also be very isolating.
I keep reminding myself to go outside. There is this whole other set of knowledge that you just don’t worry about when you live in a very urban space that takes some mental gymnastics. It’s interesting because I didn’t have angst about it for myself, but for people who care about me, when they think about where I am, that’s the angst. Let alone being around all white people.
But once you’re able to get past that, there is something magical about seeing the space in the vastness. It’s like a constant meditative space. I’ve learned to fall asleep to crickets. I have spent time in rural areas but it was always for a window of time. Like I’m at my grandmother’s house in South Carolina for a month and then I’m going back. I don’t know where I’m going to go after the Art Park. I’m going to turn 40 and what’s going to happen? Do I want to live on land like this? Or do I want to live in a city?
Sayward: It’s the classic struggle of city versus country living.
Juhanna: It’s a real thing! And then I walk in Cazenovia, I keep saying to myself, “There’s land here. There’s space. Imagine what that can mean! Kyle Bass told me he grew up on 30 acres in NY state. And I asked, “What was your childhood like?” He said that it was unimaginable. I think about kids growing up on that much land and space, your imagination would just run wild. Land is really powerful.
Sayward: How has the land and space informed your development of Queendom?
Juhanna: I’m thinking about transforming this land into a space that forces us to imagine the possibilities and dreams and the sorrows of my ancestors. I am reading about that here at the Art Park. My writing coach says if I can’t find a way to keep one foot in the present it can really suck you into a dark, sad place. How to keep one foot in the present. I’m thinking about my ability to imagine and create a piece that talks about Black life at a time when the future was so unclear.
Where the script for Queendom is now—the process of being here is making me think about all the layers of Black life depicted in Queendom. One of the things I think about is my grandparents have 11 acres down in South Carolina and that’s where we spent our summers, but I wasn’t allowed to do a lot of the manual labor things. One reason is they wanted some peace and quiet and we asked a lot of questions as kids. And two there’s this: “You don’t need to do this. We had to do this. These were not passion projects. These were survival skills we had to know, so we know how to grow beans; we didn’t have anything. What are you worried about learning it for? That’s never going to be your focus. Go read a book, ride your bike.” So now I look at this land and I wouldn’t know what to do with it. Like gardening. Who has time to do that? Like in city life, my mom has someone paid to mow her lawn and plant flowers. She’s not out in the yard thinking on how to do that.
I was in a workshop yesterday and one woman talked about how it takes about 7 generations for the impact of the trauma to be reversed. I thought this is profound because when I think about being here one of the things it’s causing me to do is think that I have to own land and space. After you experience this you can’t go back and confine yourself back to your apartment. How am I going to purchase land and space?
Emily: These ideas in your draft script of Queendom are rooted in the past but that seems the foot in the present—how to own land and space today.
Juhanna: The script will be in the past, maybe. The conversation of owning land and space is still very applicable in the present. Because while there seems to be so much advancement, one of the conversations that we had is can I be an artist? Can you be an artist unless you have the funds to create or the material resources to create? Someone asked me, how come you haven't thought about doing film or television? And I was like, well, you would need too much equipment to make that happen. Right? It's easier to write a play than it would be to create a television show. I don't have a camera or the skills to edit. I don't have a filming studio. I don't have this. I don't have that. So, television and film felt limiting, very limiting. A play requires imagination, a pad and pen.
Sayward: Filmmaking can be so precarious. You need so many people and resources, and it can all fall apart quickly.
Juhanna: Right? And so being here and thinking about the land and now seeing and knowing what 40 acres looks like and seeing how calm and centering this space is. I think if I was in the apartment in the city, I would have been like, “we're doing Queendom now because it has to happen now.” But when you have access to space you have time to plan things out in a very different way. There is time.
I don't want to make broad sweeping generalizations, but they often talk about, in Black culture, making something out of nothing. Right? The drive is you got to do it now, because you got the time and space and you’ve got to do it. There's no room for later because you committed resources and you just have this window of time and it's got to work. Versus being here I'm saying “you’ve got time.” You have time to apply for a grant, you have the space. The space isn't going anywhere. You have time to really hone the craft. And I think that is symbolic of just having space, it really shifts your mind and thinking about what is possible and what you have time to do.
Emily: Do you think that there's a need for that same supportive material in writing? Maybe it's not as visible or tangible as, say, a camera for television, but still necessary?
Juhanna: The land and space is allowing me to write in a different way. Queendom was not a project that was in the back of my mind. It emerged out of being here and thinking about what this symbolizes. The memoir that I’m also working on finally clicked in August and I was able to get some things down on paper. I think because I have room to take a deep breath and still my mind in some ways. Just be here. I think the foot in the present that I referred to before, is now that I know this, I have to own land. I mean, I knew that before. My grandfather said that that was very important. But writing Queendom I’m feeling the power of it, I think my understanding the significance of it is a lot clearer. It’s moving Queendom from only being about historical events to a continued quest, to the pursuit of something that never came to be. Before I was thinking, “I need to get a two-bedroom or a two-family property so I can afford it and maybe make a little bit of rent money.”
Sayward: Yes, I think it’s the difference of owning property as a practical investment versus owning to steward and make beauty.
Juhanna: Oh my God, the pressures of owning land! Did you choose the right neighborhood and all these things, and I was thinking about that, because my family did own properties. My grandfather did that work. So, I was just thinking about owning property, not actively pursuing it, because it seemed like so much responsibility, but at the same time thinking about it as a business. I think, stepping back, when people come here to the park and I tell them what I'm working on and we walk the space it is magical, a spiritual process. And in urban environments you can’t even own land. You can own your house, but you can’t own the land. There's limitations to what you can do, so where can you own land? I’m asking different questions and it will probably show up in my writing because my relationship to so many things are happening here.
Sayward: What kinds of questions or exploration are coming up for you around ownership, opportunity, and space/land?
Juhanna: I had this conversation yesterday and we're at a private club and they said, Juhanna become a member. And then another private club said, become a member. And I'm like, do y'all not get it? Like let's talk about the seven generations of trauma. When I say I'm from Newark where exactly do you think I'm coming from, right?
No, sir/ma’am, I have massive student debt. There's no joining social clubs. I think in the spirit of this conversation about space, people think “well Juhanna is all of these things and should belong in these spaces.” But that's not how this thing works. This is how systemic oppression works. I have gotten to where I am but opportunities to just enjoy success is limited. I am a first generation and that means resources remain limited.
This notion of having space is massive. Queendom is about what could happen. Having 40 acres today seems overwhelming. Maybe not 40 acres but maybe 5 or 6 or 10. How much is that going to cost? What bank is going to lend that money to me? Where could I fit? And what would my life look like on these 10 acres? My friend who wanted me to get bear spray has me thinking about circulation of dollars. Like I can spend money with maybe a woman-owned business here (in Cazenovia), but definitely not any businesses of color. So I'm like I have to buy the land but I would also have to open a store downtown!
Sayward: I think what you're getting at is that we can’t think about land as an object but rather land is a whole set of practices, people, and circumstances. Acquiring land or joining a social club doesn’t address the constellation of structures and people that make a space any of the things-- welcoming, unwelcoming, inclusive/exclusive, etc.
Emily: Any landscape or social club is more about systems and relationships and life. In a way those invitations to social clubs speak to a transactional relationship with land. So if you’re here it must be that you—
Juhanna: That you should want to be here. But what is it offering?
Like the idea of “good schools.” There’s this notion of what “good” means—that it is what folks of color should aspire to. But for those of us that are more conscious, I want to see people who look like me. I want to support businesses, multiple businesses, but I want to support businesses that are started by people that look like me, too, right? And in Cazenovia, I can only spend money outside of my community, right? This notion of having land and space, and the idea of some of the things that Queendom is getting at. The entrepreneurs in Queendom are there because they were being supported, they could create opportunities and they could thrive; they didn't have to go to other places. I think the question Queendom can kind of wrestle with is: What do these women entrepreneurs have dreams of doing? What could that cook with access to land and community create for themselves versus just being a cook? There’d still be this stratification because we live in a capitalistic system, but the spirit of Queendom is the power of what can be imagined.
The point is that being at the Art Park, thinking about land and access to space not only is helping me think artistically about what I’m producing, but also what I’m going to produce with the rest of my life.
About the Artist:
Dr. Juhanna Rogers is an author, playwright, director, and actress.
Her passion for dance, storytelling and the stage has cultivated performances that explore the intersections of Black life in the United States and the diaspora. As a native of Newark, New Jersey, growing up in a diverse and resource-rich environment, Dr. Rogers has a commitment to social justice, education, and the arts.
Her poetry was published in the Divine Feminist (anthology), and she makes regular appearances on the BronxNet and The Today Show speaking on the Black experience. In 2018, Dr. Rogers created and produced a web series, Behind the Woman, with Black Cub Productions. In 2019, the show was picked up and Juhanna became creator, executive producer, and host of Behind the Woman in partnership with WCNY/PBS.
Dr. Rogers is a contributing writer for various online blogs, offering commentary on Higher Education and the Black Woman’s experience. She is the author and director of A Gatherin’ Place, which was reviewed by critics as “... powerful… proves you don’t need to physically be inside the Archbold theater to have an engaging theatrical experience.” Dr. Rogers has also been an actress in the play, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” at Auburn Public Theatre. She was invited as an artist for a talkback regarding the play For Harriet at Syracuse Stage, and she was a performer for the series Poetry and Play.
Dr. Rogers earned a bachelor’s degree in Integrative Arts from Penn State University – Altoona. She earned her Master’s and Doctorate from Indiana University where she researched the racialized experiences of Black students and faculty and critical race theory. This research has informed her commitment to her performance of Black writing and playwriting.
In everything she does, Dr. Rogers encourages Black women and men to live out loud and unapologetically and ensures that authenticity shows up on stage.
Blog posts by Dr. Rogers
August 2021, "Walking into my Residency"
Stone Quarry Art Park’s Visiting Artist program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.