Performance, A Family Affair

May 2, 2025

I first wrote “The Harlem Nocturne” over 11 years ago to connect and embody a part of my family’s history that served as a place of community, creative independence, and great joy, or as my family would say “fun”, for Black performers. But, before I learned about The Harlem Nocturne or Bamboula or Sepia Players and the larger social context of Canadian history in which those existed within: Thelma and Lenoard Gibson, Ernie and Marcella King were simply my aunts and uncles, and a part of our larger family. Aunty Thelma aka “Tudda” was whose home I grew up going to for my mom’s dance practice on the weekends, and whose basement was filled with beautiful things to look at and touch—colourful skirts and big straw hats that I would hide within during my brother and cousins' games of hide and seek while our parents drummed and danced. He was my Uncle Len who told me stories about meeting famous people on set and always did his show-stopping splits late into his 70s during our annual family Thanksgiving performance. Whenever we all got together you knew that you had to come prepared with something to perform—a poem, song, dance, speech, something! Performing was tradition in our family, and I grew up seeing it as very ordinary, communal, and so much “fun”. Now, with great pleasure I get to spend time within my family’s archive, preserving these memories—this culture—that in so many ways have impacted my sense of identity and belonging to not only this family, but also this place, Vancouver.