Be Holding

Written by Ross Gay - composed by Tyshawn Sorey - directed by Brooke O’Harra - musical ensemble Yarn/Wire,

Video Installation Design by Matthew Deinhart - Content Creation by Catching on Thieves - Lighting Design by Itohan Edoloyi - Sound Design by Eugene Lew

Production Description:

Be Holding is a large scale performance based on the book-length poem of the same name by Ross Gay. Inspired by Philadelphia basketball champion Julius “Dr. J” Erving, Be Holding explores themes of Black genius and beauty in the face of racial violence and inequities.

Be Holding is a moving and visceral poem that speaks to the urgencies of this moment. Gay describes it as a poem “a poem that meditates, very slowly, on this tiny, impossibly beautiful moment of black flight, black genius, black beauty—and the meditation maybe is a specific mode of intentional looking (and wondering) in the midst of or as an alternative to what might be common ways of looking at, imagining, confining, black life. I guess I’m wondering about the common violence involved in looking at black people, the commodification of that violent looking, and, truly and deeply and aspirationally I’m wondering about the ways we might look tenderly and lovingly at one another, how we hold one another, how we might be holding one another, how we are beholden to one another.  That, I think, is the poem’s question.  Among a few other things! The poem’s in conversation with (beholden to) not only the Dr. J move, but also the work of Carrie Mae Weems, Christina Sharpe, Kevin Quashie, Fred Moten, Saidiya Hartman, Aracelis Girmay, Patrick Rosal, Amiri Baraka, Allen Iverson, and definitely lots (and lots) of other people.” 

Video of the performance can be seen here. (Be Holding at Girard College 2023)

Photos courtesy of Ryan Collerd