Moyetaje. Black poems for what awaits us by Yaissa Jiménez

Within the framework of the cycle Colonial Memory II. Tuning in to the whispers, directed by Andrea Pacheco González and Yeison F. García López, the museum is presenting a poetic performance by Yaissa Jiménez entitled Moyetaje. Black poems for what awaits us.  

The action unfolds as a gesture of collective reparation through oral poetry: a body of Black poems for what awaits us, poems that do not announce but rather sharpen; that do not explain but rather synchronise our pulse in the face of what comes to dismantle our presence, our protest, our path. From an oral tradition imbued with Caribbean Blackness, the migrant experience and neighbourhood memory, these texts move like high-altitude signals, a gentle yet ever-present warning. They do not seek definitive answers, but rather aim to open a space of awareness in which language becomes a tool of everyday resistance, a way of confronting the political, social and emotional harshness of the present. 

This performance was presented in New York with the participation of dancer Carmen Morillo and percussionist JBlak, a practitioner of Dominican Santería, whose artistic practices manifest his Afro spirituality and deep commitment to a way of life where capital does not define the value of existence. In this encounter the poems serve as a sample of what Dominican moytaje offers as part of life and the range of possibilities that Afro-descent has bequeathed: a living knowledge that is not always readily apparent and which must be recorded and recognised as our own. An inheritance that still belongs to us and allows us to live each day not only with joy, but also with laughter, playfulness, courage, seriousness, and all that it means to fully inhabit the experience of being dark-skinned human beings, kissed by the loving mother, Life.