The Historical Fantasy of Esek Hopkins is an original activist dance opera + album + curriculum + historical intervention, serving as the creative container for our historic intervention at the National Historic Site dedicated to Esek Hopkins, commander of the slavery ship “Sally.” This project comes from community, from our elders, from our youth, from the soil, from the ocean, from the wind, and from the embers. We don’t just want to exist. We want to live. Change isn’t about forgetting. It’s about remembering.
Why is there a middle school named after Hopkins full of brilliant Black & Brown children down the street? Why is his house, a symbol of white supremacy, worth preserving when it could be transformed into a more care-centered space? What does it mean for our Queer BiPOC Family to be living, creating, and healing here? What is the relationship between the individual human body, and our collective body? Our movement project to occupy Esek Hopkins former home embodies a legacy to refuse complicity, refuse oppression, and refuse silence.
Land acknowledgement: Land of the Pequots, the Nipmucs, the Niantics, the Narragansetts, and the Wampanoag
Estimated artist fee: $25,000/performance; $60,000/week