Minutes into Billy Hawkains III’s film “By Fire,” and the pulsating rhythmic beat from the bongo and conga and the polyrhythmic sounds from the organ and high cymbals make you want to, well, dance. But then, that’s the point.
Hawkains, a dancer and choreographer, knows that the body wasn’t meant to be stagnant. “I see everything as dance – walking, swaying,” he says. He’s particularly fascinated by what he sees, and saw growing up, in the Black church.
“When I see people in church moving and shouting, my mind goes to dance,” he says. “’I do that in class,’ I say to myself.”
Those experiences inspired Hawkains’ MFA thesis project, the original choreo-graphed piece “By Fire.” What would have been an in-person dance production, required of all UNCG MFA candidates, moved to film due to the pandemic. But Hawkains didn’t see the shift to celluloid as settling.
“There are certain restrictions in a live performance that you can overcome with film,” he says. “The camera can take you closer in on the body as it moves. You can see the facial expressions, the hands. You can see all around the body.”
“By Fire” examines how the body can operate “as a vessel of transformation,” Hawkains says. He began the work by conducting historical research on the roots of physical movement as part of Black worship.
“I was highly focused on looking at Black bodies in the Southern Black church. Our bodies are a very important part of the service. The way that we sway and jump and clap and even sweat is important. Other churches aren’t like this – it’s tied to our history.”
In his studies, he found the ring shout, which was indigenous to much of Central and West Africa and practiced on plantations by slaves in the Southern United States and beyond. “They would form a circle, and, using their bodies as percussive instruments, they would bring their bodies to a moment of exhaustion. Through call and response, dancing, shaking, clapping, the body began to transform. It opened them up to something greater than themselves. It was something they could pour themselves into.”
It was also a way to remember home and deal with slavery’s brutality, Hawkains says. “They used their bodies as a form of resistance and perseverance. They are fighting for freedom. They leave with burdens lifted off their shoulders – because the Black body carries so much.”
