Jennifer Joy Jameson, Program Manager
December 4, 2020

ACTA Apprenticeship Program Manager Jennifer Joy Jameson speaks to Bay Area mentor artist Rhodessa Jones and her 2020 ACTA apprentice Uzo Nwankpa about how their storytelling apprenticeship unfolded under the new conditions of COVID-19.

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Uzo Nwankpa shares at a storytelling ritual with The Medea Project. Photo: Dashiell Merrick-Kammis.

Rhodessa Jones of San Francisco, is an actress, teacher, singer, and writer rooted in an African-American storytelling tradition, and the co-artistic director of the San Francisco-based theater company Cultural Odyssey and the founding director of the Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women, which brings performance workshops to incarcerated women and women living with HIV. In 2020, Rhodessa is working with apprentice Uzo Nwankpa, now of San Pablo, and originally from Enugu, Nigeria. Uzo is a dance and theater artist, educator, researcher, and advocate for healing through indigenous cultures.

The focus of their apprenticeship is to deepen Uzo’s practice in the skills of autobiographic storytelling. The techniques include the deepening and discovery of encouraged self-expression and healing techniques through storytelling. It also incorporates the use of physical theater, use of movement with text, use of dream diaries and performance ritual. Throughout the course of their apprenticeship, and during COVID-19 pandemic adaptations that moved most of their work together online via Zoom, Rhodessa and Uzo, who is also a healthcare professional, centered their work within a context of storytelling as a mental health and healing modality.

“All of this storytelling work is healthcare work.” —Uzo Nwankpa

Rhodessa Jones.

For them, their work together morphed beautifully; they met frequently on Zoom and in person, for walk-and-talks, laughed, cried about the current conditions, and pushed through the particular challenges that 2020 brought, including a national reckoning over police brutality and systemic racial injustice, with the death of George Floyd and many others. Rhodessa shared that “working with Uzo is part of my healing for the planet and my reward for hanging in there.”

During their lessons, Rhodessa taught Uzo how important it is to including writing as part of her storytelling practice. Rhodessa would give Uzo a prompt like: “Where does the fire come from? What makes you burn? What do you want to bury? What will take you through the portal? What do you want to let go of?” Uzo explained that “Rhodessa is a space-holder in a very non-judgmental way; she will start with herself and spill all the beans!”

I asked Rhodessa, “What do you hope and see for Uzo [as a practitioner]?” She said Uzo will become an amazing teacher and healer: “She’s got that kind of intelligence, and that’s what she’s moving towards. I’m watching her flower, and I so appreciate it. I foresee her stepping out in new ways, and maybe in connection with healing and movement. She’s going to make major jumps – a healing artist. A major storyteller. She has a gift that speaks to the lives of younger women in the culture. They’re waiting for her to come.”

 

Story Telling Ritual in a Pandemic: An outdoor social distanced workshop led by Rhodessa Jones and Uzo Nwankpa for The Medea Projects Theater for Incarcerated Women / HIV Circle program. All photos by Dashiell Merrick-Kammis.

Story Telling Ritual in a Pandemic: An outdoor social distanced workshop led by Rhodessa Jones and Uzo Nwankpa for The Medea Projects Theater for Incarcerated Women / HIV Circle program. All photos by Dashiell Merrick-Kammis.

Story Telling Ritual in a Pandemic: An outdoor social distanced workshop led by Rhodessa Jones and Uzo Nwankpa for The Medea Projects Theater for Incarcerated Women / HIV Circle program. All photos by Dashiell Merrick-Kammis.

Story Telling Ritual in a Pandemic: An outdoor social distanced workshop led by Rhodessa Jones and Uzo Nwankpa for The Medea Projects Theater for Incarcerated Women / HIV Circle program. All photos by Dashiell Merrick-Kammis.

Story Telling Ritual in a Pandemic: An outdoor social distanced workshop led by Rhodessa Jones and Uzo Nwankpa for The Medea Projects Theater for Incarcerated Women / HIV Circle program. All photos by Dashiell Merrick-Kammis.

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