Shapeshifting and Untold Possibilities
Ty Defoe
In my last post, highlighting the Native American philosophy called seven generations, award-winning playwright, actor, activist, choreographer, and hoop dancer Ty Defoe used the word “shapeshifter” to refer to not going from point A to B in a linear fashion, but to find ways in which things intersect and transcend forms—from moment to moment. For Defoe, shapeshifting is essentially how one moves through and experiences the world. Defoe uses shape-shifting through his art and social activism to challenge “formulas of privilege” and bring unheard voices to the table.
These ways of identifying are only parts of me, but as I move through the world, I find that I can’t take off my identities like a jacket and simply hang them in the closet. They are interwoven, and in creating any theatre that has verisimilitude or humanity, I must lean into the intersection of identities.
—Ty Defoe
The notion of shapeshifting—metamorphosizing from one shape to another to change your circumstance and accomplish an end—is intriguing. In folklore and mythology, shapeshifting is typically accomplished through magical spells, magic powers of a talisman, or divine intervention. Sometimes, it’s the innate gift of the entity to be able to transform at will, like Mistique in X-Men or Grace in Black Lightning—bringing out a particular strength or skill to confront the challenge at hand.
Me, channeling modeling icon, Beverly Johnson
Defoe inspired me to think of shapeshifting in relation to identity. I identify fully as a woman, mother, wife, business owner and coach, daughter, sister, producer, and facilitator. I partially identify as a singer, writer, speaker, dancer, poet, and probably a litany of other things I’ve had an inclination to become.
What halts the immersion into these other spaces of identity? So many things …
When we are young, we imagine and reimagine ourselves in a myriad of ways. We move easily in play from one identity to the next—I visioned myself a dancer, an archeologist, a psychologist, a writer, an actress, a singer, a historian, an anthropologist, and model (see classic pre-teen model pose above). Then somewhere along the way we lose that multi-dimensionality when expectations and other’s perceptions take hold. We relegate ourselves to a primarily singular focus and the playful layers fall way. Our identity becomes limited—who we can be and what we can do.
The Flow of Becoming
Deep Space Nine — Odo and the Female Changeling
I’ve been a Star Trek fan for decades and remembered the Changelings from the Deep Space Nine series. Odo and the Female Changeling come from The Link (their home planet). With a natural state that is a gelatinous substance, Changelings have the ability to shift into anything they desire. Odo opted to live and work with humans, and as such, had to create a humanoid identity to fit in and function. With some resentment, Odo struggles to form his identity. The Female Changeling queries him about the identity he has assumed:
"When you return to The Link, what will become of the entity I'm talking to right now?
The drop becomes the ocean.
And if you choose to take solid form again?
The ocean becomes a drop."– Odo and the Female Changeling, ("Behind the Lines")
So, if we move away from mythology and sci-fi, and take a page from Ty Defoe’s perspective of non-linearity, the idea of shapeshifting can be viewed as the ebb and flow of becoming. Our shifts emanate from a state of knowing—understanding who we are and what we have to contribute to the world.
Artists Wrestling with Identity
Conceptual artist Glenn Ligon examines race, culture, and social identity through his paintings and sculptures. In his “Self-Portrait Exaggerating My Black Features and Self-Portrait Exaggerating MY White Features,” Ligon uses identical images for each self-portrait, effectively underscoring the illusion of race. Like a magician’s sleight of hand in a card trick, Ligon has us looking for the differences in the Black and white versions, only for us to quickly realize that we are looking in vain.
When people would tell him that his work is about his Black identity, Ligon would respond by saying, “That’s not a well that you just dip in and drink from.” His statement speaks to the complexities, interplay, and interdependence of who we are in the process of becoming—just like the drop and the ocean.
Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson in Rebecca Hall’s Passing
In the upcoming black-and-white film Passing, based on the novel of the same name by Nella Larsen, director Rebecca Hall plumbs the complications and often heart-wrenching decisions of Black people who pass for white, as her grandfather did. Sourcing the motivations, Hall says that identity is “the cross-section of the story we tell about ourselves, and the one society puts on us.” Our identities are multi-layered. Hall submits that when you become too rigid about who you think you ought to be, you turn into a powder keg.
If we perhaps thought in terms of roles or functions, instead of being locked into an explicit identity, we could more easily shift without the fear and anxiety that we will disappoint ourselves or face the dismissal or outright rejection of others.
Our magic is the ability to continually redefine who we are and what gifts to express next. When we grant that creativity to ourselves, we in turn gift it to others. Our capacity to move into and through unlimited identities and roles is a superpower to enrich our perspectives and our kaleidoscope of possibility.
