New Dialect

Hannah Emerson is a nonspeaking autistic poet,
whose poem “The Center of the Universe”
reads as an invocation
to act, to react, to be, to be again.
And again and again, within the poem, she repeats the line:
”yes, yes – please”.

21 times “yes”

Choreographer Banning Bouldin took the inspiration of Emerson’s poem into the studio, where she and four dancers created 21 Yeses, a work built by saying, Yes.

Throughout the work, the dancers wield hi-grade, wireless LED Titan Tubes as they move in and out of interlocking group sculptures and partnerships in a passionate choreography of affirmations—a choreography that simultaneously orchestrates the vibrant lighting design for the performance.

21 Yeses was originally commissioned by Tracey Ford, principal of EOA Architects, for an installation at Soho House Nashville during Nashville Design Week.

The work is currently being expanded into an evening-length theatrical production featuring new material interventions, along with novel lighting and production design by Michael Brown (Bon Iver).

performed by

Madison Brott
Lenin Fernandez
Emma Morrison
Shabaz Ujima

inspired by

 CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE
by Hannah Emerson

Please try to go
to hell frequently
because you will
find the light there

yes yes — please
try to kiss the ideas
that you find there
yes yes — please

try to get that
it is the center
of the universe
yes yes — please

try to help yourself
by kissing the hot hot
hot life that is born
there yes yes — please

try to yell in hell
yes yes — please
try to free yourself
by pouring yourself

into the gutter all
guttural guttural yell
yes yes yes — please
try to get that you

become the being
that you came there
to be yes yes — please
try to go to the great

great great fire that you
created because you
become the light
that the fire makes

inside of you
yes yes — please
try to kiss yourself
for going there

yes yes — please
get that you are
reborn there
yes yes — please

begin your day

Produced by New Dialect

21 Yeses was originally commissioned by Tracey Ford in association with EOA Architects and Tonya Lewis

The creative rehearsal residency for 21 Yeses at Centennial Performing Arts Studios was supported, in part, by federal award number SLFRP5534
awarded to the State of Tennessee by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.