Border/Clash: A Litany of Desires

The Culture Project presents the one-woman play Border/Clash: A Litany of Desires, written and performed by acclaimed poet/performance artist Staceyann Chin. Rob Urbinat directs.

As a member of the original cast of the TONY Award winning Def Poetry Jam, Staceyann set Broadway ablaze with her powerful performance.
Border/Clash: A Litany of Desires is an autobiographical portrait of a woman evolving. From her Jamaican upbringing, we see a young girl negotiating family ties as she struggles with abandonment and rejection all the while grappling with the misadventures of coming of age. In blunt and wistful prose, Staceyann opens and examines the wounds and rapture of adolescence. As a political voice takes root and a sexual identity solidifies, the play moves to the colored lights and harsh realities of New York. In this new world, a performance persona emerges. She discovers a voice in sensual lyricism and slam activism as she tears into poems with a pulsing physicality. In this telling, a woman surfaces ­ “broken in places, but whole in most” ­ rejoicing in the journey and ready to navigate the challenges she knows will come.