Diasporic Dissolving

Abstract This essay wanders with and wonders about forms of diasporic dissolving in the works of Black artists identifying with the African American, Caribbean, and Afro-European diaspora. Dissolving is a material and metaphorical process suggested here to name a possible encounter with Black sound when we allow improvisation in our listening practice. Thinking alongside the idea of im/possibility as a trope shaping and shaped by Black sonic itineraries, the research aims to amplify understandings of improvisation and joy in selected examples of sound poetry, music theater, and dance productions by artists including Tracie Morris, Charlene Jean, and Oxana Chi. In response to this special issue's call for improvisational forms of scholarship demanded by Black sound's slipperiness, the author offers an experimental encounter with performance studies methodologies, informed by her own musical practice as a saxophone player. Asking how sonic interventions transform our perception of and relation to space, time, and listening, the project centers discourses and practices that value and validate possibilities to transform society in, with, and through the subtlety of Black sounds.