You Gotta Know It is a durational, moving meditation on Black collectivity, labor, and joy. Spanning the seven-hour period of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago's open hours, I performed the eighteen-step version of the line dance known as the Electric Slide with dancers ruby onyinyechi amanze, Holly Bass, and Jennifer Ligaya. You Gotta Know It uses the shared choreography of the Electric Slide to explore the labor and joy of being in community. The performance was accompanied by a constantly shifting soundscape, created by Elise Hernandez, which included music from across the Black diaspora, poetry, pop culture sound bites, and ambient noise. Visitors were invited to join the performance for as long as they wish over the course of the day.
You Gotta Know It was presented as part of Chicago Performs, the MCA’s annual weekend of groundbreaking new performances by Chicago artists organized by Tara Aisha Willis, Curator, with Laura Paige Kyber, Curatorial Assistant.