About the Project
My name is Marie Inniss, and welcome to a snippet of my brain. During my sophomore year of college, I took a Black Studies history course entitled “Creating Ourselves: Black Women’s History Through Food and Literature.” In this course, we read novels, memoirs, and cookbooks written by Black women and put together their stories from short looks into moments in their lives. Our final assignment was to write a “creation story” using a family recipe or otherwise important food item in our lives through which we could tell our stories. I really didn’t understand until then what the class had been about. It was not about learning the specifics of each of the Black women on our syllabus and committing their stories to memory. It was about using those stories to understand how we could tell our own. My name is Marie Inniss. I am twenty-one years old. I do not know what I will do with my life, or even where the next six months will lead me, but I do know this: I am a Black woman. That is, undoubtedly, the most important fact about me. I am finding pieces of myself in Yemaya, goddess of the sea, and in Oshun, who, for me, symbolizes fire and passion. I see pieces of my mother in Maya Angelou’s vulnerability through strength, and pieces of my father in Toni Morrison’s multitude of stories containing pain, suffering, but also, love, power, joy. I catch glimpses of all these people and more in my ancestors, and am discovering ancestors in people who were not necessarily related to me, who shared elements of my journey. This one-Black-Woman show, Sweet Melodies & Salty Air, is my creation story. It is not perfect, and it is not finished, because I am not perfect, and I am not finished. But it finds the magic in my ancestors, in my goddesses, and in myself, through music, poetry, dance, and story.
Learn More at marieinniss.com
Production Team
