Artist Thomas Allen Harris on Black Gay Identity

http://www.advocate.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/Art/Artist_Thomas_Allen_Harris_on_Black_Gay_Identity/


Filmmaker and artist Thomas Allen Harris

The varied issues of Africans and African-Americans is the point of "AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange," an innovative series that airs on the documentary channel WORLD and is hosted by The Daily Show's Wyatt Cenak. Each episode is really a full-length documentary telling a different story, from the effort to get Africans hooked on solar energy to a profile on the queen of Calypso music. Sunday's episodic film, That's My Face, is directed by Thomas Allen Harris, a prolific gay artist and producer who's shown work at the Whitney Biennial and won Guggenheim and Sundance fellowships. Harris spoke to us about his Brazilian-based film, his childhood in Africa, and some of the projects he's working on through his company, Chimpanzee Productions.

The Advocate: Can you talk about "AfroPoP" and your film in it?
Harris: "AfroPoP" is a series being produced by the National Black Programming Consortium, a part of the minority consortium of PBS. They’ve had this series for the last three years where they pick a certain number of films for the show. This year there are four different films, and my film, That’s My Face, is one of them. (Click here to find out where "AfroPoP" is airing near you.)

In the movie, I go to the Bahia region of Brazil. I was looking for another way of experiencing myself, kind of like a spiritual journey that Gertrude Stein and James Baldwin had when they went to Europe. I lived in Europe and knew what that was like, so I went to Brazil. I was looking for what being black in the Americas was like outside of the U.S. Brazil has more African-Brazilians than the U.S. has African-Americans. It’s also been interesting to me because I partly grew up in East Africa. The Black-Brazilians were able to keep a lot more of their African roots through language and, most importantly, through religion. I was very intrigued by their religious practices, some of which are very welcoming to gays and lesbians. It’s very different than what you hear in the press about what’s going in regards to the persecution of gays and lesbians in Africa.

Had you been to Bahia before?
I had been there before so I had experienced it. The time I went to make That’s My Face was the beginning of December. From December all the way to February in the south coast of Bahia are all these public festivals that are inspired by these African deities and also Carnivale. I was really doing my search in the middle of all this spectacular stuff. These Bahia festivals are very different than the Carnivale in Rio. The latter is sort of a show and the Carnivale in Bahia takes over the whole city—all the shops close, with the exception of places selling beer and food. It becomes a whole different world. Everything was sped up during the festival because the drums play all the night. In Brazil, the drums weren’t outlawed when Africans were brought over, like they were in the U.S. So people in the U.S. weren’t able to pass on certain aspects of religion and communication. The drum is an important part of religious expression. Through the drums, people start dancing and enter this trance. It’s transformative, and you’ll see that in the film.