She's Got Next: Rha Goddess

RHA GODDESS BELIEVES in empowering people — and be it by analyzing cultural taboos, shattering societal misconceptions or breaking down barriers, she's doing it. With an upcoming interactive dialogue ("Who Got Next?") and performance ("LOW: Meditations Trilogy Part 1") at the University of Maryland, the artist and playwright wants you in on the action, too.

"I think, in terms of the interactive dialogue of 'Who Got Next?,' my hope is that people are looking very squarely at themselves: 'Where does this live in me?', 'What is my opportunity?', 'Where does my leadership potential lie in the midst of this?', 'How can I begin to transform my own reality?'" Goddess said. "And I think for people who walk out of 'LOW,' it's also a conversation of empowerment as it relates to the issue: 'Where am I in relation to this issue?,' 'Do I care?,' "Are there other people in my family who this affects?,' 'Does this affect me?,' 'Even if [the result is] as basic as talking with the people in my life about what I experience, what do I want to do about that?'"

"Who Got Next?" will be a conversation on the role of women in mainstream American culture, while "LOW" is a 75-minute solo piece focused on the single character of Lowquesha, a young woman who journeys through the hardships of the mental health system.

"Young women really need to be posed to be the next wave of social, political and educational and environmental leadership; I think it's crucial they be invested, and I don't think it's something we're necessarily talking about, but we need to talk about," Goddess said. "There are 30 million [18- to 25-year-old] women in this country, and that landscape is vast and diverse and incredible, and we're not talking to them unless we're selling lip gloss and blue jeans [and] Britney Spears' meltdowns. It's like, so what about that? Thirty million voices, does that count? I hope so!"

The conversation sparked in "Who Got Next?" won't be all negative, Goddess said. In fact, she wants to bring issues to the forefront and then actively find ways to solve them, with a focus on how women can lead themselves instead of relying on others and "the politics of pretty."

"I think it's going to be an interactive dialogue. ... When we women come together, we talk about how we're victimized, but we don't talk about how we're working to transform it or our desire to transform it," Goddess added. "And we don't talk about our own personal struggles; we talk about 'their' or 'them' and 'we,' we don't get to pull the armor down and talk about, 'This is how I'm struggling.' We talk a lot about how we need to work on the outside, but we don't really give concrete opportunities to talk about how we can work on the inside. We sort of just say, 'Women need to have better self-esteem or women need to love themselves,' and that's the end of the conversation. I'm interested in picking up where that conversation leaves off."

That kind of problem-solving mentality is also what inspired Goddess to write "LOW," which premiered at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in 2006. But she began writing the piece years before, during a time when she was hit again and again by personal hardship.

"The impetus for creating the work was really for me a period in my life that culminated in a number of people in my family being severely diagnosed with mental illness, and it culminated with the suicide of a dear friend and mentor, and you know, he died a really horrible death, and I found that the community had no capacity to talk about it," Goddess said. "We didn't want to talk about the fact that he was suffering and no one knew. We didn't want to talk about the fact that he killed himself. We didn't want to talk about how he killed himself. As much as it felt very personal to me, that coming on the heels of the people in my family and friends being diagnosed, I got really close in realizing this was an epidemic, and we no real capacity to talk about it."

The experience led Goddess to write a poem, "How Do You Spell Relief?," which helped her create the script for "LOW." The next three years were spent in research and development, with Goddess conducting in-depth interviews and crafting a piece that was part autobiographical, part documentary. After completing it, Goddess traveled the country, presenting excerpts in different communities and using audiences' feedback to help craft the piece.

After receiving positive reviews from both critics and audiences — especially from people who told Goddess the piece inspired them to "come out around their own status of mental health or what's been happening in their families," fulfilling her intention — Goddess has continued to perform the piece for the last two years. And since "LOW" is the first part of a trilogy, Goddess hopes to tackle two more "pressing social issues" with the next two installments of the series.

Until then, however, Goddess plans to keep performing "LOW" and helping people learn more about how our society views — and judges — the issue of mental health. And though the piece — a mix of music, poetry and prose that is infused with a hip-hop sensibility — is intense to perform, Goddess said that sense of purpose keeps her going.

"People ask me all the time afterward, 'You must be exhausted!' and it's like, 'Yes, right,'" Goddess says with a laugh. "It's like, yes, it's a very painful piece to do, but there are moments of extreme laughter, and there's something about life, when even when it's dark, it can be very funny, and it has to do with the authenticity of the moment or the truth of the moment or just the way we can find humor as a force of survival. It's all kind of in there. And my commitment, every time I step on the stage, is to really surrender to the story, and really just allow myself to be utilized, to be the story."

» "Who Got Next?" will be performed at the Nyumburu Cultural Center, University of Maryland, College Park. "LOW: Meditations Trilogy Part 1" will be performed at the Robert and Arlene Kogod Studio Theatre at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland, College Park. "Who Got Next?" will be performed Mon., Oct. 13, 7 p.m.; free. "LOW" will be performed Wed., Oct. 15, through Fri., Oct. 17, 8 p.m.; $7 for UMD students, $35 for non-students. 301-405-2787. (College Park).

Written by Express contributor Roxana Hadadi
Photos courtesy Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center