Memories of the Little Elephant
A little girl, named for the memory of the elephant, tells her life story, and thus the story of African peoples from where it truly begins--the beginning of time! Her memory stretches back as far as the stars, to the movement of her family across the globe, to the building of great civilizations, and onto her journey across the Atlantic. "Memories of the Little Elephant" weaves centuries of time into one seamless story and builds self-esteem through cultural identity.
The Appropriation of Blackness
Living Objects: African American Puppetry Academic Essay. Originally Published by the University of Connecticut
The continuing appropriation of Black culture in the U.S. is closely tied to the trauma and injustice of the African diaspora and the history of slavery. Black people, Amenii argues, need to re-appropriate themselves, through the “excavating and re-articulating of our intellectual heritage and knowledge systems.” Citing Ahmad Azzahir’s description of African modes of thinking as “based on spirituality, symbol, mythos, and harmonium,” she sees her own work as “creative anthropology” that draws on storytelling and image-making to create self-study. Her production Food for the Gods, “a multi-media performance installation created in response to the killings of Black Men by police and other institutions of authority,” consciously includes a non-Black ensemble, so that its subject can be seen as a global issue.