Director’s Note for “PASSING STRANGE,” presented by UNC School of the Arts

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

“If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real they’re real for you whether they’re real or not.” ~James Baldwin

What I miss most about childhood is neither the lack of responsibility nor the innocence (that morphs into despair as you learn about the atrocities humans have inflicted on other humans throughout the history of man). I miss living with an open heart. Though I can’t recall the moment I finally learned that my survival depended on my ability to keep my heart safe from harm, it was a lesson that I had to encounter time and time again before that wall was complete and strong enough to withstand the elements.

If you are a living being in the year 2022, you have been traumatized. There is the collective trauma of a worldwide epidemic that came with COVID-19, especially for those that lost family or friends. Yet this shared sense of loss has not brought us closer together. Add to that the advancement of technology that gives us the power to instantly connect to people all over the world, while simultaneously making it more and more difficult to connect to the people with whom we share space. As time presses on, we seem to get further and further away from our shared humanity. We are engulfed in global despair- a pandemic of isolation.

We are all in need of healing. Yet, there is a shared trauma that is unique to the experience of Black Americans in this country, particularly Black men like me. Our healing must address the fact that we are universally feared. When the Youth in Passing Strange lands in Amsterdam, he exclaims, “The kind of place I want to be is where no one?s cold or scared of me.” Even now, I am unable to describe what it is like to be feared everywhere I go, and how that fear keeps others from seeing me as I am. What I can say is that I understand that the fear isn’t mine. I also understand how their fear of me led me to fear myself.

From seventh grade until the completion of graduate school, my education took place in predominantly white spaces. This has continued as I stepped into the role of educator. There are some truths that have become evident to me in places of higher education like UNCSA. In these spaces, my intelligence becomes a threat. My kindness is typically overlooked, while my confidence becomes arrogance. Despite my years learning and training so that I might earn my seat at the table, the message is repeatedly sent that I do not belong.

My first day on campus at UNCSA was the day before classes started in the fall semester. On this day, I was detained and interrogated by campus police, who stopped me because a student called saying I was suspicious. The accessories that would otherwise explain my presence were turned into evidence that I was a threat. My khaki colored shorts were suspicious. My backpack. My face mask. Even the white bag that contained a few shirts I picked up at Goodwill on my way to campus was reported as suspicious. Worst of all, I was wearing shades that often become necessary for me because of my eyes’ sensitivity to light. After an excruciating ordeal I was allowed to exit campus, carrying a traumatic episode that resurfaces every time I see campus police or pass by their building.

How real is Passing Strange? Is it autobiographical? How real are the stories we create about each other? How real is your pain? What is real? What is real for me, and something I believe I share with the show’s creator Stew, is my belief that art has the capacity to heal. This is a requirement for anything I direct. If it does not facilitate the possibility of healing, particularly within the Black community, I can’t do it. I write this while sitting across from the Lorraine Motel in Memphis where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. His sacrifice paved the way for me and it is my obligation to do the same, in my way, for those that might follow in my footsteps. I aim to never take an opportunity for granted, and this is no exception. It was a privilege to have led this incredible collaboration of artists, so that we might offer the students of UNCSA something real.

Christopher Burris

3/10/2022