Spoken Word! @ Listening Tree presents:

Christopher Johnson workshop and performance of

Invoice for Emotional Labor

Spunk up your March with a workshop and performance by Providence-based spoken word artist Christopher Johnson. He'll guide and teach folks how to create and perform spoken word pieces for the day-long workshop, then perform his own piece, Invoice for Emotional Labor, Saturday evening, Mar. 28 in Chepachet, RI.

Johnson's work is electrifying, awakening, and may well change the way you see the world and your place in it. Come if you want to better understand how to respond to your calling to heal the wounds of race in America, by hearing Johnson perform Invoice for Emotional Labor. Then pay up--or take it in--or pay it forward. This is what reparations looks like.

“Invoice for Emotional Labor” is planned to be a multi discipline solo performance answering the asked and not so obvious unasked questions about race and racism from the perspective of poet and 2018 McColl Johnson finalist and RISCA Playwright fellow Christopher Johnson. The lexicon of race in matters of social justice has been rapidly evolving over the last 3-5 years, the responsibility of explaining phenomena like micro aggression, black face, and what is considered racist, has fallen upon the shoulders of people of color. Being a person of color answering these questions while dealing with racism in daily life is draining and repeatedly opening or enlarging psychological wounds. The process of caring for those wounds while continuing to explain, clarify and teach about one’s existence is emotional labor.