Hair as Performance Art & Sacred Ritual for the African Descendant
By Victoria Editor
Where hair-styling is regarded as a means of self-expression, hair maintenance is then a sacred ritual. For descendants of African ancestry, hair has historically been an extension of beauty and an indicator of status through the ages.
Sacred Ritual
“Don’t Touch My Hair” (2016)
Solange Knowles proclaimed the sanctity of black hair on A Seat at the Table (2016) with the somnolent yet rich track “Don’t Touch My Hair.” Hair as a metaphor for the Black femme’s reality conveys the importance of respecting and honoring her existence. Through 19th-century daguerrotypes, sumptuary law, and heirloom practice, we understand the history behind the politicization, commodification, and cultural significance of both maintaining and styling black hair that inspired this song and the eponymous social movement that preceded it. Historically, black femmes and girls’ hair has been considered inherently unkempt resulting in cultural styles being barred in the corporate world, alienation in the beauty industry, and even the disruption of learning in educational spaces by racist administration.
“This is a personal moment, a glimpse into another level of reality.”
For some ancient tribes, there was a belief that hair could assist with divine communication. Thus, styling was only entrusted to female relatives within the community for fear of misfortune befalling them at the hands of an enemy. In the 2017 memoir My Soul Looks Back, Jessica B. Harris recounts the day she visited the late poet Maya Angelou while she was having her hair done for a speaking event. This moment triggered youthful memories of having one’s hair straightened by a matriarch using the dreaded hot comb first popularized in 19th-century America. Like blood ties, black femmes with various texture types share a lived experience through the intimacy of hair styling. We have watched our friends cautiously tilt their heads as the hiss of a steaming metal comb heated on a gas range stove and patted on a dampened cloth threatens the ear. A moment of vulnerability, we are viewing the reality of one’s naturalness, the side of them that they never reveal outside of the comfort of their home—and no, this experience has not just been reserved for femmes.
As displayed in Léon Bonnat’s black/homo-Orientalist painting The Barber of Suez , we are invited into a tender moment as two male-bodied individuals quietly perform a grooming ritual. This work evokes a sense of safety and brings to mind the trust that the contemporary black man holds for his barber and his loyalty to their respective ‘shop. The black hair salon/barbershop holds its place as a community center and pillar in this sacred ritual. The space has withstood the test of time as a designation for round table discussions, news dissemination, pop culture debates, and a mental reprieve from the stress of work and home. Even if in a superficial sense, black hair stylists are treated as therapists and the establishment, a healing ground.
Performance Art
Solange Knowles
photographed by Carlota Guerro
Aside from the negativity and intolerance surrounding black hair, these styles are, above all, beguiling performances. This mane exhibition has been made possible through the use of essential and antiquated tools like hot combs, picks, and relaxers to construct a stage equipped with props such as semi-opaque beads, earthy cowrie shells, and gilded wire to up the drama. West Africans would weave the family’s silver coins, bone, mother-of-pearl buttons, and other decorations into intricate patterns to conduct spells. Black-Americans have adopted this spiritual tradition and used it as another creative platform. Graphic designer and rapper Magnus Juliano stunned Instagram users when he modeled colorful 3D printed beads inspired by the iconic Louis Vuitton monogram and the resurgence of the Dapper Dan bespoke aesthetic. His appropriation of the French luxury giant’s archival code is his way of “honoring the past.”
“African-American roots are rich in hair jewelry and headdress—it’s our fabric.”
Magnus Juliano photographed by Mystic Gooden (2018)
The cultural weight of hair styling for black people is translated in myriad ways including fine art, religious practice, and competition across nationalities. Black-American cosmetologists helmed hair shows, where artists showcase their best styles on a runway with over-the-top embellishments, jaw-dropping lengths and heights, and dramatic makeup looks. The South African photographer Zanele Muholi’s lifelong work is an ode to the ancestors as she venerates them wearing locs strung with wooden beads, coils twisted with metallic clips, and stalactite strands spiked toward the heavens with bi-color spears in her self-portraits. In church, the performance calls upon elaborate hats to make a statement.
What we simply call “church hats” may have been a diffusion of the tignon law legacy of the 18th century. Afro-Créole women fashionably knotted their turbans to cover hair deemed “excessive” and threatening to white women’s sensibility. It is also born of a traditionalist view extracted from the Bible where covering one’s hair for church is considered “preserving one’s glory” (1 Corinthians 11:15). While most associated with the 20th century, notable conservative women of the present day, including deaconesses, pastors’ wives, and choir singers, still maintain the modesty achieved by covering one’s hair with hats festooned with ribbons, feathers, and rosettes.
The maintenance and styling of the African descendant’s hair is an ages-old play in three acts: ritual, performance, and evolution. And though it has been abused as a tool by oppressors both directly and indirectly on many levels to lessen the worth of the individual, it remains an expression of personal freedom, method of cultural preservation, and a platform for political protest.