We are Milli, we are Nelly, we are Sam

Dresden roars. Trams screech in the distance. Horse-drawn carriages close to us, jolting and rattling over wet cobblestones. Beneath the dome lies a smell of sawdust, animals and cold smoke. Voices surge and swell, an expectant murmur makes the air stand still. The drums begin, driving us into the circus ring. Vibrations mix with the heavy sweetish scent of old perfume. The electric light flares up, burning hot on our skin. It displays us and, at the same time, casts dark shadows.

Milly, Nelly and Sam, that is what he calls us, while his crayon chases across the paper. Charcoal scratches, lines burst into being. His gaze clings greedily to our bodies, on the tension of our muscles, on the glistening of sweat, of our pulsating arteries. He works feverishly, as if he could capture in lines what excites him. Each curve is a frenzy, a lunge at the primordial. But he doesn’t see us. He only sees contours, inscribing them into his world.

We dance. We laugh. We sweat. Beat for beat, bar for bar. But behind the laughter lies a bitter truth: our bodies are our capital, our lives long consigned to the rhythm. Not from passion, but necessity. As our breath falters, he appropriates our movements. We turn into lines, projections, a fantasy which is not ours.

The light goes out, the crayon pauses. But the display does not stop here. It continues on the streets, in the stares, in the images the zeitgeist demands from us. Our dance is not solely for the audience; it follows the beat of a social order that has long since determined who we are and who we are allowed to be. The Reich resounds with progress and grandeur, military drums beat louder than our voices. In the circus ring we are an echo – a spectacle stilling the hunger for the Other.

And while he draws, as lines supplant our bodies, we spread our voices further. Quiet perhaps, yet unbroken. After all, we are more than shadows on paper. We are Milly, we are Nelly, we are Sam. Our names continue to resonate, our breath carries through the ages, our resistance remains alive. Even if art swallows us up, our existence remains a fissure in the beautiful façade, a whisper in the raucous circus ring, not silenced by the voice of Expressionism.

Natasha A. Kelly

Visiting professor of cultural studies on the general studies programme at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). Founding director of the first German Institute for Black Art, Culture and their Sciences, funded by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the city of Düsseldorf. Co-director of the Black European Academic Networks (BEAN). Member of the international artist collection of the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM).

In search of the Black model ‘Milli’ in Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s painting ‘Sleeping Milli’ (1911) in the Kunsthalle Bremen collection, Natasha A. Kelly took her findings as a basis for a multimedia project including a documentary and two short films, a publication, a visual essay as well as a group exhibition with an accompanying catalogue.

Find out more about Natasha A. Kelly here.