Ode to Pearl Dias | ‘I’m every Woman’

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An ode to Pearl
 

and through Pearl also to RIA LAVRIJSEN (♱) 
 

and to other Women of the City, most of whom worked behind the scenes within the multicultural art world in Amsterdam in the 1990s
 

“Do you also find it so strange that women are so invisible in the story of Amsterdam?”, sounds the first sentence of this make-an-ode web page of the Women in the City project. No, not at all actually - We are kept and made invisible and because we are usually not the first ones to praise ourselves and yes: if we remain so modest we keep it up ourselves.
 

Power to the ladies therefore....
 

PART 1 Pearl Dias
 

I think it's a bit too much honor,” is the first thing you say, dear Pearl.
 

In our conversation that centers around you.
 

You and more you.
 

'Too much honor,' you throw up but I can tell from your shining eyes and your giggles that you enjoy it too. 
 

In the end, almost everyone likes it when another person has the time and attention to ask deeper questions about who you are, what you do and did, what your legacy is.
 

And it is also special to have known each other for almost thirty years, but only now I saw your resume....
 

I shape this ode through a conversation about your legacy, - more professionally than privately. But you wouldn't be who you are at work if you weren't who you are privately... You yourself became a mother of two children, who are now beautiful grown women. But your work behind the scenes has touched thousands of children.
 

Yes: children and the happiness and development of children are the common thread in that career: you programmed and produced many youth theater productions at the KIT Tropentheater, including the innovative game-theater performance “Jaalani and the Lock,” the first performance of Urban Myth - based on a book by Lorenzo Pace that you had discovered on a trip to NY - also something you never brag about (vintage you). A performance in which a not yet well-known Giovanca Ostiana shone at the time and which you brought to Suriname with great success.
 

You were the kind of producer who didn't just leave it at connecting and paying people. When you gave me my first stage assignment as a beginning writer for the text 'Mehlomancane' in which you paired me with the South African musician Phola Mamba and with the famous Gerda Havertong, you drove me and my child all the way to Gerda's house in Gelderland, so that she and I could get acquainted (which only benefited the text). My son, then five years old and an avid Sesame Street fan still talks about it....

Now that you have been responsible at the municipality of Amsterdam for the interpretation of the Stadspas and the Stadspas Kidsgids for many years, the offerings there have also visibly changed because of your vision which, among other things, adapted the offerings to the needs and requirements of an intercultural city. No more Texel blankets or day trips to the Black Forest: that won't make Surinamese Amsterdammers happy,” you say with a laugh. Your curly hair dances around your handsome face. You are well past 60 now and already a grandmother, but your beauty has always retained something young. Your features show the mix of ancestors flowing through you: Afro-Surinamese, indigenous Surinamese, white Dutch blood too, presumably, and Jewish Portuguese - Dias, you once told me is a Portuguese name. 'Pearl was really such a nice colleague, inspired, ambitious. She really sunk her teeth into the youth productions at KIT. Those were totally her thing and came from her tube. She always gave new and young talent a stage there and she did the same in boards,' text your former KIT Tropen colleague Jeanine when I ask how she experienced you there. 'Oh Pearl who looks so much like Sade,' says another. I myself think you look more like Chaka Khan, but that has everything to do with a memory of the party for your 50th birthday... A circle of cheering and applauding people around you, and you in the middle on your heels and with your arms wide spinning around. 'Anything you work on baby, I do it naturally'
 

An unforgettable image of a happy woman in the prime of her life. Dancing and singing along from her inner child to Chaka's 'I'm Every Woman'. And Every Woman she is.
 

It wasn't until I made a short documentary about you and your late mother, the ever beautiful Nadia, who was deaf in addition to being flamboyant, around 2010 for Tori from MC on the resilience of children, that I saw up close where the power of that inner child came from. A child of a sick parent or a parent with a disability learns to navigate the world differently. And a deaf parent requires more visual communication.
 

It was then, behind the camera, that I understood why you see the world so sharply: Your eyes are better trained than your ears. “I've learned to listen better over the years,” you tell yourself, adding that your younger self would recommend venting her opinions less and listening more to what others are saying. We both have to laugh hard at that because I remember you differently.
 

My first meeting with you was after Ria Lavrijsen scouted me and invited me to interview at Soeterijn with both of you. Ria talked non-stop and you were a bit reserved and seemed a bit distant at first. Later I learned how that is part of you and part of your strength. There is a picture in my photo library that is very dear to me of you, Patricia Cherrywood, Cindy Kerseborn and myself in a row. I remember you as the most thoughtful of the four of us and that is certainly in how you always put others first.
 

If everyone did that a little bit, the world would look very different.

'Ria Lavrijsen,' you say when I ask you who scouted you at the time. 'I met Ria who worked as a producer at Soeterijn through my then partner at a dinner and I was sitting next to her with all my chatter and that intrigued her. I was studying Cultural Policy & Arts Management and Ria offered me an internship the very same evening on a program about writers from the African diaspora - all men yes...' You laugh. 'Working with Ria went so well that after that internship she immediately arranged for me to come work there. Yes, so that's how Ria was: she arranged it.'
 

You worked intensely together with Ria and she helped you sharpen your vision with literature, but also by being a kind of mentor for you. In addition, you also became very good friends. When Ria decided to retire from life in 2005, it affected you tremendously. I remember running into you on the Entrepot dock at that time and although you were smiling radiantly as always, your grief and emotion was palpable just below the surface. I remember that encounter as the moment when the collaboration between you and me turned into a friendship for life.

PART 2
 

RIA LAVRIJSEN was a white woman who in the eighties and nineties scouted and programmed many women of color in the theater world, Moroccan and Turkish women like Rachida Azough, Funda Müjde and Black women like Anousha Nzumé and Jolanda Spoel, as well as making a personal and passionate commitment to stimulating our careers. The people at those institutes at that time were actually all white, even at KIT, yes...but we weren't so concerned with that at the time. At KIT, together with Jeanine Cronie, who is now mostly known as a screenwriter, I was the only woman of color, and Jeanine worked in the communications department and later in education. That it was so white I never felt that way at the time. There was a temporary commotion about the white marble in the hall of the Tropical Institute. The question was whether that came from the former colonies - but then it turned out to be just Italian.'
 

Of course you did see that there were mostly white women in power in the multicultural places at that time, there were very few Black women high up in the hierarchy. The only one back then was actually Mavis Carrilho who now also works at the municipality of Amsterdam. She was then the director was of Network CS. And you had Ernestine Comvalius at then Krater...- Bijlmerparktheater came later.
 

I remember that Ernestine asked me to be on the jury of a festival at Krater and I saw how those white women there were pretty much fighting each other over Black protégées and I looked at Ernestine and thought 'Ooooh who can have it say...' During that festival I gained a lot of respect for the way Ernestine maneuvered in the complex force field of Southeast. You shake your head and giggle and together we dig into our memories for the names of the ladies at the time.
 

You recall the first name Iedje. I supplement with Hoonhout, her last name. And via the description of her serious, stern face we remember Ingrid de Ruyter again, and the always nice Elspeth Pikaar and the overenthusiastic Gail Pilgrim... 'Very nice women all, and each one good at their job, but there was also often mutual jealousy about who had the right and the claim to the discovery of which multicultural talent.' You laugh. Ria also had a row with El Hizjra about who had discovered Hafid Bouazza. Whole state of affairs that became.' You shake your head and sigh. 'Funny but ... it also pulled on her.'

We are both silent for a moment and think back to Ria, who invested so much energy in the foundation of what we now call an intersectional feminist field. Intersectionality, the term that was coined by Kimberly Crenshaw in 1989 but took twenty-five years or more to become commonplace in the Netherlands.
 

'Of course, in her enthusiasm, Ria could sometimes make uncomfortable suggestions. When I wrote my thesis entitled 'So many people, so many opinions ' with the central question of whether white committee members with their Eurocentric frames of reference can judge the work of black artists, Ria suggested I write that for me!' Again you laugh for a moment before continuing your talk: 'So I could get an eight! Well no way! Now we burst out laughing hard together. It wouldn't be possible now, though....
 

'But back then it was commonplace everywhere for people to make that kind of proposal. Besides... I just wrote the thesis myself and also passed the eight'. You grimace and wink. 'When I look back on that time, those years were indeed the most adventurous of my career...The trees reached high into the sky. There was plenty of money to travel, see performances, music (we called it world music) and art abroad. I learned to formulate my taste and judgment of what quality was during that time - partly thanks to, by and together with Ria. I was with the times; totally! There was no PVV at all back then like there is now, and the most radical party was the VVD, because nobody wanted to sit at the table with Janmaat's Center Party back then. And rightly so ... because look how it is now.'
 

After the KIT Tropentheater, Binoq Atana offered you a job that was interesting in itself, but after three years there you knew that the administrative world was not your core passion. 'And when an opportunity arose to work for the municipality in the Arts and Culture Department, I thought I would be able to make a lot of changes there ... well, no. I had completely misjudged that. But to be honest, I learned a lot from the things I hated. When I got stuck on the tough subject matter at the Department of Arts and Culture, I discovered that merely implementing the policy of an alderman was not my mission. In hindsight, it was a good thing that I ended up at the municipality this way because when I was able to make the switch to the City Pass and was allowed to compile the City Pass Kids Guide, I was able to reconnect with my old fire. And especially with the ideal of opening up other worlds for children. Yes, that's when I was back in place.
 

You laugh, think for a moment and weigh your words.
 

'Lately there has been a lot in the newspapers about how inclusion and diversity is still not a given even at the municipality of Amsterdam. That racism, discrimination and harassment take place even at the municipality of Amsterdam. Just the fact that as a Black woman if you rise above scale 8 at the municipality you are a white elephant says it all.'
 

'Are you above that then,' I ask cheekily. A brief nod, a giggle and a smile. 'And now I have to pick up my grandchildren.' You say goodbye smoothly and I am left alone in the zoom room with my pen and my notebook. A woman who sets the right priorities. A white elephant in the congregation. A woman who is not like any woman and all at the same time. After reading this text for verification and correcting here and there, you agree wholeheartedly. 'Yep Beks. I'm from the paper. You're right: 'I'm Every Woman.'
 

- Neske Beks
 

p.s. Finally... Yes Pearl, this ode is for you. And for Ria. 
 

An ode in two parts, for two women. Because with her support at your back, the influence of your friend and mentor Ria Lavrijsen will forever be felt - behind and through you. And as I wrote about you and Ria, I also call extra attention to the much work on the foundations on which so many other women were able to grow also certainly to all the other women mentioned here: Nadia Dias (♱), Gerda Havertong, Mavis Carrilho, Cindy Kerseborn (♱), Ernestine Comvalius, Jeanine Cronie, Giovanca Ostiana, Patricia kaersenhout, Rachida Azough, Funda Müjde, Iedje Hoonhout, Ingrid de Ruyter, Jolanda Spoel, Naïma Azough, Elspeth Pikaar, Gail Pilgrim - and of course many, many other women of the City.
 

We should not sit around waiting for the patriarchy to honor us because then we can wait until Eternity. So write: because he who writes, he stays. Because I strongly believe in shaping mutual gratitude and naming names of the women who opened doors for each other. Showing and naming that example is extremely important for current and future generations of women of the city. 
 

- yours Neske
 

Dear reader,
 

This ode is also for you.
 

The recipe is: think about which women helped shape your life and career. Who for you those women are , write down their names, call the names out loud. Ask them for an interview, ask for their resume, marvel at everything you didn't already know and question them.
 

In your own way - short or long - write about their legacy.