What is Your Renaissance?: Lessons from Beyoncé
The image for this post is drawn from the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art exhibit in Atlanta that just ended. The exhibit “Harmonia Rosales: Master Narrative” entwines West African religion and art techniques of the Renaissance period. Pictured here: Rosales’ work “The Birth of Oshun.” Learn more about the Afro-Cuban artist who reimagines Renaissance art with Black people at the center.
I spent 3 hours on Friday night watching Beyoncé’s film, Renaissance. I didn’t go to her concert tour, but felt blessed to understand the back story. I have spent several hours since then thinking about Beyoncé, listening to her music, falling in love with her music and messages of empowerment for women, men, the queer community, Black women. As I watched the film, I felt a connection to Beyoncé’s Renaissance and my own renaissance.
I share my renaissance journey in Blackwildgirl: A Writer’s Journey to Take Back Her Superpower will be published by She Writes Press, April 2, 2024.
Available now for preorder in Amazon with the Companion Journal, Discovering your Superpower.
I learned a few key lessons from Renaissance that connect to my life. I’m sharing my reflections because I believe we all have renaissance moments in our life journey.
I am also embedding art from the amazing and incredible Afro-Cuban American artist Harmonia Rosales, who challenges traditional depictions of art from the Renaissance period: “I am a womanist who endlessly explores black female empowerment through visual art that challenges ideological hegemony and the subordinate woman in contemporary society.”
The lessons from Renaissance.
1. There is always a Behind-the-Scenes Back Story.
Beyoncé shared that it took 4 years of planning before the baby – the concert tour – was birthed. Beyoncé had a huge binder of set designs, clothing designs, and ideas. The beautiful gift of the 56-city tour was years in the making. Many times we are working behind the scenes in almost obscurity and invisibility before our projects manifest. As writers, it is our fingers, our pencils, pens, papers, and computers. For years, often, we are working, thinking, researching, and reading, trying to figure out what the puzzle pieces are and where they should go.
My book, Blackwildgirl was 45 years in the making. I was writing in journals for 45 years and my writing could have stayed in those journals. Yet, I heard the call to do more to make a difference for others – that others might benefit from Blackwildgirl. And so, in 2019, I went to a retreat center with boxes full of journals, laid them all out, and spent 3 weeks transcribing entries I thought were relevant. After 3 weeks I had a rough draft of a new book. Yet, it would take 5 more years before the baby would be birth. Her due date is April 2, 2024. The lesson is that we all have behind-the-scenes back stories, often years in the making. We have to learn to trust and value the quiet, invisible, unrewarded behind the scenes work in our lives, knowing that at some point, the curtain will be pulled back for your light to shine.
The artist whose work I profile had a similar behind-the-scenes back story. Harmonia Rosales’ exhibition at Spelman featured seven years worth of work. Work behind the scenes, work in a studio, work invisible. Working until the moment her 20 works and installation could be revealed.
2. Manage Your Light.
In one clip Beyoncé speaks about the role of lights and lighting. Beyoncé shared about her fascination with lights and lighting for the stage. The obvious thought is that the spotlights should always shine on her, for she is the star! Yet, she shares that she has learned that sometimes less light is needed, and that less light is in fact, more.
For me, it raises the question, when do we need to have the light shine on us? Sometimes, we need the light to shine on us and sometimes we need less light. We all have a light, the little light in us that we need to let shine. It is our responsibility to let it shine. We just need to learn how to manage our light. More importantly, we need to use our light as a spotlight to help others shine their light.
3. Be The Star of Your Own Show.
Beyoncé was the writer, director, and producer of Renaissance. I love this. She knew what she wanted and she managed the project to get the outcome she wanted. She owned the outcome and the process to achieve the outcome.
This is exactly what each of us should do in our own lives. Each of us is the star of our own show, our own life. We should be the writer, the producer, and the director of our own life. We have that responsibility, no matter how challenging our journeys, even with the structural barriers that often seem to define our outcomes.
4. Manage a great team.
Renaissance required a well-orchestrate team, a huge team. It was amazing to understand the magnitude of people behind the tour. There were 3 sets. There were 56 shows. One set in use, one set being set up, and one set on the way to the next. So, there were drivers, and set-up and take down crews. Beyonce mentioned how many women she saw working on the crews. But, in addition to the crew team, the transportation team, there were many, many mini-teams, all part of the larger team – technical engineers, sound engineers, dancers, musicians, assistants, cooks, and more. Producing the tour and the film required a mastery of management and leadership. Beyoncé was the CEO of this team, ultimately. In one segment, she shares the challenge and reality of being a Black woman, and having to fight against being undermined and challenged and questioned. When we build teams, we are often trying to look for a combination of tangible and intangible skills. Beyonce shared that one of the dancers she hired was dancing in a video that went viral. Her wig came off, and she kept dancing. For Beyonce, she saw an intangible quality in the dancer, someone who valued the dance more than her appearance. She said, she hired her on the spot!
Each of us must be the CEO of our own little teams, our life teams. We are continually required to work in and with teams—teams at work, teams at home, teams in our families. And as the CEO of our own little teams, we need to try to find and manage demeanors, attitudes, and skills. We are not islands and we cannot accomplish anything alone. We need great teams and great teams line up behind great visions.
Beyoncé spoke about the purpose of Renaissance, which is to “open the door for the next generation…that’s why we live.” She shared that she sees the concerts as a space of transferring energy from herself to audience and from audience to her. I think this reciprocal relationship is important for artistic work. Art is a powerful energy field and being able to promote love through that energy field is a powerful purpose. How can we in small or large ways open the door for the next generation? How can we encourage more love in the world?
It is important to be able to understand and articulate your vision, if even for your own life, and then create the team to support your vision. Harmonia’s vision is clear: “I am a womanist who endlessly explores black female empowerment through visual art that challenges ideological hegemony and the subordinate woman in contemporary society.” I love it!
5. Talent + Hard Work + Discipline + Commitment to Excellence = Success.
Beyoncé’s success is a direct result of her tremendous talent, hard work, and discipline. She has incredible talent as an artist. She is a phenomenal singer, dancer, choreographer, fashion designer, writer, producer, director. However, talent alone is not enough. There were hours and hours of time, hard work, and discipline. Discipline is doing when you are exhausted and doing when you don’t want. Talent, hard work, and discipline must be combined with a commitment to excellence and quality. One scene that stands out for me is Blue Ivy saying, “Mom, we are wasting time about fingers.” Blue Ivy’s perception of time wasting was Beyoncé’s focus on perfecting her craft. Beyoncé was providing feedback on how the fingers in a set should move. Details matter when we care about quality. We cannot have quality without details. Excellence and mastery of craft requires an attentiveness to details, and the small things. It is impossible to watch Renaissance and not appreciate the level of attention to details, hard work, talent, and discipline.
In one back story scene, Beyoncé looked exhausted in the film. She was speaking about how much time and attention and hours were required for her to create the masterpiece. My grandmother, with a sixth grade education, sent me an excerpt from a poem from Henry Wardsworth Longfellow: “The heights that great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight, but they while their companions slept were toiling upwards through the night.”
It is clear that Beyoncé was toiling while others were sleeping. It is clear that Harmonia has worked hard. She is self-trained! Many people have talent. Very few have the work ethic and discipline and commitment to excellence that is necessary for talent to manifest into the world. There is a level of sacrifice required for excellence. Of course, we have to balance self-care and rest. (see Simon Says, Take Two Giant Steps Backward). https://menahpratt.com/simon-says-take-two-giant-steps-backward/
6. Managing Mother-Daughter Dynamics
Beyoncé is a mother and I appreciated seeing her role as a mother. She is also a daughter, and I appreciated seeing her relationship with her mother. It was fascinating to hear and see the love and respect she has for her mother. It was also wonderful to see her mothering her daughter, Blue Ivy. Blue Ivy, 11 years old, wanted to dance in the show. Beyoncé didn’t think she was ready, but eventually conceded. After her first performance, there was some criticism on social media of Blue Ivy. After reading criticism of her dancing, Blue Ivy decided to practice harder and work harder. She could have quit. She didn’t. Blue Ivy is her own person, but she is also Jay-Z and Beyoncé daughter. She is surrounded by an energy field of love, affirmation, excellence, and hard work. It is natural for her to pick up those values and to be influenced by the culture of hard work, excellence, and discipline associated with Renaissance.
Beyoncé relationship with her mother and daughter reminded me of my relationship with my mother and my daughter. In Blackwildgirl, I share the difference in how I tried to manage my daughter’s transition to womanhood as a moment of affirmation, and how my mother handled my moment of transition. My father was the one who went with me to the drug store to get maxi-pads. It was humiliating and horrific. I have reflected that as mothers and daughters, we often sit in in-between roles. In Blackwildgirl, I remember my mother’s in-between role with my father and me; and I reflect on my own in-between role with my children’s father and them.
Ultimately, I believe we must affirm our daughters, their spunk, their self-belief, and not severe and silence their Blackwildgirl. Beyoncé did this. She affirmed her daughter’s belief that she could dance with her mother, and that it was time for her to try to fly. In another scene where Blue Ivy didn’t want her mom to cut a reference to “diva” in a song, Blue Ivy was insistent and passionate. But she was also interrupting the big people, the adults in the meeting. Beyoncé, calmly, and motherly, said, “I hear you, I hear you. But you also need to tone it down.” In that one scene, she affirmed, yet also mothered. Beyoncé has created a space for her daughter’s Blackwildgirl to have space, to have voice, but to also be nurtured and mentored.
Harmonia Rosales’ motherhood journey is also about validation for herself and her daughter. She says: “I don’t want my daughter to be brainwashed like I was … I want her to love her hair, her skin, her lips, her nose, everything.”
7. “Finally, I don’t give a F*ck.”
This is a quote from the film. Beyonce says: “Finally, I don’t give a F*ck.” As a black woman, now in her 40s, Beyonce finally feels that she can be free, that she can be herself. Near the end of the film, there was a beautiful scene of her dancing along an ocean. She spoke about spending a large part of her life wanting approval, seeking approval, needing approval of others. And now, she can just be free. And I feel that’s what she wants for us, for all of us. She celebrated and honored the queer community, and if there is ever a community that needs to be able to be free, it is that community.
In the film, Beyonce says: “I feel liberated.” Her words resonated with my own journal entry in Blackwildgirl: “September 13, 2020, Dear God, I do not know the significance, ultimately, of today, yet I know it is significant. Today, I have been liberated to love myself, to love the little girl in me that was abandoned. … I have always cared for others with a deep compassion and have not had time or space to care for myself. I must care for my Divine Feminine.”
We all have our journeys to validate our selves and to get to the point where we don’t give a “f*ck” about other people say or think about us, as long as we keep trying to be our best possible selves.
8. Images and role models matter.
It was wonderful for me as a Black woman to see Beyoncé on stage, to emerge with beautiful outfits, to be sexy, to look sexy and beautiful, to validate that girls matter; that we can be savage, that we can be a b*tch and it’s ok, that we can own our power. Beyoncé’s confidence and power on stage is empowering. I felt empowered by seeing her. She is a role model for many, not just Black girls and women, but people. By seeing and signing her songs, we can feel empowered. As I looked up images of Renaissance, I found the artist Harmonia Rosales.
In Rosales’ “Creation of God,” God is a Black woman.
This image of God as a Black woman aligns with my journey in Blackwildgirl where I struggle to reconcile the dominant narrative of a White male God and Jesus, who are suppose to care for and protect me. Images of Black women are so important for Black girls and women. It helps us with our own renaissance journeys.
9. What is Your Renaissance?
Beyoncé shares that Renaissance is often about what emerges from pain. I looked up etymology of the word renaissance.
Renaissance (n.)
“great period of revival of classical-based art and learning in Europe that began in the fourteenth century,” 1840; from Old French renaissance, literally “rebirth,” usually in a spiritual sense; from renastre “grow anew” (of plants); “be reborn” (Modern French renaître); from Vulgar Latin renascere, from Latin renasci “be born again, rise again, reappear, be renewed,” from re- “again” (see re-) + nasci “be born” (Old Latin gnasci, from PIE root gene- “give birth, beget”).” https://www.etymonline.com/word/renaissance
It is about rebirth, birthing ourselves again, a rejuvenation. As I have reflected, so much of our journeys as people, as women, as women of color originate from pain. As black women, people of color in America, we were birthed into America through pain. We were severed from Africa, from our homes, our culture, our language, our religion, our family, and transported violently through the birth canal of the Atlantic Ocean to the coasts of South America, the Caribbean, and North America. We emerged from the Middle Passage, from the birth canal as a new being. We emerged from the birth canal as slaves, treated as beasts, and sometimes worst that beasts. We had no freedom, new names, new language, and a new culture. We were beaten, raped, and separated from our families when we arrived on the coast.
As a people, we have needed a renaissance. We needed to rebirth ourselves out of enslavement, and we are still trying to rebirth ourselves. When we finally were “free,” we had to find our families, we had to learn to read, we had to learn to write, we had to learn how to feed ourselves and support our families. As soon as we started to get wings, they were clipped by Jim Crow, legalized segregation, and brutal police state violence, incarcerating us and imprisoning us. And so, as a people, we are still in need of a renaissance, individually and collectively. The trauma we have endured and continue to endure, requires us to undertake initiation journeys so that that we can get through the pain to peace.
“Migration of the Gods” by Harmonia Rosales depicts enslaved Africans carrying their gods on their backs amid “the horrors of the Middle Passage, condensing time and geography into a single painting.”
Rosales’ work demonstrates her journey towards empowerment and self-love, with figures in her artworks painted with features she used to dislike about herself. Though Rosales initially painted the figures for her daughter, ultimately “I found myself,” she said, “I became empowered about who I am. Every one of these (artworks) tells my stories.”
Blackwildgirl is my renaissance journey. It is a twelve-stage initiation journey from pain to peace. In Blackwildgirl, I share the difficult and challenging path to find and birth myself anew from the muck and the mire of the world that had dismembered and disemboweled my essential feminine power.
What is your renaissance journey?
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