Bhanu Kapil’s Ban en Banlieue follows a brown (black) girl as she walks home from school in the first moments of a riot. An April night in London, in 1979, is the axis of this startling work of overlapping arcs and varying approaches. By the end of the night, Ban moves into an incarnate and untethered presence, becoming all matter— soot, meat, diesel oil and force—as she loops the city with the energy of global weather. Derived from performances in India, England and throughout the U.S., Ban en Banlieue is written at the limit of somatic and civic aims.
Bhanu Kapil is a British-Indian emigrant to the United States. She is the author of five full-length works of poetry/prose: The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers (2001), Incubation: a space for monsters (2006), humanimal [a project for future children] (2009), Schizophrene (2011), and Ban en Banlieue (2015). Since 2007, she has been incubating “Ban” through performances, talks, and collaborations in the U.S., India, and the U.K. She lives in Colorado where she teaches Interdisciplinary Studies at Naropa University.
