Let Go and Let God
Rashida Webb-Miller in Let Go and Let God.
Let Go and Let God (2015)
Created, starring, and written by: Rashida Webb-Miller*
Rashida Webb-Miller’s Let Go and Let God was one of the first short films released by OTV and represents our desire to connect other art forms like dance to TV. When we see movement on TV, we’re most likely to see it in sensationalized contexts where dancers are supporting big pop stars or competitive contexts like Dancing with the Stars or America’s Got Talent. Rarely do we see dance for dance sake.
In the near completely silent film, Rashida’s character spends almost the entire time not moving. She is depressed. We are not told why. Instead we are invited into her mundane day-to-day: getting groceries, walking up her stairs, watching TV. It is unglamorous.
The character reaches a breaking point when they remember a photograph of an ultrasound in her bathroom. She sobs uncontrollably in the shower. It’s a breathtaking performance.
“I want to be clear that this isn’t saying ‘Oh just pray and the depression will go away,’” Rashida wrote for the OTV website. “It’s about letting go of the need to control our image to the point where we would rather make ourselves sick or even die than be vulnerable enough to receive and transform.”
We end the film knowing the character has ended a pregnancy–or had it ended (after the film’s release, Rashida wrote an essay about how her experience with abortion inspired the film). But the acknowledgement of the pain has given her a window to move forward. In the end, it is movement, and specifically a form of praise-dancing, that helps her heal.
To produce that moment, Rashida was aided by a crew entirely composed of Black women, including OTV’s Head of Production Stephanie Jeter, director Zarinah Ali, and cinematographer Zakkiyyah Najeebah. They worked for over 12 hours to film everything in one day.
For Rashida, praise dancing was her first form of movement, but as she aged she realized that Black women were often policed for the way they danced. Anything too sensual was seen in the church as ungodly. So as an adult, Rashida, who is queer, taught classes to women on how to embrace their power through sensual dance. She has seen how many women are able to confront and navigate trauma and pain through movement and community, which we can see in the film and its production.
“The whole point was that you had this experience and then you kind of are spiraling into isolation. And the isolation is what further exacerbates the depression and the grief and the guilt. Once you have that system and community of women who also have that same experience and they can lift you up and hold you, the sistering together literally to kind of heal and move forward,” Rashida said in an interview.
Let Go and Let God premiered in November 2015 alongside our three scripted pilots (You ’re So Talented, Nupita Obama, Southern for Pussy) at the nonprofit Woman Made Gallery as a featured event for Chicago Artists Month, sponsored by the city of Chicago. Responses to that premiere focused primarily on the diversity of people and themes, including narrative (genres, form) and gender diversity. In March 2016, we hosted a separate screening for Let Go and Let God integrating performance: Rashida conducted a free erotic dance class at Dance Center Chicago in Lincoln Square, coupled with a screening of the film and discussion led by playwright and activist Kristiana Rae Colon. There, our post-screening discussion among five Black feminine-spectrum attendees focused on how dance and spirituality offer ways to cope and heal from personal, social, political, and economic trauma. Rashida used the screening to open up about her experience with depression and how her dance practice is her “preventative care.” Each participant saw something different in the pilot: One focused on the theme of unchanging daily routine and two on the cleansing power of water (one because she thinks of and goes to Lake Michigan and one because she thinks of God when in need of restoration).
We can connect the themes of water and blood, both of which are necessary for us to move, as a lesson in the power of dance as a Black feminist healing practice.
“After all, the lack of movement is what causes us to feel stuck or stagnant–literally allowing the stress to overwhelm us to the point that the blood vessels become clogged and the heart stops or we bring on a stroke. Movement - dance allows us to open those pathways in the body back up so we function normally and keep thriving and keep living. Viscerally opening ourselves back up to the presence of Spirit and the Divine,” Rashida wrote.
In more recent years, Rashida made the decision to release her father’s name KhanBey and embrace the family name of her Grandfather Oscar C. Webb. In honor of her mother’s transition and in closing the generational cycles of abuse her name will now be listed on all public works as Rashida Webb-Miller.
*Let Go and Let God was published under a different name: “In more recent years, Rashida made the decision to release her father’s name KhanBey and embrace the family name of her Grandfather Oscar C. Webb. In honor of her mother’s transition and in closing the generational cycles of abuse her name will now be listed on all public works as Rashida Webb-Miller.”