On Buried Ground will be featured at Christ Church Neighborhood House in September during the 2024 Fringe Festival. The dance-theatre performance and exhibition is an interpretation of research initiated by Michelle Belden, archivist of Christ Church Preservation Trust, on the lives of Alice of Dunk’s Ferry and four enslaved children named Violet Plumsteed, Charles Merchant, William Richards, and one identified only as “Unnamed.” Each have burial records at CHrist Church, but, to date, their actual grave sites have not been found.
The performance, funded with a Pew Charitable Trust grant and additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts, began as a solo work of art in 2021 by choreographer Shayla Vie-Jenkins. The performance inspired former interim director Hannah Opendaker and Christ Church staff and it has now been expanded with the help of playwright Rayne (Angela Bey) and director Nia Benjamin.
Rayne (Angela Bey), Nia Benjamin, and Shayla Vie-Jenkins. | Photo: Grayce Carson via Christ Church
Benjamin said the newest iteration of the performance is not a historical re-enactment. “We wanted to focus on the humanity of these figures. To find our way in, we started with a series of open-ended improvisations using movement, poetry, and texts from Black writers and from our playwright, along with sound and music,” they explained. “It was a very intuitive, collaborative process. We wanted to feel first, and organize the information second. The historical facts became a skeleton for us to dress a larger, more personal, more expressive world on top of it.”
Questions surround the lives of the enslaved children whose burial records were found. Since the documents pertain to the early-to-mid 18th century, one can only speculate about their brief lives beginning with their owners and how the deaths of the children. The burial records list them as Violet Plumsteed, “a nogroe girle slave of the Widow Plumsteed,” Charles Merchant, “a negro boy beloning to Mr. Taylor Merchant,” William Richards, “a negro boy beloning to Jos. Richards,” and Unnamed, “a negroe child of Sharpers.”
Choreographer Shayla Vie-Jenkins during her solo performance of On Buried Ground at Christ Church in 2021. | Photo: Christ Church
“These children have no gravestones. They have no family we can find who grieved for them,” said Benjamin. “Their spirits became the inspiration for the second half of our performance. We wanted to create a work of art that would care for their memory and remember them as full of life, of joy, as bodies who play and dream, not work and struggle.”
Did their parents mourn them at Congo Square? “We wish we knew more about the interments of this time period, but, so far, it has eluded us,” said researcher Carol Smith at Christ Church. She said a combination of Belden’s work on the family trees of 14 African American families, and the adaption of modern databases and searches into baptisms, marriages, and burials, are how staff uncovered the history of African American life at Christ Church. Smith explained that only the widow Plumstead had a burial record, which is dated 1790.
Performers rehearse On Buried Ground inside Christ Church in 2024. | Photo: Grayce Carson via Christ Church
Yet, one of the biggest mysteries is the location of burial plots belonging to slave owners within the church yard. To date, the only identified owner is Pierce Butler who now has a plaque stationed next to the family vault explaining the Butlers’ connection to the slave trade. Smith said the staff feels indebted to Alice of Dunk’s Ferry whose story and memory are important in the recounting of the history of African Americans and Christ Church and the indispensable source of inspiration for On Buried Ground.
“The performance is part ritual, part church service, and part homecoming celebration. It is joyous and confrontational and poetic and big,” Benjamin said. “It is a performance that wraps around you from all sides and asks you to investigate your understanding of Philadelphia’s history and who has been hiding in the shadows.”
On Buried Ground will take place from September 4 to 14 at Christ Church Neighborhood House, 40 N. American Street. For more information see the event’s website: www.neighborhood-house.com/projects/on-buried-ground/
