Real People: Dominique Fishback
Last Fall, Glitter Magazine was invited to attend the Girl Up Unite for Girls Tour event in San Francisco. As a part of that amazing event, we got to see the inspired / inspiring performance by the NYC-based Project Girl Performance Collective. The PGPC was founded in 2008 by Ashley Marinaccio and Elizabeth Koke as a platform for teenage girls to express their hopes and fears. Considered “a safe space,” this nonprofit theater company inspires girls to write and perform their own work. Glitter found the performers at the SF event engaging and thought-provoking. We contacted Project Girl Dominique Fishback (pictured in the center) to get a closer look at the performance and performer. Read Glitter’s exclusive interview with Dominique to find out more about voice, advocacy, and expression.
GLITTER: What is your favorite aspect of being part of Project Girl Performance Collective?
DOMINIQUE: My favorite aspect about being with Project Girl is the platform it has provided for me to speak through my poetry and monologues about social and humanitarian issues. Project Girl has given me confidence in the fact that I am knowledgeable about issues that were not taught to me growing up in East New York, Brooklyn. I am able to have intellectual conversations with people who attend TED Talks and my Brooklyn voice advocates for people in places I’ve never been, whose voices are not being heard. Joining PGPC has added another position to my title. I am no longer just a poet and actress: I am an activist and I take a lot of pride in saying that.
GLITTER: What has been your most memorable moment as a member of PGPC?
DOMINIQUE: Most memorable moment with PGPC would be touring the West Coast for the first time. I have always dreamt of doing these things and I can’t lie, I felt like a celebrity because of how we were flown in to perform, flown back out to go to school, and flown back in to perform again. I kept saying I felt like Cinderella, like I was living another person’s life but in a short time would have to return to my hood and be ‘regular’ again. The good thing, though, about being like Cinderella is that she gets to go back and live happily ever after.
GLITTER: How do you prepare for a role?
DOMINIQUE: The way I prepare for roles in plays is a little different from how I prepare for roles with PGPC because performing with them never feels like playing a role to me. The issues that we talk about are so real and, unfortunately, true for girls in other countries, that before a show I’m just praying I can get the message across. Before every global show we tell each other to remember that “this performance is not for us and that we are doing this for the girls who deserve to be heard and spoken for.” That way it doesn’t matter if we mess up a line or drop a whole chunk of a monologue as long as the audience members leave a little more aware and a lot more provoked.
GLITTER: How well do you identify with the characters you portray? Are there some that are more relatable than others?
DOMINIQUE: I wouldn’t say more relatable because I write probably 99% of the pieces I perform, so it is drawn from something that has touched me. However, there are pieces that affected me more emotionally than others. For example, a poem I wrote called “Divided by two” addresses the fact that I was torn between my step-dad whom I always remembered being there for me and my ‘original’ dad who was finally giving me the attention that I always wanted.
GLITTER: What drew you to Spoken Word?
DOMINIQUE: What drew me to spoken word specifically, I think was the title. What I get from the title is that spoken word poetry is only about ‘speaking your word.’ The word ‘word’ is associated with nothing but truths, reality, and morality. Your word is your bond and to keep your word says a lot about your character. I aim to always be as brutality honest as I feel when I’m thinking or writing about a topic, as I will feel when I perform it. I like to keep things raw and fresh. Spoken word gives me the leverage to always be honest. When I write a spoken word piece I think of it as a conversation with my soul and the only thing that I can be with my soul is honest. Spoken word to me is a loaded title that doesn’t limit poetry and where it can be taken. Slam poetry is different in the sense that you write a poem for competition; Spoken word only requires you to keep it real.
GLITTER: What is your process for putting together a spoken word performance piece?
DOMINIQUE: I recently performed in Amateur Night at my college, Pace University, in New York City, and 4 days before the competition I was still trying to think of what to write. I never really paid attention to how I came up with my spoken word. I just knew that I wrote by best pieces when I was inspired by an event, got my heart broken, felt empowered or powerless, but I only just remember, being really impassioned by something and then having a poem about it. Except for Amateur night, no events spark anything in me that I thought would help me beat singers, dancers, musicians, and rappers. Spoken word is intellectual; you have to grab and engage people’s minds, whereas dance is visually compelling and singing is soothing to the ears. Poetry require intense listening and thinking outside of the box. What would make my poetry beat these talents? I decided that the best thing to do was to write about whatever has continuously come up in my conversations. What has been sitting in my subconscious and sneaking out without notice. The answer was Brooklyn and wanting to escape and remembering my past and loving Brooklyn despite everything. Once I read the outcome and saw that my spoken word was doing only what it is supposed to do, I no longer cared whether I won or lost. In the end, my process, along with reading and being knowledgeable in as many subjects as I can, is to address my subconscious.
GLITTER:If you could play any character (stage or film), which would it be? And why?
DOMINIQUE: Probably a movie like Monster’s Ball with Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton because it is Oscar worthy material with a storyline that has the potential to make people reexamine what’s important in life and what could make them a better person in regards to all living things. Movies like The Great Debaters, Avatar, I am Sam. However, I like comedies, romance, and action as well so it’s really hard to choose because when I am in a place where the sky is truly the limit. I want to do it all.
GLITTER: What do you think is the greatest challenge facing teen girls today? And what advice would you have for them in overcoming it?
DOMINIQUE: I think the greatest challenge facing teen girls today, thinking back to Project Girl workshops, is self-confidence. If younger girls had more self-confidence I don’t think issues such as bullying or eating disorders would be as big of a problem as they are now. My advice would be to seek friends who empower you, because to be empowered is to have self-confidence and then comes the individual, the entrepreneur, the CEO, the artist, the activist and any other honorary position you aspire to reach.
GLITTER: What do you hope to be doing in 5 years?
DOMINIQUE: In 5 years I hope to be making Oscar worthy movies and theater for social change. I hope to be present at “The Black Girls Rock” and awards shows alike, and working with artists like Denzel Washington, Taraji P. Henson, Will Smith, Phylicia Rashad, Spike Lee, and the list goes on. I hope that I can buy my mother the house with the balcony she has always wanted. I hope that I am able to open an IFC (Independent film cinema) in Brooklyn, where we premiere documentaries like The Black Power Mixtape because it changed my life. I hope that my one woman show is a success. I hope that I live on the West Coast. I hope that by then I know how to cook and drive (New York City has enabled me). I hope that my activist voice is even stronger than it is now. I hope to create a scholarship for students who live in low income areas and I hope that I am living all my dreams and helping others live theirs.
GLITTER: What advice can you give other Girls Who Rock about becoming a performer?
DOMINIQUE: Learn all you can about different subjects and issues going on in the world because it always makes for better art. Besides that is what being a performer is all about… incorporating real life into productions. I would also say stay true to your purpose and challenge your audience and to never be scared of how you feel.
