#BTS: PEPPA DANTO OF #FUTUREWOMEN

FUTUREWOMEN: AN ALTERNATE REALITY SERIES CHRONICLES THE DEVELOPMENT OF MA(S)KING HER, A DANCE THEATER WORK OF SPECULATIVE FICTION ABOUT EMPOWERED FUTURE BEINGS AND JOURNEYWOMEN. 

Peppa Danto is a Haitian born and bred freedom-fighter and was a child-warrior. She is the child of Ogou, who is a lwa, known in Yoruba as an orisha, and Ezili Danto, who was born a mortal, but later transitioned and became a lwa.  Peppa was conceived during the Haitian Revolution, which was led and won by formerly enslaved Africans on the island of San Domingue, who were fighting to take their independence back from the French imperialists.  She experiences both blood and actual memory of being taken into battle while in her mother’s womb and later while at her mother’s breast and on her back.  

Peppa was trained by her mother, other elders and older youth over the years and went from joining in battle from her mother’s shoulders, to fighting by her side.  Peppa became a powerful young warrior, whose favorite method of warfare was torture.  She tortured for information, but mostly for revenge.  She was enraged by the stories she heard about the trauma and suffering her mother and family members endured while they were enslaved.  Peppa felt no remorse.  She killed white slave-masters, slave-traders, slave-catchers, ministers, their wives, children, and all those she saw as collaborators in the horrors her people had endured.  She carried a scroll made from the skin of a former enslaver of her mother’s, and a vial of another’s blood, which she used as ink.  Peppa utilized the strength given to her by her parents, and often called on her ancestors and the lwa for strength, before, during and after a battle. Peppa, her mother, and their comrades saw victory through in 1804.  

At that time, Peppa was 13 years old.  Shortly after, her mother died, and ascended into her status as lwa.  Peppa, distraught, slept for 7 years.  She awakened and discovered her mother had gifted her with superhuman strength, the ability to swim to other parts of the world, and immortality.  She spent several years catering to her thirst for war, revolution, and vengeance.  She swam to different parts of the world joining in revolutions throughout the diaspora.  When she discovered, however, that she was infertile, her purpose shifted, and she began searching for a cure...

Written by Aisha Jean-Baptiste of Honey Pot Performance