It is an uncomfortably hot morning in Harlem, New York, as two women open the shutters of a braiding salon. It appears to be a day like any other, as a band of hairdressers turn their customers’ intricate visions into reality. But, according to playwright Jocelyn Bioh, by nightfall “we end in a very different place than where we started”.
Bioh’s Tony award-winning 2023 play Jaja’s African Hair Braiding takes theatregoers through 12 hours at the eponymous salon. Its staff are predominantly from west Africa, now navigating a country where immigration is often misunderstood and politically weaponised. Their conversations often address “how difficult it is to come to another country, particularly a western one like America,” says Bioh.
