Photo by MLO

Our friend and colleague, performer extraordinaire, Okwui Okpokwasili, has created a show and it’s now onstage at Performance Space 122! You may have seen versions of this work presented by 651 ARTS in various stages at 651’s Salon Series in 2006, or at PS’s B.O.B. Festival in 2007. This is a great opportunity to witness how the development of  a work evolves over time-  and with Okwui and husband Peter Born at the helm,  there are sure to be countless intriguing and thought-provoking moments.  Friends of 651 ARTS even get a discount! See below for details…

Performance Space 122 presents
Okwui Okpokwasili’s
Pent Up: A Revenge Dance

Bessie Award-winner Okwui Okpokwasili spins a modern folktale. A daughter attempts to construct a coherent past out of her mother’s cryptic signals and signifiers. Interweaving legacy and the loss of old tongues, rituals and original songs, and a good old attempt to get a grip, Pent Up sheds new light on traditional spells and third world brothels, and transforms every scratch & win ticket into a lucky one. Directed by Peter Born.

Feb 8 - 22
Tue - Sat 8p
Sun 5:30p
Additional show Mon, Feb 9 8p

Use code LOTTO and enjoy $12 tickets (Reg. $20)*
Enter code online http://www.ps122.org/performances/pent_up.html
By phone 212-352-3101
In person at Performance Space 122
150 1st Ave. at 9th St.

*May be discontinued at any time, so book now and save!

2008 was a pretty special year for 651 ARTS.  As we move into 2009, I thought that I would take this time to share with you some of my favorite highlights from the past year.

For our 2008 season, we decided to turn our attention to the rich cultural heritage of the Mississippi Delta with the Mississippi Delta Heritage Project. Now you can’t have a project dedicated to Mississippi without visiting the state. Georgiana Pickett (Executive Director) made several visits to Mississippi over the course of a year. She raved about the state and made the rest of us jealous. So then it was my turn, but this time I was taking our Production Manager Robert Henderson with me. Now all I am going to tell you is that I ate myself silly and had a little too much fun:

Here I am dancing with Bill Luckett, owner of Ground Zero Blues Club

 If you have never been to Mississippi it is a must see. Check out this website for more information about visiting Mississippi.  http://www.visitmississippi.org/

We kicked off the Mississippi Delta Heritage Project with a jam session led by Brooklyn bluesman Michael Hill with students from the Brooklyn High School of the Arts. These kids had a really fabulous time - they didn’t want to go home! Their enthusiasm is a real testament to their teacher – Mr. James Duncan - seen here with his students:

Mr. Duncan jamming with his students

The project included a diverse group of artists who truly showcased how culturally rich the Mississippi Delta region is, but also how much the region has influenced other art forms. We had an extraordinary group of artists that participated in this project including: Reggie Wilson, Ping Chong, Dianne McIntyre, Olu Dara, Toshi Reagon, Sharde Thomas and the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band, T-Model Ford, Terry “Harmonica” Bean, Robert “Wolfman” Belfour, Marie Knight, Jimmy “Duck” Homes, Lobi Traore, Corey Harris, Michael Hill and Cassandra Wilson. My favorite part of the series was hearing Toshi Reagon singing “Smokestack Lightin’ ” and seeing the audience jamming to the wicked guitar playing of T-Model Ford. It was a remarkable project! For more information about the project, please check-out the following NY Times article here.

In July we presented Eti! East Africa Speaks, in collaboration with Dartmouth College, Theater Without Borders and the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center CUNY, which featured eleven theater artists from East Africa (Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda) in the States for a three and a half week residency. Its purpose, to build connections between the U.S. and East Africa by exposing East African work to U.S. audiences and providing  East African artists  an opportunity to network and work with top-notch U.S. theater practitioners.

The first two weeks of the residency took place at Dartmouth College where the artists engaged with the student body. The following ten days took place in NYC, where the artists participated in a series of presentations led by  Lynn Nottage, Migdalia Cruz, Kia Corthron, Okwui Okpokwasili, Robert O’Hara, Liesl Tommy, Carl Hancock Rux, Ruben Polendo, Tracey Scott Wilson and Ping Chong. The New York City residency provided the artists with the opportunity to network with potential artistic collaborators as well as to attend shows, and culminated in a series of work-in-progress presentations of the East African artists’ own work at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center CUNY. This was an amazing series! Who could forget the powerful performance of George Seremba (Uganda) and his autobiographical account of survival to triumph over the oppressive political regimes of Milton Obote and Idi Amin. Or the brilliant musical accompaniment of Andrea Simon Kalima of Tanzania. Click here to listen to an interview on WFMU with some of the East African musicians who participated in the project.

In October, I traveled to Kenya and Tanzania with Brooklyn-based choreographers Nora Chipaumire, Reggie Wilson and Christalyn Wright.  The artists performed and taught in Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and in Nairobi, Kenya. This was an extraordinary trip for me.  Seeing Nora, Christalyn and Reggie teaching such diverse communities, watching students  who were so curious and excited about contemporary dance was  an experience that I will hold onto for a lifetime.  Check out my earlier blog post for some great photos from the trip, as well as our facebook page (become a fan!). This photo is my favorite from the trip:

Workshop participants dancing their hearts out!

Which brings us to January 2009. What’s ahead?

2009 marks the 20th anniversary of 651 ARTS!  This season we are focusing on the outstanding female artists who have graced our stages, as well as influenced 651 ARTS as a whole.  Founded by Mikki Shepard, 651 ARTS has been directed and staffed primarily by women.  This year, 651 ARTS has chosen to dedicate its attention to the importance of new work and the guiding influence of Black women in the arts.

 
We are kicking-off our season with a new play entitled In This Place…  by award-winning writer/director Ain Gordon and starring Michelle Hurst. This is a must-see production!

Check out 651 ARTS’ Facebook page for additional information about the production – or go to the Irondale Center website: www.irondale.org

I am so excited about 2009 and all of the extraordinary programs that we have lined up.

Stay tuned for the official release on who will be featured this season, but let’s just say that you are in for a real treat!

Happy New Year!

All the best,
Anna

(October 21, 2008)

The U.S. Embassy will collaborate with the VISA 2 DANCE Festival and 651 ARTS (Brooklyn, NYC) to present three nights of modern dance on October 22-24 at Diamond Jubilee VIP Hall. Three visiting American dancers will also offer workshops to local dancers October 21-24 as a part of the contemporary dance festival.

For the first time ever in Tanzania, American contemporary dancers Christalyn Wright, Nora Chipaumire and Reggie Wilson will perform three solo performances and a trio piece during the three-day VISA 2 DANCE festival. The artists have just returned from Zanzibar where they performed at Ngome Kongwe in collaboration with the Dhow Countries Music Academy’s Ngoma Dance Project. Following their visit to Dar es Salaam, their two-week East African tour will take them to Nairobi, Kenya.

The three American dancers are visiting Tanzania through a generous grant from the American people to foster the exchange of performing arts between Tanzania and the United States. The artists seek to engage their audiences by bringing their unique dance styles that fuse American dance and other world traditions such African dance, Afro-Caribbean, American Hip-Hop, and contemporary dance techniques that use the movement languages of the blues, slavery and the spiritual cultures of Africans.

Reggie Wilson, Nora Chipaumire and Christalyn Wright will perform HO:ME, a structured trio improvisation piece by the three artists. This piece gives the artists’ perspectives on home, and their relationships to their own homes.

Dance performances will be held at the Diamond Jubilee VIP Hall with different programs each of three nights. Other festival performers include dance companies from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Italy, Sweden, and Germany. Performances will begin at 7:30 PM on Wednesday and Thursday October 22 and 23, and at 8:30 PM on Friday, October 24.

Visa 2 Dance aims to encourage artistic creativity among Tanzanian artists, empower them with new talent and confidence to achieve their potential. This is in addition to activating artistic and cultural exchanges through music, dance and theatre, opening cultural borders, develop international links and promote arts and cultural development within Tanzanian society.

The American dancers are a part of the cultural life of New York City, and their company, 651 ARTS, has been committed since 1988 to developing, producing and presenting performing arts and cultural programming grounded in the African Diaspora, with a primary focus on contemporary performing arts.

651 ARTS has worked with over 800 artists and ensembles—from Cuba to Trinidad, Senegal to South Africa, Brooklyn to Brazil and now Tanzania—on more than 350 projects and presentations. The company celebrates a broad range of cultural traditions, striving to forge alliances with artists, audiences, fellow cultural institutions, and local organizations to promote creative expression and community partnership.

Also traveling with the dancers is Anna Glass, Managing Director of 651 ARTS who also runs Africa Exchange, an international program created to facilitate collaborations between performing artists from Africa and the United States through residency programs, workshops and performances. This program explores new artistic forms and mutual influences among cultures to encourage the creation of new, collaborative work. For further information, please visit us at http://tanzania.usembassy.gov.

Karibu Sana for three nights of contemporary dance!

Highway 61 by Pat Thomas 

This recording of Highway 61 was made in a plantation graveyard with the Delta blues musician and part-time grave digger, Pat Thomas.   Pat is the son of Son Thomas, the famous bluesman first recorded by Bill Ferris in the 1960s.   The song Pat is singing is called Highway 61.  It’s a standard among musicians, and was made famous by Bob Dylan on his album Highway 61 Revisited.

Often known as the Blues Highway because of the path it cuts through the Delta, Highway 61 parallels the Mississppi River and the Illinois Central Railroad.  During the Great Migration, Highway 61 was the esape route for thousands of unemployed Mississippians in search of a new life in Chicago.

“Highway 61,” they sing “is the longest road I know.  Goes from Chicago all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.”

Now Highway 61 runs by Brooklyn’s door::  Terry “Harmonica” Bean is at Franks on 6/4, Robert Belfour is at Frank’s on 6/5, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes is at the Kumble Theater on 6/5, and Corey Harris is at the Kumble on 6/6.   More info and more shows are listed here: www.651arts.org.

Field recording by Wills Glasspiegel

Hear it here: Muddy Waters / Rollin’  Stone

Fast forward to 2008 at 651 ARTS — this week in Brooklyn, the Mississippi Delta Heritage Project becomes a new stage for Delta musicians traveling in the footsteps of Muddy Waters.   Music, once again, is the cultural crossroads that leads, albeit momentarily, out of the Mississippi, Delta.

Jimmy “Duck” Holmes performs at the Kumble on June 5th

This week in Brooklyn, expect to hear music that rarely, if ever, has made it to New York, including Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, who like Muddy Waters, was recorded by Alan Lomax.   Jimmy “Duck” is the inheritor of a regional style called Bentonia blues.  He is the last in a long-line of players, including Skip (”I’d rather be the devil than to be that woman’s man”) James.

Another surprising style comes to Brooklyn from Sharde Thomas, who is a native of Senatobia, Mississippi and is the granddaughter of Otha Turner.   Fife and Drum music cropped up throughout isolate pockets of the Deep South, but Sharde is perhaps the last to carry the torch of this now world-famous spiritual-blues tradition.   It’s the sound of Eurpoean colonial marching music re-mixed (and re-mastered) by slaves and share-croppers throughout the South:

That’s a video we found recently (through http://www.livebluesworld.com/profile/MississippiDeltaHeritageProject) of Sharde leading the Rising Star of Fife and Drum Band.   They perform on June 1st at the Masonic Temple at 7pm in a double-bill with Brooklyn’s own Toshi Reagon.

Last Sunday, the New York Times wrote a full spread on Diane McIntyre and the Mississppi Delta Heritage Project.   Read it HERE.

The fife is a handmade instrument cut from natural cane – it’s roots music, literally.  Fife blowing is an African-American tradition that goes back to the Deep South during the Civil War (some even say to the Revolutionary War).  Slaves transformed marching band music into a hybrid — straight 4/4 European rhythms got bent into syncopated drumbeats.  In this new musical form, the fife’s melody projected high above the drums — it was the sound of a not-so-new Africa.  On a recent trip to Benin, 651 ARTS Project Manager, Wills Glasspiegel recorded this sound-clip (see below) in Cotonou, Benin.  Listen and you might hear the logic behind fife and drum music in Mississippi.

 whistle <— click here to hear it 

Photo by Drew Alt