The National Black Theater Festival
presents
Cultural Odyssey's
NEW PERFORMANCE IN BLACK THEATER SERIES
Curated by Idris Ackamoor
Tuesday - Saturday, July 31 - August 4, 2007
Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art
McChesney Scott Dunn Auditorium
750 Marguerite Drive, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27106-5861
Schedule
Tuesday - Potpourri Noire
A cabaret evening featuring excerpts from six shows that will run in their entirety during the week.
Featuring excerpts from all shows:
The Love Project is a multi-disciplinary performance piece written by Pearl Cleage and Zaron Burnett, Jr., with Rhodessa Jones and Idris Ackamoor.
Pearl Cleage "LIVE" reading from her latest work
Cabaret Unkempt is an irreverent and satirical memory piece performed by Jennylin Duany and Elizabeth Doud, which uses projected media, music, and poetry.
Color Struck is African American comic Donald Lacy's hilariously funny one-man show. In COLORSTRUCK, Donald Lacy attacks the issue of racism with his unique style of theater, combining stand up, with performance, spoken word and the voice of a radio disc jockey taking us through time.
In Search of My Clitoris empowers and educates the general public on female circumcision. In Search of My Clitoris, a one-woman show, is a clever combination of stand-up comedy and theater that is funny, playful and wise.
Who's Krazy? is a one man theater piece written and performed by Ise Lyfe. This play introduces us to Milton Victor, a 31 year old Black man working for a marketing firm in super corporate America until the day he snaps. Diagnosed as a schizophrenic, the entire play takes place in the basement of Milton's home where he has been locked away.
Wednesday and Thursday - It's an Adult Thang!
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| Jennylin Duany/CABARET UNKEMPT |
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Cabaret Unkempt (written by Jennylin Duany and Elizabeth Doud) is an irreverent and satirical memory piece performed by Jennylin Duany and Elizabeth Doud, which uses projected media, music, and poetry to explore Miami-based writer and performer Jennylin Duany's Cuban American background, her body, her self-image and her moving, often hilarious, experiences as a performer of "size" in a culture where size definitely matters. With the slick juxtaposition of her counterpart and collaborator, Elizabeth Doud, the work offers audiences a voyeur's pleasure of looking into a world that is sensual and audacious. Cabaret Unkempt uses satire and physicality to explore moments when all of us, regardless of size, are confronted with letting go of the identification with our body-trappings, and are faced with our deepest insecurities. "In this piece I pay homage to the 'excess' parts of me that have been there for such a longtime." The performers ruminate on the bombastic expectations of control, body mass, plastic surgery and self acceptance in a world obsessed with body image. The work surveys the landscape of "unkempt women," her super-ego, and creates a cartography of her body's journey. This performance plays beautifully to an intimate theater space, and engages audiences through humor, visceral provocation and a sense of humanity. Cabaret Unkempt is produced by Akropolis and commissioned by Diverse Works in Houston and the Carnival Center in Miami, Florida.
In Search of My Clitoris (written by Sia Amma) is produced to empower and educate the general public on female circumcision. In Search of My Clitoris, a one-woman show, is a clever combination of stand-up comedy and theater that is funny, playful and wise. Performed by comedienne Sia Amma, who has courageously and hilariously devised a comedy act to empower and educate the general public on female circumcision and to call attention to that part of a woman's body that has been subjected to mutilation. Extraordinary poet, playwright and comedian Sia Amma presents her revolutionary show to The National Black Theater audiences. Originally from Liberia, Amma survived the coming of age ritual of female circumcision at nine years old. On a search for her most precious possession, we are led into a collage of characters and culture, blending music, dance and tradition. Listen to her story and the stories of other women and rejoice in the dance. Through her discoveries, you may find yourself becoming a part of her endeavor to celebrate.
Friday - Hip Hop meets Face the Nation!
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| Donald Lacy / COLORSTRUCK |
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Color Struck (written and performed by Donald Lacy) is African American comic Donald Lacy's hilariously funny one-man show. In COLORSTRUCK, Donald Lacy attacks the issue of racism with his unique style of theater, combining stand up, with performance, spoken word and the voice of a radio disc jockey taking us through time. Past audiences have laughed with Lacy seeing themselves, relatives, and neighbors in his thought provoking dialogues. The "question of color" is still one of the most uncomfortable and unresolved issues facing America today. COLORSTRUCK is an opportunity for dialogue on the issue of race relations in America. COLORSTRUCK, written by Donald Lacy, and directed by Michael Torres with soundscape and music by Tommy Shepherd.
Who's Krazy? is a one man theater piece written and performed by Ise Lyfe. This play introduces us to Milton Victor, a 31 year old Black man working for a marketing firm in super corporate America until the day he snaps. Diagnosed as a schizophrenic, the entire play takes place in the basement of Milton's home where he has been locked away. Milton is a blend of the Black American sell-out/Idiot/all knowing/dreamer/brave/insecure-identity searching struggle within Black people in America. The intent of this piece is to address the sleeping giants living within people in America. The abundant potential and free light that exist in all of us that for the most part is ignored and untapped. Instead we are crammed into cubicles, Wal-Mart, emails, traffic jams, school, court, etc. Who is strange? Is it the homeless woman that steals and refuses to get a job? Or, is it the man that works at the same place for 35 years, retires at 65 and dies at 68 years old. WHO'S KRAZY?
Saturday - Love is all we need!
"True revolutions always begin with feelings of great love." Che Guevara
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| Idris Ackamoor and Rhodessa Jones |
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The Love Project is a multi-disciplinary performance piece written by Pearl Cleage and Zaron Burnett, Jr., with Rhodessa Jones and Idris Ackamoor. Using their long time personal and professional partnerships as a starting point, the four artists examine the role of love in a world at war. Living and working on opposite sides of the country for the past thirty years -- Jones/Ackamoor based in San Francisco and Cleage/Burnett based in Atlanta -- they came together to look at how various kinds of love -- romantic, familial, racial, platonic, spiritual and sexual -- inform their current work and have shaped their past collaborations.
A shared belief that the personal is always political and a deep respect for the power of love allows these pieces to move between topics as diverse as the private pleasures of sleepwalking and the challenge of world citizenship, to tree living highwaymen and hip hop warriors without missing a beat.
This first time collaboration between the four distinguished artists also will engage the audience directly in the performance, inviting them to add their stories to the Chorus of Love during a special segment that brings the performers up close and personal. In this way, the show is always a reflection not only of the people on the stage, but of the people who have come to witness and inform each performance.
At the beginning of the process, Rhodessa Jones described her hopes for the experience of the piece as follows: "My deepest fantasy is that the The Love Project is a cabaret piece that encourages a public forum. An evening of words, music and movement that can expand to include live performance in the moment."
That was the intention. This is the offering.
Pearl Cleage "LIVE" - Sharing the stage prior to The Love Project will be Pearl Cleage reading
from her latest work.
Color Struck and Who's Krazy? will also perform short excerpts on Saturday!!
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Cultural Odyssey gratefully acknowledges the following for their support:
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