Whether it’s on a wall or on a stage, altering expectations of what creative imagination can look like is what contemporary art is all about. Interested in celebrating how such transformations might manifest from the vantage point of black creativity, the Museum of Contemporary Art’s associate curator Tara Aisha Willis organized a dazzling trilogy of performances that gave full expression to how rich the world of black creativity is. Drawing deeply from talent that was either spawned or currently resides in Chicago, the series ended August 30th with musical performances by two remarkable artists, Thurman Barker and Ben LaMar Gay. Both translated their memories and emotions about Chicago through the way they create sound.
Performing individually in two sets and then together briefly in pure improvisation, their shows reflected the same expansive innovation seen throughout the series and were executed with the same exceptional distinction.
Both native Chicagoans, Barker and Gay tapped into their most seminal impressions of the city to express themselves in very different ways. A splendid drummer, Barker and his quintet chose the orchestral format to paint a beautiful kaleidoscope of feelings. From somber to poignant to explosive and rapturous, his work in progress, South Side Suite is a fascinating and thoughtful reflection of his complex home town.
Ben LaMar Gay’s Hecky Naw! Angles! was more resistant to categorization and in many ways better typified the two preceding performances in the series. Dahlak Brathwaite’s Try/Step/Trip two weeks earlier started life as a solo piece. Collaborating with director Roberta Uno, it appeared on the MCA stage as an ensemble production so powerful it made the Edlis Neeson Theater quake. In it, Brathwaite examined a journey that led a child of immigrants into the snares that entrap so many black youth. For him it led to a prison cell and the scarlet letter of a felon. He rebuffs the stigma his past entails and chooses to move forward with positive affirmation. Gifted with exceptional powers of expression, his dialog can be breathtakingly scorching and impossibly exquisite. He uses it deliver his take on the balance of power in a country divided along many lines. Despite last minute personnel changes and severely abbreviated rehearsal schedules, his cast of actors more than met the challenge of cogently delivering riveting dialog at lightning speed.
It’s that assertiveness that made Try/Step/Trip so much in sync with Ben Lamar Gay’s work. In addition to the way they both brought in other performance elements to add depth to their productions. Try/Step/Trip could be called musical theater with heft and combat boots. And like Gay’s Hecky Naw! Angles!, he uses dance as a form of emphasis. Step, a group dance form ingrained in the black community, is laden with ritual and attachment. Brathwaite employs it to signify unity and self-worth. Gay goes the interpretive route letting a single female dancer, Raquel Monroe, translate his music through the movement of her body. He also featured cutting edge video that re-enforced the rhythm of his music and give it visual dimension. Not only were they mesmerizing and startling in their creativity, Kim Alpert’s image projections were in perfect harmony with the dynamics of the sextet’s unorthodox sound.
Spellbinding moments kept popping up in all three of the series’ performances. In Rennie Harris’s Lifted, the second of the three, dance took center stage and featured the unforgettable skills of Joshua Culbreath. Built around a modern-day morality play that sears house to gospel into some kind of astonishing hybrid, Lifted showers the notion of redemption with its own brand of highly relatable relevance. And, because Harris believes “movement is how we worship life”, his dancers employ an impressive array of styles to demonstrate exactly how that’s done. Hip hop, break, lock and conventional contemporary stage dance are all pressed into service in the name of divinely bestowed personal salvation. The conceit worked splendidly and live vocals from a local Chicago choir acted as the golden thread that framed the entire piece.
Transformative experiences can pertain to who as well as what. The dancers performing in Lifted reminded us that many others besides the slim and the svelte can bust a move. Yet another small example of the inclusive nature of creativity.
Dahlak Brathwaite
Try/Step/Trip
MCA Edlis Neeson Theatre
Friday August 16, 2019
Rennie Harris
Lifted
MCA Edlis Neeson Theatre
Friday August 23, 2019
Saturday August 24, 2019
Thurman Barker/Ben LaMar Gay
South Side Suite/ Hecky Naw! Angles!
MCA Edlis Neeson Theatre
Friday August 30, 2019
