Artist In Residence
Marc Bamuthi Joseph - red, black and GREEN: a blues
Fall 2011
red, black and GREEN: a blues (rbGb) is a full-length, multimedia performance work designed to jumpstart a conversation about environmental justice, social ecology and collective responsibility in the climate change era. Combining dance, text and visuals in a new mode of kinetic performance, rbGb combines the talents of Mitchell Center Artist in Residence, writer/performer Marc Bamuthi Joseph; choreographer Stacey Printz; director Michael John Garcs; drummer/beatboxer Tommy Shepherd; documentary filmmaker Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi; and video designer David Szlasa. Joseph is joined onstage in the performance by dancer/actor Traci Tolmaire and vocalist/visual artist Theaster Gates, who is also designing the set.
The creation of rbGb utilizes a dynamic research-to-performance methodology that yields community input as artistic resource material; specifically, the voices of people often left out of discussions about "living green". This research has taken place through Life Is Living, a series of hip-hop based community festivals in urban parks nationwide featuring art, activism and education. Life Is Living: Houston took place November 6, 2010 in the Third Wards Emancipation Park. Interviews, poems, films and murals from Life Is Living are being translated into text, choreography and imagery that express the challenge of living green where crime and poor education pose a more imminent danger than ecological crisis, and that reveal emerging definitions of environmentalism in these communities.
The Mitchell Center will present red, black and GREEN: a blues in the Fall of 2011.
