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Home > Hancher > blessing the boats

Program - blessing the boats (Friday & Saturday, January 21-22, 2005 - 8 p.m.)

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Program Notes
  3. About the Artists
  4. Related Web Sites

Introduction

Cast and Crew

Notes

blessing the boats is a production of MAPP/MultiArts Projects & Productions, NYC.

Funding for the creation of blessing the boats has been provided by The Greenwall Foundation.

blessing the boats has been commissioned by Aaron Davis Hall's Fund for New Work in partnership with New Heritage Theatre Group; Miami Dade Community College in partnership with the Flynn Center for the Arts and the National Performance Network Creation Fund (sponsored by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation); Duke University Institute of the Arts, Durham, NC and the University Musical Society, Ann Arbor, MI. The development of blessing the boats is made possible, in part; by New Works for a New WORLD play development laboratory at New WORLD Theater, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Opening Excerpt from "The Knife," in Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery, by Richard Selzer. Copyright © 1974, 1975, 1976, 1987 by Richard Selzer. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., Literary Agency.

Excerpt from "Afterlife: Notes from an Organ Donation," by Maria Torres and Charlene Donnan, Connect 3, p.134. By permission of Arts International and the authors.

"Sound Sketches" by Craig Harris, excerpt from live concert, used with permission

"Flippin the Script" by Sekou Sundiata, (c) 1997, Mouth Almighty Records, used with permission

"Raga Madhu Kauns" by G.S. Sachdev, used with permission

"Ah George We Hardly Knew Ya" written by Don Pullen, performed by Don Pullen & The African Brazilian Connection Andredon Music Co., © 1993, Used with permission

"The Outerbanks" by Bill Toles, used with permission

"Gi Pai Pa Yul Chola (Trad Theme)" by Yungchen Lhamo, Sony/ATV Songs LLC, used with permission

"Early, My God, Without Delay" by Richard Allen Singers. From the compilation "African American Congregational Singing: Nineteenth Century Roots" Wade in the Water Volume II. Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings.

An excerpt from the film "My Am" by Linda Goode Bryant, used with permission

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Program Notes

Special thanks to Lucille Clifton, Roberta Uno, and Georgiana Pickett.

blessing the boats is dedicated, with love and gratitude, to my inspirations: Katea Stitt, Maurine Knighton, Claude Johnson, Bill Terry, Sydney Inis and the woman with the cell phone.

There are many people who have made this work possible in many different ways. Some of them influenced the creation and production of blessing the boats, others influenced my treatment and recovery from End Stage Renal Disease. But that is splitting hairs because the work is tied to my recovery. It is a vital part of it. My gratitude is complete and undying.

For further information about Sekou Sundiata and this project, contact:

MAPP/MultiArts Projects & Productions, NYC
140 Second Avenue Suite 502
New York, NY 10003
Tel: 646-602-9390
www.multiartsprojects.com

Ann Rosenthal, Executive Director
Cathy Zimmerman, Co-Director
Jordana Phokompe, Associate Producer
Lisa Phillips, Director of Booking, MAPP on Tour

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About the Artists

Sekou Sundiata

Sekou Sundiata is a poet who writes for print, performance, music and theater. Born in Harlem, Sundiata came of age as an artist during the Black Arts/Black Aesthetic movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He has been a Sundance Institute Screenwriting Fellow, a Columbia University Revson Fellow, a Master Artist-in-Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts (Florida) and the first Writer-in-Residence at the New School University in New York. He was featured in the Bill Moyers' PBS series on poetry, "The Language of Life," and as part of Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam on HBO. Sundiata is currently a professor at Eugene Lang College in New York City.

He has written and performed in the highly acclaimed performance theater works The Circle Unbroken is a Hard Bop, which toured nationally and received three AUDELCO Awards and a BESSIE Award; The Mystery of Love, commissioned and produced by New Voices/New Visions at Aaron Davis Hall in New York City and the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia; and Udu, a music theater work produced by 651 ARTS in Brooklyn and presented by the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, the Walker Art Center and Penumbra Theater in Minneapolis, Flynn Center in Burlington, VT, the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and Miami-Dade Community College in Florida.

blessing the boats, Sundiata's most recent theatrical piece, brings the story of five tumultuous years of his life into perspective as it relates his experience with the life threatening illness and recovery of kidney failure and organ transplant. This work opened in November 2002 and continues to tour nationally. Sundiata is committed to using this work to raise public awareness about organ donation and transplantation. In addition to public performances, he gives lecture presentations that relate the human experience of transplantation and invite discussion on the cultural aspects of kidney disease and minority health issues. He has recently delivered keynote addresses at conferences of the National Coalition on Donation, the American Nephrology Nurses Association and for National Minority Donor Awareness Day among others.

Sundiata has recorded and performed his poetry with a range of musicians, including Craig Harris, David Murray, Nona Hendryx and Vernon Reid. His first recording, The Blue Oneness of Dreams (Mouth Almighty/Mercury), and its successor, longstoryshort (Righteous Babe Records), are both rich with the sounds of blues, funk, jazz and African and Afro-Caribbean percussion. He has toured internationally with his band; in 2001, they performed in 23 cities in the United States and Canada as part of Ani DiFranco's "Rhythm and News Tour."

Sundiata is currently working on The America Project (working title) a music/theater piece that contemplates America's national identity, its power in the world and its guiding mythologies. The work, set to premiere in 2006, is being developed through community engagement activities at colleges and universities throughout the U.S.

Rhodessa Jones

Rhodessa Jones (Director) is Co-Artistic Director of the San Francisco performance company, Cultural Odyssey. She is an actress, director, dancer, teacher, singer, and writer. Ms. Jones is also the Founder and Director of the award winning Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women, which is a performance workshop that is designed to achieve personal and social transformation with incarcerated women. Her most recent solo performance, Hot Flashes, Power Surges, and Private Summers has recently toured to Anchorage, Alaska at Out North Contemporary Art House; Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center's Shimberg Theater; and Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, CT, among other stops. While in residence at Yale, Ms. Jones led workshops and conducted Master Classes for the MFA students. She also lectured at the African American Cultural Center at Yale University and was honored with a Master's Tea hosted by Faculty of the Yale School of Drama.

A series of lectures offered by Ms. Jones has helped her forge a place as a major social scientist of our time. Among these lectures are: Creative Survival, Creative Performance, Theater for the Twenty-First Century, and Women Saving Their Own Lives. In October 2002, she provided the keynote speech at the Cabrillo College Women's Studies Conference and the Center Force Summit 2002 Conference, Inside-Out: Fostering Healthy Outcomes for the Incarcerated and Their Families. Her most recent directing credits include Deborah Edward's From Whores to Matriarchs and Will Power's The Gathering. Ms. Jones is currently a featured artist contributing to Building the Code: Understanding Community Based Arts in America, a research and publication project sponsored by the National Performance Network.

Roberta Uno

Roberta Uno (Dramaturg) is a director and dramaturg whose work includes: dramaturg for Project 2050, director of Stop Kiss by Diana Son, Clothes by Chitra Divakaruni, Unmerciful Good Fortune by Edwin Sanchez, the bodies between us by thuy le, Flyin' West by Pearl Cleage, and Sheila's Day by Duma Ndlovu. She was the founding Artistic Director of the New WORLD Theater, a visionary cultural institution dedicated to works by artists of color, which she headed for 23 years. Her most recent book is The Color Of Theater: Race, Culture, and Contemporary Performance, which includes the performance text of Sekou Sundiata's Elijah. She has recently joined the Ford Foundation as the Program Officer for Arts and Culture.

Michael Mazzola

Since the mid 1980's, Michael Mazzola's critically lauded lighting has been seen all over the US and Europe, in venues ranging from opera houses to circus tents to outdoor amphitheaters. Beyond his work as resident lighting designer for Oregon Ballet Theatre, the two-time New York Dance and Performance Award-winning designer has created lighting for the Bebe Miller Company, for whom he has designed since 1986; Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Company; Steve Paxton and Lisa Nelson; Yoshiko Chuma; the multimedia symphony Babar composed by Raphael Mostel; as well as a large number of dance companies including Milwaukee Ballet, Nashville Ballet, Aspen-Santa Fe Ballet Company, Trinity Irish Dance Company and Hubbard Street Dance Company. Recent projects have included UDU, a work written by Sekou Sundiata with music by Craig Harris; the scenic and lighting design for the Liz Lerman & Dance Exchange's premiere of Uneasy Dances, celebrating the world of Leonard Bernstein at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Recently, Mr. Mazzola was the Production Designer for Stars Of The New York City Ballet, performing under the stars in a garden he designed especially for the event in the South of France. Upcoming projects this season include a new work by Trey McIntyre for Hubbard Street and new works by Nicolo Fonte for North Carolina Dance Theatre and Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Bill Toles

Bill Toles (Sound Design and Co-Producer of Soundtrack) is a music producer and filmmaker. He has done sound design, musical direction and/or composing for Black Spectrum Films, Lisa Jones' Rodeo Caldonia, Ubu Theatre, NYSF, NEC, NPR Radio Theater, Amiri Baraka/New Federal Theater, New Voices/Aaron Davis Hall, Crossroads Theater, Brown University's Rites & Reason Theater/American Theater Festival, Diane McIntyre/Olu Dara, Def Dance Jam, Judith Jackson, Latino Experimental Fantastic Theatre, the Audelco Awards, and most recently Marlies Yeaby & Craig Harris' Brown Butterfly. He has scored several recent documentaries, including: Paul Robeson: Here I Stand, produced for PBS/American Masters (1999), directed by St. Clair Bourne and winner of the Strand Award for Best Documentary from the International Documentary Association; Innocent Until Proven Guilty directed by Kirsten Johnson, which can be seen on the HBO Signature channel and Hughes' Dream Harlem for Black Starz Network. His film-directing debut - Wanderlust – is set to premiere in 2004.

As a producer, musical director, guitarist, tour producer, manager, and engineer, Toles has worked with Arrested Development, Me'Shell NdegéOcello, Caron Wheeler, Living Colour, Screaming Headless Torsos, Diana King, Atlantic Starr, Noel Pointer, The Black Rock Coalition Orchestra, Toshinobu Kubota, Word: Life Spoken Word Conference & Cyber/Simulcast, The Tongues of Fire Choir and Craig Harris and Sekou Sundiata's opera UDU. In 2001, Mr. Toles split duties engineering and performing with Sekou Sundiata on a U.S./Canadian tour of 24 cities opening for Ani DiFranco.

Sage Marie Carter

Sage Marie Carter (Projections Designer) Theatrical credits include: Loves & Hours (Old Globe Theatre), Arjuna's Dilemma (Mazer Theatre), Oo Bla Dee (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Broadway, Steppenwolf Theatre Company and BITE Festival, London), Miss Saigon (Big League Theatricals US National Tour), The Cripple of Inishmaan (The Joseph Papp Public Theatre), Missing Footage (The Helen Hayes Performing Arts Center), Having Our Say (Broadway, The McCarter Theatre, and the National Tour), Elvis Live and In Concert (Mid-South Coliseum and Pay-Per-View), Cakewalk (American Repertory Theatre), and Techno Sacre (Guggenheim Works & Process program). She is currently living in Brooklyn, New York working as a Projections Designer and Consultant.

Daychia Sledge

Daychia Sledge (Sound Engineer) has been an expert freelance Sound Engineer and Systems Technician for the past 10 years. In these 10 years she has gained experience as a Head Sound Engineer, Stage Monitor, Assistant Recording Engineer, Live Recording Engineer, Stage Technician, Equipment Repair Technician, Production Manager, Equipment Manager/Coordinator, Technical Coordinator and a Nagra Operator. Over these past 10 years Daychia has worked with Chaka Khan, Showtime @the Apollo, B.E.T. Summer Stage Tour and many other reputable clients.

MultiArts Projects & Productions (MAPP)

MultiArts Projects & Productions (MAPP) is a N.Y.C.-based arts organization dedicated to producing and sustaining performing artists as they develop multidisciplinary projects that raise questions about the complexities of our time. MAPP works in close collaboration with artists, arts organizations and other arts professionals to provide a holistic set of production and touring services tailored to the specific nature and needs of each project. MAPP was founded in 1994 by Executive Director, Ann Rosenthal, and since 1998 has been co-directed by Rosenthal and Cathy Zimmerman. MAPP has managed, produced and toured music, dance and theater projects by more than 40 artists from eight countries. In June 2000, MAPP introduced MAPP on Tour, to tour the projects produced by MAPP and its artists.

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