MONDAY
so this is the proposal im going to be schlepping around campus
trying to get some funding, i fear im selling a lot of wolf tickets &
and what if none of it comes to fruition, or its a low production quality effort
ima use my research fund up to cover slack so we talking budget production
what if, god in heaven, i get up there on stage night and clutch, its happened
what if the script is not profound, or moving, or numinous in any way
once ive publicly made the commitment i got to go whole hog & hope
i got 9 divafolk involved and im shamed to tell you what ive offered them
token money, they said yes cause they trust me to do it up right, we have
a chance in this to define hoodoo & afrospiritual practice in the 21st century
and come up w/something special, something moving and
transcendent - and make a little money on the side
if that aint game what is
--------------------------------------
PROPOSAL: RICKYDOCS TRAVELING MEDICINE SHOW: A MULTIMEDIA MEDITATION ON PROPHECY & THE HOODOO WAY
Professor Arthur Flowers and Friends in a transformative evening of magic incorporating music, dance, video, installation art and performance poetry. An interrogation of contemporary hoodoo, the indigenous African American magical system, and its prophetic relationship with the family of afrospiritual traditions in the Americas. The presentation will track the evolution of 21st Century hoodoo from folk to high magic and incorporate a panel dialogue on afrospiritual practice and high hoodoo as cultural custodianship and initiatory illumination. Power and Redemption.
Afternoon: a panel discussion on high magic and the hoodoo way. The panelists, all mature artists with decades of ritual performance experience, and functioning as a Council of the Hoodoo Elders, will reflect on the responsibilities and challenges of hoodoo/afrospiritual eldership, and the role of ritual performance in their practice. Panelists/performers will also function during presentation as a Greek chorus/Baptist choir in an attempt to blend the academic and the creative in an innovative format.
Evening: performance at the Community Folk Art Center, panelists, seated on 7 thrones, bleed into a multimedia performance experience – dance, music, video, installation performance art.
Installation exhibit will turn the Black Box theater into a hoodoo temple for the evening. During the program the performers will be enthroned (masks, vestments, fetishes & attitude). As it is a small space for 9 performers I will have them seated on 7 thrones placed throughout the theater in a manner that incorporates the audience, rising as necessary for their performances. Videowork: optimally 2 video screens of video art contributing to theme of evening. Production will be taped in effort to generate interest and funding for full productions/film.
Storyline is that of a hoodoo sorceror, a Hoodoo Lord of the Delta, a would be prophet of the Hoodoo Way, reflecting, in his own weary eldership (I was once a man of power) on the apparent failure, in his lifetime, to transform African American culture and its destiny – and his apparent failure to bridge the challenge of being a tribal voice and/or a universal one - save my people or save them all.
It will engage the emotional and spiritual costs of obsession and the prophetic impulse, a force that can, on one hand, illuminate entire cultures, enhancing the human condition through great teachers like Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tse, or blight them with charismatics like Jim Jones of the People’s Temple or the Xhosa cattle killing of Nongqawuse. Most essentially this evening will be a meditation on the prophetic impulse - one of human destiny’s most powerful instruments for shaping generations.
Comments