Minor Music at the End of the World
FEATURING ANDRE HOLLAND, OKWUI OKPOKWASILI AND FILM BY ARTHUR JAFA. COMMISSIONED AND PRESENTED BY HARTWIG ART FOUNDATION
Run time tba
Genre Theatre
Language English
World premiere Fri, Oct 3
In Gesprek Sat, Oct 4
Minor Music at the End of the World
How does one live at the end of the world? Is it possible to envision a world without racism? And what would be required to create such a world?
Minor Music at the End of the World adapts for the stage Saidiya Hartman’s acclaimed essays “The End of White Supremacy” and “Litany for Grieving Sisters.” This new work takes as its point of departure W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Comet, a speculative fictional tale of the end of the world written in the wake of the pandemic of 1918. Minor Music is presented in three movements:
Movement I: The End of White Supremacy - Featuring Andre Holland
Movement II: Dead River - Featuring Okwui Okpokwasili, with Bria Bacon, Audrey Hailes, and AJ Wilmore
Movement III: The World is Dead - A film by Arthur Jafa
The work enacts the enduring crisis of black life in the context of racial capitalism, managed depletion, and white supremacy. Against this complexly layered backdrop, Minor Music conveys an ongoing series of catastrophes that converge at this critical inflection point — among others, the arrival of Africans in New York City, the first slave auction in lower Manhattan, the precarity of black life, global pandemics, and environmental catastrophes that make life seemingly unlivable. In doing so, it provokes a series of penetrating questions about black life at the end of the world and the new social formations that arise in its wake. Directed by Sarah Benson, Minor Music at the End of the World features cinematic elements by Arthur Jafa, lead performances by actor André Holland and actor/sonic movement artist Okwui Okpokwasili. Minor Music is an evening-length performance presented without intermission.
Credits
Performers
Lead Performer André Holland
Lead Performer Okwui Okpokwasili
Movement Artist Bria Bacon
Movement Artist Audrey Hailes
Movement Artist AJ Wilmore
Creative
Writer Saidiya Hartman
Director Sarah Benson
Scenic Designer Mimi Lien
Lighting Designers Stacey Derosier and Jane Cox
Live Camera Designer Josh Higgason
Sound Designer Stan Mathabane
Costume Designer Camilla Dely
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Collaborating Artists
Film and Video Artist Arthur Jafa
Installation Artist Precious Okoyomon
Sound Artist and Movement Adviser - Dead River Peter Born
Attendant of the Archive Cameron Rowland
Production
Creative Producer RR Sigel
Production Stage Manager Kasson Marroquin
Associate Director Dante Green
Casting Director Taylor Williams
Executive Producer Tina Campt
Executive Producer Beatrix Ruf