Up and Coming at the Museum of Contemporary Art
MCA Stage at The Museum of Contemporary Art served as a hub of developing expression as Damon Locks and Tamar-Kali share the stage as their respective works in progress are presented back to back.
Instrumental bells of all kinds provided the whimsical mood, as the light sounds sung through the hall. Behind the performers was black and white illustration, slowly revealed in its entirety, showing powerful imagery of resistance and phrases like its namesake Where Future Unfolds. Haunting harmonies unfold as current and lasting issues of brutality are addressed— singers chanting “There Goes Another One” leading instrumentation into crescendo. A progressive work in progress, indeed!
Locks’ Where Future Unfolds featured The Black Monument Ensemble – a visual, vocal, and musical experience including vocals (Allie Bradford, Tramaine S. Parker, Phillip Armstrong, and Joseph A. Kern), Dana Hall on drums, Arif Smith on hand percussion, Ben LaMar Gay on trumpet and bells, and Damon Locks with electronics, bells, and vocals.
Dancing with Demons
Demon Fruit Blues – a multidisciplinary display of dance, music, and film took place after an intermission and re-welcoming to an entirely different stage setting.
We’re welcomed with four women draped off the corner of the stage and over each other. Slow, fluid movement leads them throughout the entire theatre and finally to center stage and a healthy music ensemble narrates.
Tamar-Kali greets up with a boisterous spoken tribute to the Black Woman as we’re led through energetic and percussive dance. To this reporter, this was the most notable ending number, which resembles the Blues genres original repetitive riffs gave rise to the skilled guitarists (three of them!) to showcase their improvisational chops.
Visions of raspberry-capped fingertips, tarot cards, and ritualistic, brightly-colored displays served as the cinematic backdrop, which this reporter found an obvious-in-theme, yet still incomplete to give cohesion to the pieces.
Conceptually created, musically directed, and composed by Tamar-Kali, Demon Fruit Blues is directed by Charlotte Brathwaite and choreographed by Adia Tamar Whitaker. The visual imagery named Necromancer, was created by Sarah Olsen. The visual Artist Tiffany Smith provided Erzulie’s Kiss and Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. We heard drums by Mark Robohm, hand percussion by Lisette Santiago, upright and electric bass by Catherine O’Malley, guitar by Kat Dyson and Jerome Jordan, violin by Sylvia de la Cerna and Caitlin Edwards, viola by Michelle Manson, cello by Iftayo Ali-Landing, and harp by Leanne Bennion.
Ase Dance Theatre (Adia Whitaker, Kendra Ross, Jovan Clay, and Angel Chin) provided movement through the musical and visual expression of the many involved artists.
Post-show talk at MCA
A fitting post-show talk featured creators Damon Lock and Tamar-kali, but not before being gleefully led out in song, dance, and clapping that stretched into the lobby.
This show-along-with-presentation concept is recommended for supporting fellow creatives and those who love the process of seeing potential classics grow into fruition.
To learn more about MCA’s upcoming showcases visit the MCA website.
Photo credits: All top slider photos by Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago; all bottom slider photos by David L. McDuffie; FRONT PAGE COVER PHOTO-- Demonfruit Blues Photo: Gregory Thielker.
About the Author:
Brittany Harlin is the founding artistic director of Chicago Urban Dance Collective and 2017 recipient of the Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award. Her influences are Hip Hop and Modern Dance Pioneers. In addition to company work, her dancing and choreography has been featured at Ragdale Foundation, Links Hall, Elastic Arts, Aragon Ballroom, DRAMA Duo Music Productions, Black Ensemble Theatre, and Hip Hop International.
Brittany’s focus is Hip Hop, Modern, Funk Styles, Waacking, and House, combined with growing knowledge of somatics and kinesiology, all through the concert dance lens. Her goal is to bring dance education to a place of complete body awareness, spiritual expression, and connection. Brittany hopes to establish her practice in expressive therapy, creating opportunities, and inclusiveness.
Her teaching artist pedagogy & philosophy are weighted in respecting the integrity of the vernacular movement, by sharing what she’s been taught from respected community members - and stopping exactly there. She relates those concepts to personal natural movement, and the energy of the dancers she’s working with. Her goal is to create solidarity between diverse backgrounds, conducive to the essence and intention of The Hip Hop Socio-Political Movement. Harlin’s passion in dance extends to her community as she has launched her most recent endeavor of teaching professionalism and industry standards to aspiring professional dancers.
When Brittany isn’t dancing, she is supplementing her work with her passions for poetry and songwriting. She’s been referred to as a fawn and a hippie on multiple, separate occasions.
Click here to read more Picture this Post stories by Brittany Harlin.