HarlemStage Presents HOLDING IT DOWN 2/10

WaterWorks series is all about ENGAGIING AUDIENCES IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS. As our signature series, the audience has an opportunity to participate in a number of ways unique to each project, artist and their creative process from inception to finished work.

Acclaimed pianist/composer Vijay Iyer and celebrated poet/performer Mike Ladd, with Iraq veteran and poet Maurice Decaul, launch a new work-in-progress of music and poetry commissioned by Harlem Stage's WaterWorks program. Continuing on the heels of their groundbreaking collaborations In What Language? (2003) and Still Life with Commentator (2006), Iyer and Ladd will collaborate directly with young American war veterans of color from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to create a new work with the Working Title Holding it Down. After interviewing veterans of color specifically about their dreams - be they harrowing, surreal, or mundane- Iyer and Ladd will build an evening of music, poetry, and song around soldiers' dream narratives.

This project considers what it means for soldiers of color to move from a complex American landscape into the international context of war and imperialism - and then to return home, to widespread indifference, numbing bureaucracy, and an economic crisis that hits their communities especially hard. How is this new generation of veterans suffering and surviving, and what are they able to dream about? How do they go about their irreversibly transformed lives, moving from the unspeakable back to the speakable? And a still newer question: What is the relationship between soldiers of color and our first African American president? How do they fit into a newly transformed American race dynamic? Using the condensed, universal logic of dreams to express and affirm their essential humanity, Holding it Down pays tribute to young men and women returning home.

Featuring:
Vijay Iyer - piano, laptop, compositions

Mike Ladd - vocals, lyrics, sampler, analog synthesizer

Maurice Decaul - poet

Pamela Z - voice, live electronic processing

GuillerMo Brown - voice, auxiliary electronics

Liberty Ellman - guitar

Okkyung Lee - cello

Kassa Overall - percussionist

Commissioned and presented by Harlem Stage WaterWorks program

Grateful acknowledgment to the Teatro Manzoni, Milan

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