Days of Black Future Past: Black Rock Coalition at The Met

Above: Sandra St. Victor
Below: Shelley Nicole
Black Rock Coalition: The History of Our Future
Metropolitan Museum of Art
photos: Paula Lobo

"Black music has been the taproot of every significant movement in rock music. Sadly, the vast majority of Black artists in rock have been erased from the historical narrative or relegated to footnotes."

--Darrell M. McNeill

When you imagine venues to host one of the badbadbadass-iest rock concerts of all times, do you think of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art?

Mmmhmmm.

Well, think again, because you missed Black Rock Coalition: The History of Our Future, a MetLiveArts show designed to demonstrate that Black people not only did rock first but they did it best, do it now and have no intention of stopping. Under Darrell M. McNeill's creative and musical direction, the famed Black Rock Coalition Orchestra and featured guests rocked that house last night with a steady roll. All walls and pedestals should be checked for damage.

Named for BRC Orchestra's 1991 album, the two-hour show started off with the pumping Sly Stone hit "Dance to the Music." That funk functioned here like it did when it was new back in 1967--a sure-fire commercial success for David Geffen's CBS Records and, in 2019, an icebreaker like no other. Though the predominantly white Met Museum audience needed the initial permission to dance to the music, as the evening sped along, folks required little prompting to get up on their feet.

The stage of the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium was packed, side to side and front to back, with instruments and artists including a revolving cast of standout featured performers--among them, Nona Hendryx, Toshi Reagon, Stew, Carl Hancock Rux, Living Colour's Vernon Reid and Corey Glover and, led by a commanding Sandra St. Victor, The Family Stand reunited. Yoruba chants and drumming, spoken word, jazz vocals, traditional work songs, gospel tunes, rock and roll and straight-up rock presented a stream of Black genius, all telling a story of determination, improvisation, spiritual depth and lust for life in the face of a long, long stretch of rough times under white supremacy. Times are still rough; the music persists and continues to do its work.

"So what is rock and roll?" Hancock Rux asked, "We begin with juke joints, and women loving women...." He went on to say it's rooted in "trying to find our way home."

Each performance--like vocalist Everett Bradley's unquestionable authority on both "Dance to the Music" and Louis Jordan's "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie"--felt like a sturdy home and one connected, at the foundation, to every other home. Places of rest and reflection, generous nourishment, everyday miracles and jubilation. Hendryx, above all others, took all my heart with witchy renditions of the jazz classic "Afro Blue" and, later, an unexpectedly expanded and capacious "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." She enters a song at unusual angles, spies just the right, clear path, then guides you through as intensity builds. Reagon quietly took up and met the challenges of Curtis Mayfield's bleak "When Seasons Change" with agility of voice and soul. Stew, with David Barnes on harmonica, updated Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man," making a statement on toxic masculinity from the White House to the church house, from FOX News to NPR. And it was just pure fun to watch Glover rock out again to "Cult of Personality," the show's closer.

An historic one-night only event. So, if you didn't catch it, bummer! But if you love rock, you can still check out Play It Loud: The Instruments of Rock & Roll, at the Met through October 1. Plan your Met visit here.

*****

Featured Artists:

Nona Hendryx
Fantastic Negrito
Vernon Reid, Corey Glover (Living Colour)
Toshi Reagon
Stew (The Negro Problem)
The Family Stand
"Captain" Kirk Douglas (The Roots, Hundred Watt Heart)
Carl Hancock Rux
Ronny Drayton

Black Rock Coalition Orchestra:

Darrell M. McNeill (bass)
LaFrae Sci (drums)
Howie Robbins (keyboards)
Elenna Canlas (keyboards)
Marcus Machado (guitar)
Marvin Sewell (guitar)
Gordon "Nappy G" Clay (percussion)
V. Jeffrey Smith (saxophone, flute)
Don Byron (clarinet, saxophone)
Bruce Harris (trumpet)
JS Williams (trombone)
Sophia Ramos (vocals)
Shelley Nicole (vocals)
Bruce Mack (vocals)
Everett Bradley (vocals, percussion)
Kelsey Warren (vocals)
David Barnes (harmonica)
Mikal Amin (vocals)

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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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Faustin Linyekula's "Banataba [new work]" at Met Museum

Dance artist Faustin Linyekula
is Crossing the Line's Mr. September.
(photo courtesy of FIAF)

Banataba [new work]'s world premiere at The Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday afternoon launched a major series of events featuring acclaimed Congolese dancer-choreographer Faustin Linyekula as part of French Institute Alliance Française' annual Crossing the Line festival which runs through October 15. This month, Linyekula will also present events with FIAF's co-presenters NYU Skirball, Dancing in the Streets and 651 ARTS in partnership with several other organizations (catch up on all of it here). Clearly, it's the September of Linyekula...and of widespread collaboration.

Commissioned by MetLiveArts and inspired by the museum's Kongo: Power and Majesty exhibition (2015), Banataba [new work] is performed in the Met's Spanish Renaissance Vélez Blanco Patio. It employs visual, kinetic and verbal storytelling as we ponder the meaning of objects created in native cultures and appropriated by museums. An hour-long duet for Linyekula and his enchanting collaborator Moya Michael (South Africa), it includes video and photographic elements representing the forested earth, the waters and the people of Linyekula's homeland.

The confined yet fixed, linear setup of the space--several rows of audience seating facing forward; video projected on the not-so-broad base of a statue or against the wall; headshots of unsmiling villagers gazing directly into the camera--works against a possibility of effectively immersing observers within these visual elements. At the same time, it's also possible that the choreographer chose separation rather than an easier connection and familiarity. After all, this piece appears to be about his ultimate decision to withhold and protect a precious discovery.

Much of the live performance involves the toting and gingerly careful transfer of a cloth-wrapped parcel from dancer to dancer, each either gazing at the other or slowly, gracefully bending and turning away with the mysterious object cradled in his or her arms. We listen to Linyekula chanting, singing or (sometimes near inaudibly due to the room's muddying acoustics and his sweet, soft voice) relaying a tale about visiting his mother's village.

We watch the unwrapping and assembly of the parts of the wooden object on top of a platform and the way this revelation makes the dancers jerk, tremble and eventually shake violently. While it becomes clear that this object--which the dancers will labor to reassemble with poignant yet also comical difficulty--is not the actual one Linyekula saw in his village, it stands in for it. Eventually, it stands--quite literally--and they glide it forward, close to the edge of our front row. Arms stretched out wide to each side, it gazes at us.

Aspects of Banataba [new work] suggest human bodies as tuning forks, dowsing rods or formidable, spirit-inhabited objects of power (nkisi). And as supple branches on trees whose ancient roots continuously supply information and nourishment. Just as we need to understand the contextual significance of the crafts created and valued by a people, so too do we need to comprehend the people themselves within the living fabric of their own culture and environment.

Banataba [New Work] continues with performances today at 12pm and 3:30pm. Seating is limited. For information and ticketing, click here.

Gallery 534, Vélez Blanco Patio
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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