Dreaming America with Sekou Sundiata

Singer Ronnell Bey
from the 51st (dream) state

Launched in April and concluding tomorrow night, Blink Your Eyes: Sekou Sundiata Revisited festival has spanned numerous performance sites around town, paying tribute to the Black poet-griot-activist who died in 2007. A presentation of MAPP International Productions, Blink Your Eyes offers a timely retrospective of Sundiata's work and of questions that preoccupied him, such as the still unfinished business of realizing American democracy and justice.

Last evening, the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in Soho presented Sundiata's final theatrical work, the 51st (dream) state, in an adaptation for radio broadcast before a live audience. It was directed by Arthur Yorinks and hosted by John Schaefer of WNYC's Soundcheck. The unusually close, intimate space at the Greene heightened connection between audience members and an array of wonderful performers including jazz singer La Tanya Hall (taking Sundiata's role of narrator) and the original vocalists, Ronnell Bey, Audrey Martell, Bora Yoon and Samita Sinha.

La Tanya Hall as Poet/Narrator

Vocal cast of The 51st (dream) state
L-r: Hall, Bora Yoon, Ronnell Bey, Samita Sinha and Audrey Martell

Aside from a few times when the flourish of music swallowed Yoon's or Sinha's occasionally wispy vocalizing--both otherwise shine in quieter, spirit-filled passages--the work proceeded with fearless honesty and radiance. The small band--led by musical director/trumpeter Eddie Allen and conducted by Richard Harper--was tight, authoritative, sensuous to the max. Sitting just a few feet away, we could feel, to the core, everything they set before us.

The 51st (Dream) State is a post-9/11 meditation and intervention. Although, as Schaefer chose to emphasize, this is not "a 9/11 piece," Sundiata did not shrink from vividly invoking chilling imagery from that time of horror. He did so with exceptional courage to witness reality, free of sentimentality, and to grapple with consequences. And then he urged us to move on because we must--as a nation in flux and possibility--visualize who we want to be when we grow up.

Sundiata concluded with this challenge: "Why don't we get our hopes up too high?"

The poet has gone. His irreverent question resounds.

Watch the Blink Your Eyes presentation of the 51st (dream) state in its entirety here:

Blink Your Eyes: Sekou Sundiata Revisited continues with these remaining programs:

Days of Art & Ideas: Democracy, Imagination and Peeps of Color Now, a panel discussion at Harlem Stage Gatehouse. Tonight at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Days of Art & Ideas: Blood, Muscle, Bone: the anatomy of wealth and poverty. Discussion and presentation on community-engagement by dance artists Liz Lerman and Jawole Zollar at Harlem Stage at Aaron Davis Hall. Saturday, October 12, 4pm-6pm. Free with reservation. Click here.

WeDaPeoples Cabaret: Fall 2013 at Harlem Stage at Aaron Davis Hall, Saturday, October 12, 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Citywide arts tribute to the late Sekou Sundiata

A Citywide Retrospective for the Poet and Playwright Sekou Sundiata
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times, February 18, 2013

Take part in this tribute to Sekou Sundiata

Blink Your Eyes: Sekou Sundiata Revisited, a NYC-wide retrospective, is COMING SOON -- a feast of concerts, poetry readings, re-stagings of theater pieces, discussions, gatherings, and more celebrating Sekou Sundiata -- the man, the poet, the soothsayer, band leader, teacher, soul stirrer, activist and the griot. We want to create a video montage using footage created by -- and starring -- Sekou's friends, fans, collaborators, colleagues and students. TO DO IT RIGHT WE NEED YOU!! YOUR MISSION Please record yourself reading Sekou's poem, "Blink Your Eyes" (click the link to get a PDF of the poem or see the full text below) -- you can do this with a phone, a flip cam, whatever you have access to. You do not need to record it all in one "perfect" take. We just request that you record yourself reading/performing the entire poem so that we can edit it together with other people's videos, and footage of Sekou as well. FORMAT Any digital format can be submitted via email, or via  YouSendIt addressed to julia@mappinternational.org. Please include your name as you want it to appear in the credits and your contact info. STYLE Please film yourself with the camera in a horizontal (landscape) POV. Please do not record yourself in a vertical (portrait) perspective. DEADLINE In order to produce this video piece, we request that you submit your video no later than Friday, February 8, 2013. QUESTIONS Please contact Julia Gutierrez-Rivera julia@mappinternational.org Updates on the retrospective will be posted at sekousundiata.org  Thanks for participating and, in the spirit of Sekou, All of a sudden, Ann *** BLINK YOUR EYES   by Sekou Sundiata I was on my way to see my woman but the Law said I was on my way thru a red light red light red light and if you saw my woman you could understand, I was just being a man. It wasn't about no light it was about my ride and if you saw my ride you could dig that too, you dig? Sunroof stereo radio black leather bucket seats sit low you know, the body's cool, but the tires are worn. Ride when the hard time come, ride when they're gone, in other words the light was green. I could wake up in the morning without a warning and my world could change: blink your eyes. All depends, all depends on the skin, all depends on the skin you're living in Up to the window comes the Law with his hand on his gun what's up? what's happening? I said I guess that's when I really broke the law. He said a routine, step out the car a routine, assume the position. Put your hands up in the air you know the routine, like you just don't care. License and registration. Deep was the night and the light from the North Star on the car door, deja vu we've been through this before, why did you stop me? Somebody had to stop you. I watch the news, you always lose. You're unreliable, that's undeniable. This is serious, you could be dangerous. I could wake up in the morning without a warning and my world could change: blink your eyes. All depends, all depends on the skin, all depends on the skin you're living in New York City, they got laws can't no bruthas drive outdoors, in certain neighborhoods, on particular streets near and around certain types of people. They got laws. All depends, all depends on the skin, all depends on the skin you're living in

WeDaPeoples uptown

Harlem Stage presents

WeDaPeoples Cabaret

curated by Carl Hancock Rux

co-presented by the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University

and the Columbia/Harlem Jazz Project

Saturday, September 25, 9:30pm

Harlem Stage 

at Aaron Davis Hall

WeDaPeoples Cabaret was created in 2006 by Sekou Sundiata for The American Project. Fusing political consciousness with artistic mastery in the spirit of Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln's "We Insist: Freedom Now Suite."  Carl Hancock Rux curates a raucous night of art and activism inspired by Sundiata's vision of extending insurgent testimony and discourse beyond the academy and into the art space to reach the community at large.

Features:

Helga Davis
Queen Esther
Toshi Reagon
Greg Tate
Roger G. Jeffreys/Subtle Changes Dance Company

and more

with DJ Phonozone

Information and ticketing

Aaron Davis Hall
on campus of The City College of New York
between West 133 and 135 Streets, Convent Avenue, Manhattan

Directions

Memorial for Sekou Sundiata -- August 22

Two announcements from Bernadine Jennings of Attitude: The Dancers' Magazine

A special memorial for Sekou Sundiata takes place on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 (his birthdate), at Tishman Auditorium, New School University, 66 West 12th Street, exactly from 6pm to 8pm, with poets, musicians, family and friends...

African Voices magazine [africanvoices@aol.com] is looking for poems and short comments from friends and fellow artists who were influenced and inspired by Sekou Sundiata.

Publisher Carolyn Butts and Editor Layding Kaliba are looking to publish as many dedications to him as possible; therefore, no submission should be longer than 500 words. African Voices also wants to include photographs to accompany the dedications.

All submissions should be sent to African Voices [africanvoices@aol.com] no later than midnight, August 20, 2007, in order to include materials gathered in the very next issue.

Interested parties may submit materials via email and/or call African Voices at 212-865-2982.