Blog - Artistic Reflections

Working Narratives (Wilmington, NC) and M.U.G.A.B.E.E. (Utica, MS) launched the public performance art project Black Man Running as part of a NET/TEN Exchange Grant in 2012-13. Its premiere performance involved dozens of artists, a documentation team and some 400 participant runners. Taking place in a park named for a Klu Klux Klan member, Black Man Running was public art and a social statement, and an organizing tool.

PULLproject (Los Angeles, CA) and Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress (NCRR)(Los Angeles, CA) engaged in an intensive day-long workshop, which led to a workshop period of rewrites and the completion of a full first draft of a performance piece titled Tales of Clamor. This work period was followed by a public staged reading to share the work. All partners are still committed to seeing Tales of Clamor through to premiere, anticipated for Fall/Winter of 2018.

Marina McClure, director of The New Wild (Brooklyn, NY) will conducted a six-day artistic retreat to continue writing a new musical about Afghanistan, Tear a Root from the Earth. The retreat included composers Johnny Walsh (Washington, DC) and Qais Essar (Phoenix, AZ), and book writer John Bair (Brooklyn, NY). They continued to develop their unique fusion of Afghan and American folk music, refine the story of the piece, and make demo recordings.