Project description
Conceived by Renegade Performance Group’s Artistic Director and renowned choreographer André M. Zachery, & developed in collaboration with Ayinde Jean-Baptiste for DuSable City, Against Gravity: Flying Afrikans + Other Urban Legends is a solo performance that uses movement to explore the self-examination of Black masculinity through history, memory, text, poetry and geography.
It is a personal narrative that begins with Zachery’s youth in 1980-90’s Chicago and intersects with three legendary figures: Fred Hampton, Ben (Benji) Wilson and Harold Washington. Guided in part by the oracular voice of Chicago ancestor laureate Gwendolyn Brooks, the performer grapples with the legacy of these three men — a revolutionary, an athletic phenomenon and a post-Civil Rights era politician, all viewed in their primes as messiahs.
It is a personal narrative that begins with Zachery’s youth in 1980-90’s Chicago and intersects with three legendary figures: Fred Hampton, Ben (Benji) Wilson and Harold Washington. Guided in part by the oracular voice of Chicago ancestor laureate Gwendolyn Brooks, the performer grapples with the legacy of these three men — a revolutionary, an athletic phenomenon and a post-Civil Rights era politician, all viewed in their primes as messiahs.
community fly zone workshops - FALL 2024
black revival: A Movement Healing Ritual for Men will be a movement-based intergenerational workshop for Black men, boys, and masculine identified people. This workshop is Part One of Community Fly Zone Workshops, a series of workshops in collaboration with André M. Zachery, Artistic Director of Renegade Performance Group & Ayinde Jean-Baptiste, Lead Architect of DuSable City. Following the movement portion, there will be group reflection & discussion.
All reservations will be treated as first come, first served at the venue so please try to arrive on time. |
651 ARTS is thrilled to partner with The Free Black Women's Library to bring you chimeful poemhood: A Literary Circle + Poetry Workshop. Facilitated by renowed poet literary, theorist, and professor, Rosamond S. King, this literary workshop will explore the profound writings of Gwendolyn Brooks and reflect on how her work remains relevant today. Participants will then compose and share poetry of their own. This workshop will also offer space for Black expressive resistance and imagination, exploring how Black poetry and literature bring new perspectives to narratives and stories relevant to the community.
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The final workshop will be held at 10 Lafayette and will feature a screening of ESPN’s 30 for 30 presentation Benji (2012). Directed by Chicago natives Coodie and Chike, the powerful film recalls the life and impact of rising Chicago basketball star Ben “Benji” Wilson who was ranked as the number 1 player in the country in the Summer of 1984 and was deemed to be the one that would make it to the league and put Chicago on the map. Benji’s life was cut tragically short at the age of 17 years old when, during a brief scuffle prompted by an unintentional shoulder bump, he was shot and killed - and with him went the hopes and dreams of his family, classmates, and Black Chicago. The screening will be followed by an artist conversation.
Benji - Trailer |
creative team
ANDRÉ M. ZACHERY
CREATOR + CHOREOGRAPHER
CREATOR + CHOREOGRAPHER
André M. Zachery (he/him) is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist of Haitian and African American descent, and is a scholar, researcher and technologist with a BFA from Ailey/Fordham University and MFA in Performance & Interactive Media Arts from CUNY/Brooklyn College. As the artistic director of Renegade Performance Group his practice, research and community engagement artistically focuses on merging choreography, technology and Black cultural practices through multimedia work. André is a 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts Gregory Millard Fellow in Choreography and 2019 Jerome Hill Foundation Fellow in Choreography. André has worked on major projects across artistic mediums as a choreographer, media designer and consultant with artists such as Daniel Bernard Roumain, Cynthia Hopkins, Davalois Fearon, Dance Caribbean COLLECTIVE, Arin Maya, Rags & Ribbons, The Clever Agency, Kendra Foster, Manhattan School of Music, Burwell & Sasser and Spike Lee. André is an Assistant Arts Professor in the Department of Dance at Tisch School of the Arts - New York University.
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AYINDE JEAN-BAPTISTE (SKO)
CO-CREATOR + PRODUCING DIRECTOR
CO-CREATOR + PRODUCING DIRECTOR
3rd culture seed of two Caribbeans --- one born in the 1st surviving republic in the Western Hemisphere to throw off the yoke of slavery, the other in a colony, Ayinde Jean-Baptiste (Ayinsko: he\they\li) does what it takes, using voice to shift culture, engaging with communities of listening, memory-making, + movement.
Disciple of Kamau Brathwaite, Ayinsko is a sanba/keeper of memory, whose modal practice shifts as needed -- the participatory media project DuSable City, the online creative sousou Someplace Like Home, the experi(m)ent(i)al podcapsule trance-mission DrumLanguage (2013-16), occasional acts of journalism. Over the past decade this work has been supported by City Lore, Chicago Community Trust, Black Metropolis Research Consortium, THREAD at Yale, City Bureau, CCCADI, Voqal, + the Center for Cultural Power. Ayinsko has also served as multiformat arts presenter with The Brooklyn Museum, Haiti Cultural Exchange, City Lore, the DuSable Museum, Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, The Bowery Poetry Club, The Franke Center for the Arts + more, as well as in advisory + solidarity roles with Let Us Breathe Collective & Honey Pot Performance. Entering Against Gravity first as dramaturg, before shepherding its continued evolution as co-creator, Ayinsko has deployed the frames+ aesthetic of DrumLanguage --drum/re-memory/ media solidarity; extreme lyric, groove, loop, found sound, field+ archival recording; to help André re-voice their parallel pasts. @Ayinsko, anywhere @DuSableCity, right here |
avery r. young
Composer
Composer
Chicago’s inaugural Poet Laureate, interdisciplinary artist avery r. young [him, him, his] is an inaugural Walder’s Foundation Platform awardee, and recipient of the American Poet Laureate Fellow. A co-director of The Floating Museum, his poetry, performance and composition have been featured and/or commissioned in several journals, exhibitions and operas. He is the composer and librettist for a new commissioned work from The Lyrics Opera of Chicago titled safronia. His full length recording tubman. is the soundtrack to his collection of poetry, neckbone: visual verses.
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OKAI MUSIK
Live Sound Artist
Live Sound Artist
Okai is a vocalist/percussionist who embodies all the music of the African Diaspora. Born with Haitian descent, young Okai was beating on anything that he could get his hands on to help his imagination grow. His ears became infected with the hard boom bap drum loops of Hip Hop, and roots music from the Caribbean. Those sounds led him on a musical path to find rock, Jazz, samba, salsa, rumba and pretty much anything that involves percussion. Okai began his path of percussion on the trap set playing for various churches. He then played Congas for his High School band for several years. Once he was introduced to the West African Djembe he concentrated on that for more than 10yrs.
Aside from being an accomplished percussionist and producer, Okai is also an accomplished Emcee that has worked with various Artists and has a couple of solo albums "Deconstruction of the Mind" produced by Ayatollah and "Okai's Odyssey". Okai's cultural background shaped him into being the full round artist he is today. He is Currently the lead singer and percussionist of Brown Rice Family who won “The Battle of the Boroughs” in NYC in 2012. Okai is also co-founder of Strings N Skins who are currently finishing an album to be released in the fall. He is an active percussionist in New York always sharing his voice and energetic rhythms. Locally Okai has performed at the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music(BAM), the legendary African art auction exhibition at Sotheby's, Madison Square Garden, Carnegie Hall and venues throughout the States. Internationally Haiti, Canada, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Colombia, Brazil, Australia, and Japan, have been showered with his sounds and soon the rest of the world will. |
CARLOS JOHNS-DÁVILA
Projections
Projections
Carlos Johns-Dávila is a Peruvian American multimedia artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Johns-Dávila collaborates with choreographers and performers to create interactive work by using infrared technology to map the human body to self generated video / audio design and projection. He is most interested in developing inclusive workflows for immersive performance and public art installations by building resources for artists to expand their creative potential with low technology barriers.
Johns-Dávila graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA with a Bachelors in Music Composition. He’s advanced his studies at The New School - College of Performing Arts with his Masters in Arts Management & Entrepreneurship. He has since collaborated with choreographer Navarra Novy-Williams to create site-specific 360º video dance performance installations as part of a community building project with support from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ) and Community Engagement grants by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC). His original composition and sound design premiered at Sundance New Frontiers 2022 with the volumetric dance performance Suga’ by Valencia James. He is currently a co-owner of Black Heart, a BIPOC worker owned cooperative, and founder of Way Too Far XR, a creative technology studio that builds exhibits and performances around cultural heritage and education. |
MIKE DAVID T.
Director of Photography
Director of Photography
Mike David T. is a Southside of Chicago-based director, cinematographer, and photographer with Haitian roots. His perspective has consistently inspired audiences, communicating his passion for collaborating across networks, cultures, and geography. He is the founder of The Formula Don't Change, a film production and design studio with organic collaborations across Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles.
His collaborations across experimental, documentary, narrative, and editorial arenas within these communities have most recently culminated with contributions to projects Black Owned (2021 Webby and Tribeca X award winner) and Bedtime Stories (2021 Cannes Silver Award winner), as well as a Roger Ebert Fellowship nomination (2020 Sundance Institute). |
PAUL ARAKI ELLIOT
Cinematic Editor
Cinematic Editor
Paul Araki Elliott is a filmmaker, photographer, and editor from Chicago, Illinois. His work often explores music and movement, and utilizes multiple forms of media. His work has appeared in publications such as Vibe, TimeOut, Complex, and the Chicago Reader, and he has worked with artists such as Tinashe and Vic Mensa. He is the co-founder of the multimedia production company, thankyou.inc.
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Full Crew
Executive Producers: Andrè M. Zachery (AMZ) + Ayinde Jean-Baptiste (Sko) | Choreography + Performance: AMZ | co-Directors: AMZ & Sko | Script: AMZ+ Sko | Art direction: Sko | Soundtrack: Sko | Sound design: AMZ, Sko+ Sadah Espii Proctor | Score: avery r. young | Live Sound Textures: Okai Musik | Lighting Design: Andre Segar | Audio Engineering: Sko+ Joel Bobby | Costume Designers: Sko, Joy Havens | Costume Consultant: Jelena Antanasijevic | Project Graphic Design: Darin Gilliam | Projection Designer: AMZ + Carlos Johns Dávila | Projection-Mapping + System Design: Carlos Johns Dávila | Film Cinematography: Mike David T | Asst. Camera: Kala Bradford | Film Editing: Paul Araki Elliot
with development support from Hi-ARTS, National Choreographic Center - University of Akron, MPM, Eat Little/ Live Long (New Waves), Music Moves Chicago, Red Clay Dance Company, Dance-in-Process (Gibney), Black Metropolis Research Consortium, New York University Media Commons, Tisch Dean’s Research Grant
Executive Producers: Andrè M. Zachery (AMZ) + Ayinde Jean-Baptiste (Sko) | Choreography + Performance: AMZ | co-Directors: AMZ & Sko | Script: AMZ+ Sko | Art direction: Sko | Soundtrack: Sko | Sound design: AMZ, Sko+ Sadah Espii Proctor | Score: avery r. young | Live Sound Textures: Okai Musik | Lighting Design: Andre Segar | Audio Engineering: Sko+ Joel Bobby | Costume Designers: Sko, Joy Havens | Costume Consultant: Jelena Antanasijevic | Project Graphic Design: Darin Gilliam | Projection Designer: AMZ + Carlos Johns Dávila | Projection-Mapping + System Design: Carlos Johns Dávila | Film Cinematography: Mike David T | Asst. Camera: Kala Bradford | Film Editing: Paul Araki Elliot
with development support from Hi-ARTS, National Choreographic Center - University of Akron, MPM, Eat Little/ Live Long (New Waves), Music Moves Chicago, Red Clay Dance Company, Dance-in-Process (Gibney), Black Metropolis Research Consortium, New York University Media Commons, Tisch Dean’s Research Grant