Event Information
Description
Reconstructions is a site specific, North Oakland-based, performance ritual in 3 parts: a 3-4 hour durational installation performance (“Excavation”), a 45-minute staged performance (“Reconstruction”), and a procession through the Idora Park and Temescal neighborhoods that ends with a shared meal (“Practice”).
OPENING NIGHT TICKETS INCLUDE a special meal and conversation with the artist.
Additional show dates: March 24, 30, 31, 2019. Click here for regular show tickets.
3–6PM Gallery Installation Performance (free and open to public, stay for a few minutes or the full 3 hours)
6–7PM Stage Performance
7–8PM Procession
8–9PM Gathering & Meal
Idora Park Project Space, 5600 Shattuck Ave, Oakland, 94609
LOGISTICS
- Please arrive by 5:45PM
- Street parking is available near the site
- Attendees will be asked to remove their shoes upon entering the space
- We have done our best to make the space wheelchair & mobility accessible, but please contact the organizer if you have specific needs or questions
- Vegetarian meal options will be provided, but we will not be able to accomidate specific food restrictions; if you have concerns about the food provided, please contact organizer in advance
ABOUT
Reconstructions is the culmination of three years of research, collaborative explorations, and six performance studies about the impact of the post Civil War Reconstruction period on the psyches of Black people in the US. Reconstructions brings the historical legacy of slavery, the more recent history of freeway construction that physically restructured Oakland neighborhoods, and the current reality of gentrification in North Oakland into conversation through movement, live music, costume, and visual art installation.
The project hinges around two intersecting ideas: that what has been erased through the process of reconstruction holds the seeds to solving the social, economic, environmental problems we now face locally, nationally and internationally; and that we carry in our bodies those histories that have been made invisible. Reconstructions is a project of deep listening, remembering, and excavating to bring what has been rendered invisible into the present.
The project directed by Chris Evans is a collaboration with musician/composer David Boyce, choreographer/dancer Byb Bibene, costume designer Regina Evans, visual artist Ernest Jolly and choreographer/dancer Latanya Tigner as choreographic consultant.