The project convened composer/drummer Dana Hall, visual artist and Fellow Kerry James Marshall, and actor/director/dramaturg Cheryl Lynn Bruce to create an original response to Richard Wright’s novel Native Son. The program included 2 performances, a (digital) educational program for youth, and a symposium on topics ranging from housing/displacement; food systems; environmental justice and public health; futurism and world-making; restorative justice; police violence; and informal systems of community development and mutual aid. The performances and symposium were held at the Logan Center for the Arts.
For this project, the Management Studio team created a sound installation for the elevators at the Logan Center. The 30 Seconds, 3 Trumpets: Centering Black Women and Girls in Native Son piece, was an immersive soundscape surrounding those riding the elevator or walking the stairs with the voices of Black Girls and Women from Chicago. The participants, of varying ages, each reads a selected passage of the Richard Wright novel, Native Son. While Native Son centers the story of Bigger Thomas, and depicts the racial inequities of Chicago in the 1940s, it is rife with horrific violence towards women. The installation inverted the male-centered perspective and give agency to those that are silenced by supporting and amplifying their voices in the contemporary moment. It also provided an opportunity to ground the audience experience in the text and to encourage reflection in response to the performance and symposium conversations. The team also created a podcast interview of the artists involved in the project and developed a playlist of music celebrating and advocating for social justice.
For this project, the Management Studio team created a sound installation for the elevators at the Logan Center. The 30 Seconds, 3 Trumpets: Centering Black Women and Girls in Native Son piece, was an immersive soundscape surrounding those riding the elevator or walking the stairs with the voices of Black Girls and Women from Chicago. The participants, of varying ages, each reads a selected passage of the Richard Wright novel, Native Son. While Native Son centers the story of Bigger Thomas, and depicts the racial inequities of Chicago in the 1940s, it is rife with horrific violence towards women. The installation inverted the male-centered perspective and give agency to those that are silenced by supporting and amplifying their voices in the contemporary moment. It also provided an opportunity to ground the audience experience in the text and to encourage reflection in response to the performance and symposium conversations. The team also created a podcast interview of the artists involved in the project and developed a playlist of music celebrating and advocating for social justice.