Rashaad Newsome - Shade Compositions

Rashaad Newsome presents the premiere of "Shade Compositions" at The Kitchen, a live performance featuring a a chorus of more than twenty black women. Influenced by improvisatory orchestral music and live video-mixing, Newsome divides his performers into groups akin to instrumental sections as they enact his choreographed sound score made up of repeated sequences of culturally specific or stereotypical gestures, movements, and vocalizations. Newsome simultaneously records, loops, edits, and remixes in real-time the audio and video documentation of the performers using a hacked Nintendo® Wii™ game controller. The resulting layers of real and projected imagery investigate assumptions and constructions of identity in mainstream media and popular culture.

February 12, 2009

• Category

  Entertainment

[John Son]

one of the better pieces i saw at ps1's greater new york exhibit.