 Good evening. Welcome to the Wednesday night live and on stage. I am Leitris Elsie. I am a proud board member of NPN, and with me is Wood Delausay, and so we are going we have a few stage remarks for you before we get started this evening. So welcome to tonight's performance. They are part of the National Performance Networks annual conference hosted by Ashe Cultural Center, the Contemporary Arts Center, Junebug Productions, and New Orleans Hosts Committee. Thank you Leitris. All right tonight's live and on stage performances features the new the work of NOLA's contemporary performance makers. Artists were selected by the New Orleans Hosts Committee and local NPN partners to represent the rich diversity of the local artist community. They are rich. Tonight we'll see performances by KM Dance Projects, Vagabond Inventions, Asan Inn, and NOLA Creation and Development Fund artists. Last call Lila McCalla and Junebug Productions. So before we get started we of course have to acknowledge our funders so they're any fun just give them a round of applause before you say who they are. So they are the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Thank you Doris Duke. The Andrew Mellon Foundation. Merci. The Ford Foundation. The National Endowment for the Arts. Serna Foundation. Hella's Foundation. New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation. Barrios Kingdorf and Castille LLP. The Lambent Foundation. Louisiana Office of Cultural Development. Alternate Roots. Tito's Vaca. And generous support from partners, colleagues, and friends. All right. Thank you. We definitely want to give it up for the staff of the Contemporary Arts Center. Please give these hardworking folks a round of applause and also give it up for HowlRound for recording and streaming tonight's events. Now you all have spaces. Please your cell phones. If you still have a pager. If you have a digital watch. If you a janitor and have a lot of keys. If you have a pacemaker in your chest. Let's put it all on vibrates or off preferably. All right. Now I'm going to hand it off to this phenomenal person to my love. Give it up for Ben Levine, our production manager who has a few jeans to go to the evening. Thank you. So I am so excited about tonight's performance. We are making live and on-stage history tonight. Doing something that has never been done before. Leave it to New Orleans to do something different. We will not stay in our seats tonight. No. We will be traveling around through four different spaces within the CAC. So I have a question for the artists and the presenters in the audience. Would anyone identify as grassroots or maybe even, dare I say it, scrappy? Okay. All right. Good. Good. So tonight, please put away your opera glasses. And we're going to move through the warehouse spaces here at the CAC. And I'm going to ask you to get down and dirty with the artists. Get right up on in there. You can sit on the floor. You can sit in a chair. You can sit in a stool. You can stand in the back. But do not tell me afterward that you couldn't see. All right. So I'm giving you all agency over your own rear ends. Yeah. So if you can't see or if you're uncomfortable, you just move on closer. Look around someone else. And we're going to have a great time here tonight. Good evening. My name is Keeoka McCray. I'm the director of the first piece. Thank you. I want to take a moment to dedicate tonight's performance to our collaborator on breaking the thermometer to hide the fever. Master Haitian drummer and voodoo who gone dumb as fun fun Louis who passed away yesterday. Yeah, we're deeply grateful to his contributions to developing breaking the thermometer and for all his gifts that he has shared with so many people throughout the world. Tonight's performance is for fun fun. Thank you. Well, it's pretty, you know, it's pretty special for me to be interviewing a journalist because I'm a musician. So I have to say I'm a little bit nervous. I decided that what really worked in Haiti was radio. And what really worked was a station I was listening to, which was radio Haiti. And radio Haiti at the time had started, not the news yet, but doing some let's say, experiment about Creole and about culture, introducing what they call the Haitian identity into a nondescript media landscape where everything was French. And everything was about what the Western world thought, you know, about things. And then one day I met Jean Dominique and he asked me to come and train his journalist. We usually started at six o'clock in the morning. And we started with a news show in Creole. And we had another show at seven o'clock, which was anchored by Jean Dominique and by myself, which lasted until eight thirty. Then after that, we had the music programs with a lot of stress on Haitian music, a lot of a lot of it born, rassi music, music from the countryside. While I was meeting with the newsroom and assigning a task to the newsroom. And we had every day those meetings with discussions about what they would be covering. We had our second our second group of news programs at 12 o'clock. And at one o'clock, we have Nicroté Mouin, which was a magazine which was about actualities, things happening. But more in depth, approach to the events. In the afternoon at four o'clock, we had a news magazine, which became longer and longer as people really started to express their interest for the public after the war. Then at six o'clock, we had another news program in French. And at nine o'clock, we had a news program in Creole. But touching on subjects that were never touched before, I think we did manage to expend the scope of what could be talked about. And slowly, in 78, 79, at the time, it was the Carter administration. The Carter administration was saying, we give you money to the government. We give you money on one condition is that there is respect for human rights. Well, the time has come. You've seen the map. We've looked at the figures and NBC News now makes its projection for the presidency. Reagan is our projected winner. Ronald Wilson Reagan of California, a sports announcer, a film actor, the governor of California is our projected winner. At the moment, in 80, I think the government decided that they could strike for one simple reason, because of the US elections. You had had elections where Ruma Reagan had become the president of the United States. At the time, I remember the election in the US elections, who were covering that at the radio in the middle of the night. When we announced the results, we heard people from our studios downtown. We heard you know, people shooting in the air. And there were macautes, who are saying human rights are over. The car boys are back in the White House. And my country. Discourse directed against the independents. We say well, the independents. And the opponents. Subtle distinction in charge of meaning. Our brothers in the official press are singing without help for a few days, the same chorus in unison. The independent press of renaissance is over. Finished. How about it? By national radio, to the national television, in the official media, we say to us all the time, calm down, the ball is finished, of course, for the independents. The ball, and a victim who has been in our ranks for a few years, in our journalist ranks, had he been at the ball? A macaute ball, which would remind us of the one in the red, the one in the red, the one in the red. C'est un bas-maca, c'est un travesti Les paroles, c'est un deux de justice C'est un bas-maca, c'est un travesti Les paroles, c'est un deux de justice Les victimes, c'est un deux de justice T'es constitutionnel, arbitreux, illégal T'es constitutionnel, arbitreux, traditionnel Tens living day in the US, November 28, 1980, this truck Tens living day in the US, November 28, 1980, this truck So it was a Friday. We were convinced that there would be no reaction on the part of the culture administration And at the time when this truck was not just the media The case of radio Haiti was totally destroyed Everyone was at the station, was arrested Everyone that could move in Haiti was just in one day And the country fell once more into complete silence Some of my journalists stayed in jail a month One of them a year, another one two years We were expelled because there was a strong protest On the part of the lame duck administration, the counter-administration And we were released five days later With the clothes on our back Putting on a plane And we were the first to be expelled There were four of us We arrived in Miami And we had to explain to them that we were just expelled Thank God there was a newspaper The Miami Herald was on the immigration guys desk Where it was cracked down in Haiti And it was about us So they kept our passports At the US immigration office And I just went to New York Because there were some Haitians at the airport Showing their solidarity and they paid my flight to New York And they were looking for Jean Jean had to go into hiding for about five, six days Then he was taken to the British Will and Embassy And from the British Will and Embassy he flew to Caracas And we met again in January 1981 That's when he came and joined New York Exilé de poté, no pain So everyone stay put here for two more works Let's give it up for Layla McCalla Next up is Junebub Productions Gómeila Followed by KM Dance Project Baschamani I'm going to go move some speakers The sun shines in all of its brilliance On all who are privileged to drink of its nectar It's never too much or too big The belly stays full A world where every day is perfection And all things are possible There are no concerns for generations to come No questions of whether the spoon will be silver or gold And the stories that were told of what they will become Here the sun is always going down Leaving empty days of trying to catch up, keep up and stay up Here the thirst is never quenched And the children continue to cry out Sustainment becomes an increasing trial Of the rough side of the mountain And it gets difficult to drink from that fountain of life And all of its abundance Together they stumble from their slumber After a long night of festive elixirs and song Passing one another, not realizing that they both belong To the richness of this crescent city While on their journey of life They sometimes ponder And maybe they wonder about the other side of strife But too often it's only a passing thought That dissipates like the dew in the morning on the neutral ground In the end they are left yearning Like two distant lovers in a suspended climax That never seems to end And you see this, this is for those who work 25 hours a day for 24 cents an hour It's for those who try the street stress heavy Their feet strapped with anguished backs bit with burden It's for those who live between the lines of fear and confusion It's for those whose eyes have witnessed a sunrise And they still question the awesome power of a supreme being It's for those against the wall Or in the dust or behind the bars Or on the other side of the barrel It's for those who do not see God in the mirror Or a tree or a blade of grass A homeless man, a crescent moon A drop of dew, a ray of sun Or a purple sky It's for those who have given up on life And just wonder how they are still allowed To open their eyes real wide in the morning And I say to you, it is not yet time to die For seekers of a better way For speakers of new words For creators of another day Awake from your slumber Massive in number as brave as thunder As courageous as hope As audacious as faith I see heaven in your face How does it feel just knowing that wherever you go The holiest of holies is present in the form of you Oh, this is for you It's for your worth It's nothing less than divine I'm saying this for all of those who survive Who get up, who scream Even when the takers try and zap their dreams Who shout no, who cry yes Who feel the glory of victory Boiling in their chests It's for the lovers of love For thinkers of peace For workers of justice Field hands of freedom Whose voices ring high when vibrations are low It's for the tillers of the earth And the seeds that grow big Grow long, grow up And grow high Rise and take your stance Because it is not yet time to die Oh, that sound Oh, everybody know that sound That trumpet-blad bass bump Look, everybody know to take it to the streets Oh, everybody know that egg pocket Way that high your mom and them Look, I wish them up Fuck a word, tell me something about my city I'm telling you Everybody knows Everybody knows Everybody knows the sound of the place What do people still love What do people still hope What do people still dance All the while Searching the horizon for that one glad morning Seeking the sound of the sun We're speaking in tongues They might not get you no hallelujah Oh, but it will get you a una-nena You know that sound Because everybody know that sound Look, it is here We are accessing our best While wading through our worst Oh, we are angels in the dirt Dust-filled wings flying our way to glory Buck jumping our bones up to heaven Bam-bullet back to life Colended conscious Rebirthed by the river Wrapped up in rhythm And then we second-line Right on home Because we want to bring back black Or we want to bring black back Ancient thoughts to present thinkers So future generations can be Within one moment Time stands still Or ceases to exist But a minute by minute Is a mere blink in the master's eye Or who can master time Who can move mountains Who can make music That makes motions That move us forward To bring us back Yeah, we want that black bag We want that good news That renews that old-time religion It was good for my ancestor So it's shown enough That take us back That take us back That back-bent spiral A cosmic swirling A whirling dervish twirling Double helix like dance Of safety Molecular memory Oh, this is music's beginning The magic of mourning Recalling ancestral tones That make you remember things You never knew, you know Oh, no Now, English ain't my first tongue You know where I come from From here, spirit speaks From the deep and sea With eyes here Everything has an answer Love, bring back love Bring black love Bring black love Bring back black love No matter the question of No matter the time, love No matter the question, love No matter the question, love No matter the time It's love of her normal nature. Her shoulders and back are graceful, her arms are slanted, her hands are charming, and her feet are pale. Not the least, the physiological description of her can not be wrong. Her facial features, such as the wide coat, the fat lips and the short hair, are classic from the Eons. Even the wide, large, known and thin eyes and flat noses are almost Mongolian. She can be categorized and combined with many apes, since her ears are small and deformed, such as an orangutan. And often she creates her thick, fat lips in a way that the apes do. Even her sprouting personality shifts into fast and unforeseen movements of the apes. Anatomical observations have verified that Bartmann is very close to the apes, as they call Bohish Marnay. Very much so, it's a hot and hot. Y'all enjoying yourselves? We're doing this. We're almost there. We're giving up. We're almost. We're maybe giving up. I'm standing here. So this is now intermission. Please take a look.