University News

Contact:
Liam Otten - (314) 935-8494
liam_otten@aismail.wustl.edu

Jazz Clarinetist and Vo-Du Macbeth composer Alvin Batisté performs for American Café series Sept. 26

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Vo-Du Macbeth opens 30th Edison Theatre OVATIONS! Series Sept. 28-29

[St. Louis, MO., 8-15-02]

Vo-Du Macbeth at Edison Sept. 28-29

A rare Edison Theatre co-commission, this work-in-progress is created and produced by the National Spirit Project, a coalition of some 35 arts organizations from around the country. St. Louis performances will mark the Midwest premiere of the theatrical and musical components and will further serve as a launching point for the dance elements.

Shows begin at 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29. Tickets are $27 and are available at the Edison Theatre Box Office and through all MetroTix outlets. Edison Theatre is located in the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. For more information, call (314) 935-6543.

Performances are co-sponsored by Washington University's American Culture Studies Program with support from the Department of Music and Performing Arts Department, all three in Arts & Sciences. Additional support is provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency; the Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis; and The Heartland Arts Fund. The Heartland Arts Fund is a collaborative venture of Arts Midwest; Mid-America Arts Alliance; their member state arts agencies (Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin) with primary funding from the National Endowment for the Arts; and support from private contributors.

Welles' Voodoo Macbeth -- his New York debut -- set the famous story of power, manipulation and betrayal in Haiti amidst African costumes, drumming and dance. Created in collaboration with The Negro Ensemble Unit of the WPA Federal Theater Project, the show played to packed houses for three months before commencing an influential national tour and today is considered a landmark of Harlem Renaissance theater.

Vo-Du Macbeth retains Welles' basic conception of Macbeth-as-choreo-drama but unfolds amongst New Orleans' Gens de Coulour Libre, or Free People of Color, at the close of the Civil War. Descended from slaves who had bought their freedom; from the children of slave women and white fathers; and from Haitian and later Cuban immigrants, Free People of Color contributed to a social system in colonial and antebellum Louisiana that defied standard U.S. racial codes and categorizations, amassing millions of dollars in property and carving out their own traditions, professions and distinguished families. Yet such distinctions would begin to fade after the war. The elimination of slavery itself undermined their unique status, especially as whites in the former Confederacy attempted to strip all African Americans of the rights and opportunities of citizenship.

Mespero (the Macbeth character) is a good yet rash and ambitious man who fights to preserve the status quo by aligning himself with the Confederacy against many of his Union-supporting kinsmen -- a decision that angers the old African gods. His rise and eventual downfall play out against a backdrop of Diaspora culture, from the opening trio of prophetic mambos, or voodoo priestesses, to the closing chorus of healing songs for Yemaja, Mother of the Waters. Stops along the way include an old-time masquerade ball; traditional Calinda, Bamboula and Jubu dancing; and the boisterous drumming of a New Year's Eve Junkanoo.

Vo-Du Macbeth is being developed through a national series of community residencies with actors, musicians, scholars and the general public. Slated for a 2003 world premiere, the show is the brainchild of artistic director Lenwood Sloan, an award-winning dancer, director and choreographer whose previous works include Three Black and Three White Refined Jubilee Minstrels (1977-1981), a history of traveling minstrel shows. Renowned composer and jazz clarinetist Alvin Batiste collaborated with saxophonist/ arranger Kidd Jordan and music coordinator Bill Turley on the score. Dance legends Chuck Davis and Donald McKayle are designing the choreography.

The St. Louis portion of the cast includes Denise Thimes as Hecate; Linda Kennedy as one of the 3 mambos; and Drummond Crenshawl as Nuthin.

Edison Theatre's OVATIONS! Series serves both Washington University and the St. Louis community by providing the highest caliber national and international artists in music, dance and theater, performing new works as well as innovative interpretations of classical material not otherwise seen in St. Louis. Focusing on presentations that are interdisciplinary, multicultural and/or experimental, Edison Theatre presents work that challenges, educates and inspires.