Double-Header Smash Hit Evening

CULTURAL COSMOS COVERED IN DOUBLE-HEADER SMASH HIT EVENING
LA PENA CULTURAL CENTER ANNOUNCES THE PREVIEW OF WORKS IN PROGRESS:

Migritude by Shailja Patel
Origins of a Man by Rodney Mason

Oakland, CA, November 21, 2005 -- What are the young and literate doing? Pioneering new performance styles in poetry, jazz, music, that uncover hidden narratives of migrant heritage and diasporic remnants of a post-colonial Africa and a post-slavery America. Slam poetry and hip hop are kissing cousins of new performance work, kin in sentiment and style, both hard-hitting, unflinching looks at a new millennium reality where the division between have and have-not becomes starker everyday.

Enter Shailja Patel and Rodney Mason – two performers from widely divergent backgrounds, uniquely different voices, and dramatically different performance styles. Yet both represent the emerging voice of the people commonly invisible in American mainstream culture. Not the howl of the disenfranchised, but rather the representation of cultural power and imagination that distinguishes the downright pissed-off from the merely downtrodden.

But these two artists don't alienate. They illuminate. First up, championship slam poet, Shailja Patel, shares work-in-progress from Migritude. The word itself, a play on Negritude and Attitude reclaims and celebrates migrant culture. Using her trousseau of saris and jewelry, given to her by her mother, Patel unwinds stories of the South Asian diaspora through her own experience as a 3rd generation, Kenyan-born, Indian woman. From tribal Maasai women raped by British soldiers, to an Afghani woman grieving a husband and six children killed by US bombs, to Iraqi women demanding early Cesareans sections to avoid labor during 'Shock and Awe', Patel makes the connections between empires historical and current. She brings us the voices of those who live in their bootprint.

Letters from Patel's mother, woven into the script, bring to life unseen elements of post-colonial Africa, and highlight exactly what it takes to be a migrant – be proud and clear about who you are.

In contrast, Origins of a Man comes to La Pena from Rodney Mason, Bessie award winning hip hop dancer and theater artist who toured the world as 'Rome' in Rennie Harris' Puremovement's, Rome & Jewels. Mason currently features in the Tanqueray gin ad campaign as the ghetto-fabulous character, Tony Sinclair. Origins follows Migritude to explore in camp and comedic ways, Mason's beginnings in the South Philadelphia projects and life-altering losses through death of his mother, uncle, and grandfather. Biting vignettes of Mason's experiences in the marines, then as an artist highlight the compromises inherent in his journey, and lead to his ultimate acceptance of himself as a man. Thus the title, Origins of a Man: this is Mason's personal odyssey through the African American landscape from projects to military to self-expression. And his redemption myth, wherein he defies his predictable future in unpredictable ways to reclaim himself.

Each performance is followed by an audience dialogue with the artist. The evening culminates with live music from international ensemble, Trivium, for an hour of mix-and-mingle.