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“we come in she dreams.
tickle
hug tight
stand smile Watch Pray Touch Heal
whisper worries away whisper grief away whisper loneliness away whisper fears away
whisper saddness away”
— excerpt from love conjure/blues (C) Sharon Bridgforth
published by RedBone Press

The love conjure/blues Text Installation is a multimedia production.
With the text as the “score”; soundscaping, live performance, the audience and a cinematic environment all work together to create a Living installation. Upon entering the space audience members become witness/participants.

I performed as the narrator in the premeire of The love conjure/blues Text Installation at the Off Center, in Austin, Texas in June, 2007. Florinda Bryant and I performed the piece at the South Dallas Cultural Center March, 2008.

I am really excited/Blessed to say that Dr. Joni L. Jones/Omi Osun Olomo is currently the performer for the show.

This clip is of Dr. Jones performing The love conjure/blues Text Installation at Northwestern’s Black & Latino Queer Performance Festival 4/2008.

This is Dr. Jones gittn down with the audience. Check it out: Jackie Anderson, CC Carter and others from Chi-Town’s POW WOW community were in da house!

In creating this piece I was interested in the idea of the text as LIVING and of the idea of the cast being present cinematically in an environment that the performer & audience participate in. I worked with Film Maker Jen Simmons and a huge cast, crew and community of supporters to create the film that is installed as the environment. The film is installed on three LARGE screens. We try as much as possible to create a circular environment for the screens, the performer and the audience to co-exist in. The performer works in three stations inside the environment.

The love conjure/blues Text Installation FILM CREDITS:

WRITER / EXECUTIVE PRODUCER / DIRECTOR
Sharon Bridgforth

PROJECTION COMPOSER/ DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY / EDITOR / PRODUCER
Jen Simmons

PUBLISHER
RedBone Press

Check out The love conjure/blues Text Installation CAST & CREW

See The Complete List of Funders & Supporters For The love conjure/blues Text Installation.

Stills from The love conjure/blues Text Installation Film.
Photo Credit: Jen Simmons

love conjure/blues is a raucous gender bending/jook joint singing/Prayer circling/Liberation minded/deep loving fun piece that explores sexuality, a range of gender expressions and “the blues” as ritual.

love conjure/blues lives in the jazz aesthetic. This assumes that art and Life are not separate; that making art is a communal process; that art is about innovation and virtuosity; that visual art, movement, music, dramatic interpretation, poetic voice, ritual, Prayer and the human Spirit presented simultaneously make art come alive; that working within a polyrhythmic storytelling form is a traditional African American practice; that the purpose of art is to serve the revolution of Spirit; that audiences are responsible witness-participants in the creative environment that the work is presented in.

The language in love conjure/blues is polyphonic in its design, rendering a vivified return of the act of storytelling to its primary place in the communal experience of art. The book, love conjure/blues, is a performance/novel published by RedBone Press, has received awards and is being taught in universities around the country.

More About love conjure/blues

“Once you stepped over the circle of salt, sand, and tiny gems that encircles the stage space to find your seat in the center, you were part of this story: finding love in the cracks, refusing to be beaten, coming together to cry, laugh, and – at the climax – rising from your seat with the folks of Figua’s Flavas and the other bodies in the room, to dance”… ABE LOUISE YOUNG JUNE 22, 2007: ARTS Arts Review The Austin Chronicle READ THE ENTIRE REVIEW

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