Through glimpses of the transmigration of one Spirit’s many lives/delta dandi is a living cacophony of monologues, chants, choral tellings, blood memories movement and song. delta dandi is a re-imagining of sacred concerts and tone poems that jazz icons Duke Ellington and Mary Lou Williams innovated. Inspired by Hannibal Lokumbe’s African Portraits/delta dandi is ritual jazz theatre conjuring transformation and Love. *delta dandi is a National Performance Network Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by Women & Their Work, in partnership with the National Performance Network. Major contributors of the National Performance Network are Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: go to npnweb.org
An excerpt from delta dandi featuring HoneyPot & dem is in issue #6 of the L.A. Review.
To listen to a clip of me reading from delta dandi CLICK HERE
delta dandi has emerged from MANY rewrites,staged readings, experiments, a workshop production, and lots of love….
To check out my initial dandi research CLICK HERE
I spent three luscious days deepening the development delta dandi thanks to
New Dramatists Creativity Fund
(a program made possible by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation).
We presented a (non-public) staged reading at New Dramatists on 1/21/2010 at 5PM
Featuring: Director/Choregrapher/Performer Baraka de Soleil,
I am extremely proud and pleased. We experimented/played/and expanded. We identified lots of juicy new information about relationships/transitions/and intentions within the world of the piece. I wrote some new bits and did a lot of editing….I was even able to try out my concept of the piece as a communal telling by conducting the audience in a short opening segment. Blessings to all for the Love support and hard Work!
11/20 & 11/21 2009 I had a blast Conducting the audience at Northwestern University in reading delta dandi with me. The performance was part of the solo/black/woman series presented by the departments of Performance Studies and Theatre, and funded in part with a grant from Mellon Foundation. I am proud to say that I served as Artist-In-Residence in Performance Studies Fall 2009.
Fire & Ink Black Queer Writers Festival
presented a Staged Reading of delta dandi
To see more clips CLICK HERE
Footage thanks to Q Ragsdale
Directed by Baraka de Soleil,
Featuring: Djola Branner, Baraka de Soleil,
Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, Lenelle Moïse, and Matt Richardson
These photos are from rehearsal and our Tech.
The performance took place: Saturday 10/10/09 8PM
We were on program with E. Patrick Johnson’s Pouring Tea, and Jomama Jones
at AustinVentures Studio Theatre
Ballet Austin Butler Dance Education Center
501 W. 3rd St.
Austin, TX 78701
For more about Fire & Ink CLICK HERE
Queer/of African descent/woman centered/multi-disciplined/about Spirit…delta dandi is a living cacophony of monologues, chants, choral tellings, blood memories dance and song. Through glimpses of the transmigration of one Spirit’s many lives/delta dandi asks how does collective grief and trauma inform the Black-American experience? What must a Soul do to heal? What is the traditional role of Queers in ritual?. A re-imagining of sacred concerts and tone poems that jazz icons Duke Ellington and Mary Lou Williams innovated/delta dandi is ritual jazz theatre conjuring transformation and Love….
Filmmaker Q Ragsdale created this wonderful short featuring audience members giving their reactions to delta dandi immediately following the workshop production at the Long Center in Austin, TX. 1/09.
Thank you to everyone that came out and showed support/and to all the wonderful people that Blessed us with these beautiful comments.
We received prayers/shout outs/Energy from soooo many of you
and soooo many of you helped to spread the word about the delta dandi show at the Long Center in Austin, TX/and soooo many of you came to the show that WE SOLD OUT BOTH NIGHTS!! On behalf of the cast/crew and producers THANK YOU!!
delta dandi is a National Performance Network Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by Women & Their Work, in partnership with the National Performance Network. Major contributors of the National Performance Network are Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information go to: npnweb.org
To view photos and more from the delta dandi Staged Reading produced in Austin, TX by allgo (Austin’s Queer People of Color Organization) and The John Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, University of Texas, Austin CLICK HERE
To view photos and more from the The delta dandi Master Class at Scripps College Staged Reading 10/3 & 10/4 2008 sponsored by The Intercollegiate Women’s Studies Center of The Claremont Colleges CLICK HERE
To view photos and more of the Staged Reading presented by Freedom Train Productions
during Fire! New Play Festival 2008 8/6 – 8/21 in Ft Greene, BK
About delta dandi. CLICK HERE
View photos and more from the November 2007 reading of delta dandi sponsored by The John Warfield Center For African And African American Studies during which I conducted the audience in a read through of the script (which at that time was all of 10 pages) CLICK HERE
i don’t know how to die so i just go along. carry all these things. all these things. till once in the black/blue of day i jump. i jump where the waters meet. i jump. cold cold cut me. i jump. pray/carry me to the ocean. please. maybe i find my mama there. i jump. go under. come up. go under. come up. jump. jump. jump. can’t float down. the water won’t take me. again again again i jumping till look see. there right there a woman tall tall naked and shining in the water stand smile smiling down at me in the water. i run out. run stand under giant tree with weeping arms. look through bending branches. still still. no breathing. can’t move. can’t turn head. can’t close eyes. no look away. the woman tall tall naked and shining in the water stand. stop laughing. stare. stare. stare. stare telling me something
i don’t know what……. delta dandi Copyright (c) 2009 Sharon Bridgforth
