The Bronze Collective Theatre Festival is hoping to infuse different
kinds of African-American arts — like theater, dance, and music — into
Rochester’s theatrical scene this week. The festival brings together many
accomplished local writers, actors, and other performers for “A Week’s Infusion
of African-American Theatrical Arts.” The festival takes place at MuCCC from Tuesday, February 17, through Saturday, February
21.
To produce
the festival, Curtis Rivers — who has owned Mood Makers Books for more than 20
years and who has produced the annual Sankofa Evenings
of Theatre and Jazz at MuCCC for seven years — joined
forces with local theater artist Reuben Tapp. Tapp has acted in numerous plays since coming to Rochester
in 2005, most recently in Blackfriars’ “I’m Not
Rappaport” last fall; he also acted in Rivers’ play
“Talk” during last summer’s Sankofa event.
But the
Bronze Collective also brings together a host of African-American artists in numerous
disciplines, many of whom are well-regarded in their community but hardly known
outside of it. Rivers and Tapp say they hope this event
— which is purposefully offered during Black History Month — will start to
change that perception.
“Within the
Rochester community there are approximately 10 African-American theater
groups,” Rivers says. “Many of us didn’t even know of each other, let alone
when we were performing. As a collective, we can network together, pool our
resources, and cross-pollinate our talent.”
This
festival is the collective’s inaugural endeavor. “We want to make people aware
of the fantastic array of African-American talent in Rochester, and the
heritage of continuous, active arts organizations in our community, performing
in all different kinds of places,” Rivers says. “We really have not gotten the
notice we deserve.”
“With a
collective, all have a voice,” Tapp adds. “And each
voice has a better chance of being heard. Each group is autonomous; in planning
the festival we told them, ‘Do what you want to do.’ But we all come together
for a common cause: to get people in the seats.”
The series begins on Tuesday,
February 17, with a staged reading of “My People Perish” by the festival
playwright-in-residence Jahaka Mindstorm.
The reading is directed by Reuben Tapp. Dance and
theater intersect for Wednesday’s “Art Collaboration Night” with two pieces
written and directed by Reenah Golden. Thursday
offers what Rivers calls “a blast from the past,” a nod to literary history
with scenes from the plays of the great African-American writer James Baldwin,
as presented by David Shakes and the North Star Players.
Djed Snead’s play “The Love that Hate Produced” is a
commentary on “The Hate that Hate Produced,” Mike Wallace’s famous 1959 TV
exposé of the Nation of Islam. The writer combines his script — a dialogue for
two actors — with footage from the original documentary to create the
production. On Saturday, an afternoon salon features three short films by David
Taylor, a scriptwriter for the Spike Lee movie “Drop Squad,” followed by
discussions. The evening is a family night, in which young people can come
dressed as figures in African-American history, then take part in a pageant
called “Kings and Queens.”
“One of the
great things about Rochester is that it has such a strong, healthy theatrical
community in general,” Tapp says, calling this week’s
event “a big cross-section of art forms.”
He thinks this is true of theater in general: “It encompasses the rest
of the arts: visual arts, dance, music, multimedia.
“The arts
are a uniter. The way generations communicate their
values to each other is through art. And we are stronger together when our
bonds are united in the arts.”
Rivers adds,
“Black culture is traditionally conveyed to the rest of society through the
arts — dance, music, even sports — for good or bad. What we really want to get
across is that this is theater for everybody. It’s not exclusively for African-American
audiences, it is relevant to white, black, Hispanic, or any other kind of
audience. We are all people who all have the same wants, problems, and desires.
Same eggs, different spice.”
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This article appears in Feb 11-17, 2015.
