Unsilent: Poetics, Performance, & Liberation
Donation protected
Since 2014, I’ve been working on a piece of music that explores my own tacit complicity in cultures of whiteness. As it has evolved over the years, the score has become a hybrid text, drawing in an array of voices, while exposing my own vulnerability.
At some point I realized it was a piece that could only be programmed as part of a larger conversation. For years I had been interested in the Afrofuturist free jazz poetics of Toussaint St. Negritude and his project Jaguar Stereo, so I reached out to him, to the spoken word artist Rajnii Eddins, and to the choreographer Maura Gahan to talk about putting together an event that grappled with themes of identity, liberation, complicity, and change.
The event moves from performance to discussion, with an artist/activist roundtable that invites local organizers from Vermont Coalition for Ethnic and Social Equity in the Schools, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, and Stand Up for Social Justice into a conversation about the potential and responsibility of the arts in confronting injustice.
Before the performance, poets, makers, publishers, and political organizations will table with zines, pamphlets, prints, herbs, and books, while The Make facilitates an art build for an upcoming anti-racist action organized by Stand Up for Social Justice.
We don't know how this will go, so I am doing a 10-day fundraiser to guarantee fair compensation to the performers and to get print-making and banner-making supplies for the art build. If we raise more money than is necessary for these two goals, the rest of the money will go to the frontline social justice organizations participating in the event.
I am incredibly grateful for your support! I am committed to making work that is vulnerable, thought-provoking, and grounded in meaningful conversations in my community, and I want to be in conversation with you!
For any donations of $20 or more I'll send you a score of my piece.
For any donations of $50 or more I'll make you a hand-printed Audre Lorde T-shirt.
At some point I realized it was a piece that could only be programmed as part of a larger conversation. For years I had been interested in the Afrofuturist free jazz poetics of Toussaint St. Negritude and his project Jaguar Stereo, so I reached out to him, to the spoken word artist Rajnii Eddins, and to the choreographer Maura Gahan to talk about putting together an event that grappled with themes of identity, liberation, complicity, and change.
The event moves from performance to discussion, with an artist/activist roundtable that invites local organizers from Vermont Coalition for Ethnic and Social Equity in the Schools, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, and Stand Up for Social Justice into a conversation about the potential and responsibility of the arts in confronting injustice.Before the performance, poets, makers, publishers, and political organizations will table with zines, pamphlets, prints, herbs, and books, while The Make facilitates an art build for an upcoming anti-racist action organized by Stand Up for Social Justice.We don't know how this will go, so I am doing a 10-day fundraiser to guarantee fair compensation to the performers and to get print-making and banner-making supplies for the art build. If we raise more money than is necessary for these two goals, the rest of the money will go to the frontline social justice organizations participating in the event. I am incredibly grateful for your support! I am committed to making work that is vulnerable, thought-provoking, and grounded in meaningful conversations in my community, and I want to be in conversation with you! For any donations of $20 or more I'll send you a score of my piece.
For any donations of $50 or more I'll make you a hand-printed Audre Lorde T-shirt.
Organizer
Otto Muller
Organizer
Marshfield, VT
