“690 wishes in concert" is an evening of song rooted in a developing project by the musical trio The Hawtplates (Justin Hicks, Kenita Miller Hicks, Jade Hicks) with co-creator and director Charlotte Brathwaite. The project features a cycle of vocal meditations on ownership and the American dream set in a single house under numerous households, inspired by Toni Morrison’s novel Home, and the experimental writing of French author Georges Perec. The music speaks with voices from a myriad of lifetimes in an urban dwelling – a fragmented libretto of ancient songs, shifting murmurs, calls, shouts, stomps and whispers. Studies of characters from children’s stories like Goldilocks and the Three Bears and an episode of The Twilight Zone unpack the subtle radicalized under-breath utterances of a community in flux – the inherited language and layered vocabularies of gentrification and conversations on progress.
Created and composed by The Hawtplates (Justin Hicks, Jade Hicks, Kenita Miller)
Co-created with and directed by Charlotte Brathwaite
Performed by The Hawtplates (Justin Hicks, Jade Hicks, Kenita Miller)
Dates/Times:
Wednesday, Nov. 1 at 8 pm
Thursday, Nov. 2 at 8 pm
Friday, Nov. 3 at 8 pm
Tickets: $15
Composer/performer Justin Hicks and director Charlotte Brathwaite met in 2011 while collaborating on an original dance/installation work. Since that time, their many collaborative efforts have lead them to create original music performance works for institutions such as JACK, 651 Arts, La MaMa, PS122, Harlem Stage, The Contemporary (Baltimore), Joe's Pub, Labyrinth Theater, Under the Radar Festival, Wow Festival (San Diego), Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati), Labyrinth Theater, BRIC Brooklyn Museum and the Whitney. Their list of core collaborators include musical legend Meshell Ndegeocello (The Gospel of James Baldwin), visual artist Abigail DeVille (Prophetika: an oratorio), choreographer Jennifer Harrison Newman (The Geneva Project), writer/performer Ayesha Jordan (Shasta Geaux Pop), as well as lighting designers Kent Barrett and Tuce Yasak among others. Critics have described these works as "a fierce tide of feeling — rage and despair, love and hope and exaltation... an almost indefinable work of music theater ..." (Can I get a Witness: The Gospel of James Baldwin, New York Times Critics’ Pick) and "...conceptual yet viscerally powerful..." (Obie Award-winning Prophetika: an Oratorio, The Wall Street Journal). For more information look to www.charlottebrathwaite.com.
Developed in part through a Performance Space 122 Ramp 2017 residency with commissioning support from the Jerome Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Photo at top by Maria Baranova.
Created and composed by The Hawtplates (Justin Hicks, Jade Hicks, Kenita Miller)
Co-created with and directed by Charlotte Brathwaite
Performed by The Hawtplates (Justin Hicks, Jade Hicks, Kenita Miller)
Dates/Times:
Wednesday, Nov. 1 at 8 pm
Thursday, Nov. 2 at 8 pm
Friday, Nov. 3 at 8 pm
Tickets: $15
Composer/performer Justin Hicks and director Charlotte Brathwaite met in 2011 while collaborating on an original dance/installation work. Since that time, their many collaborative efforts have lead them to create original music performance works for institutions such as JACK, 651 Arts, La MaMa, PS122, Harlem Stage, The Contemporary (Baltimore), Joe's Pub, Labyrinth Theater, Under the Radar Festival, Wow Festival (San Diego), Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati), Labyrinth Theater, BRIC Brooklyn Museum and the Whitney. Their list of core collaborators include musical legend Meshell Ndegeocello (The Gospel of James Baldwin), visual artist Abigail DeVille (Prophetika: an oratorio), choreographer Jennifer Harrison Newman (The Geneva Project), writer/performer Ayesha Jordan (Shasta Geaux Pop), as well as lighting designers Kent Barrett and Tuce Yasak among others. Critics have described these works as "a fierce tide of feeling — rage and despair, love and hope and exaltation... an almost indefinable work of music theater ..." (Can I get a Witness: The Gospel of James Baldwin, New York Times Critics’ Pick) and "...conceptual yet viscerally powerful..." (Obie Award-winning Prophetika: an Oratorio, The Wall Street Journal). For more information look to www.charlottebrathwaite.com.
Developed in part through a Performance Space 122 Ramp 2017 residency with commissioning support from the Jerome Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Photo at top by Maria Baranova.
