Forum/Discussions

Riffs on Race and War
(A Spoken Word and Music Performance: Three Shows)

The Dwyer Cultural Center
258 St. Nicholas Avenue, at 123rd Street,
Harlem, NY 10027 (212) 222-3060

Saturday, March 31, 2012
6:30pm
                                                                                                                                                        
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Two Shows @
3pm &
6:30pm

$15

Riffs on Race and War (A Spoken Word and Music Performance), written and conceptualized by Karen D. Taylor, an African American of Barbadian and Southern extraction, is part family history, part social commentary. Riffs on Race and War examines universally resounding realities such as war, immigrant labor exploitation, sexism, and racism.

Riffing in a narrative line, running parallel with the history of African Americans/African Diasporans, she begins before she was born, then moves across time through her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood to complete the trajectory. Ms. Taylor states she wrote Riffs on Race, because “race is still a pestilence and a curiosity. And like most Black people’s responses to life, Riffs is sad and stoic, funny and wry, bodacious and outraged, transcendent and defeated, conciliatory and understanding, full of clarity and somewhat confusing.”

Ms. Taylor, vocalist and writer, has merged her two loves—music and language—to stellar effect, weaving the songs of Arsenio Rodriguez, the Mighty Sparrow, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix into her original text. A live band accompanies Ms. Taylor through the journey that links the struggles of Black, Latino, and Arab people.

She was compelled to write the piece because “America has never talked openly about what its relationship to race actually is, but has had no trouble jumping to the ‘post-racial’ mythology so popular post Obama.“

Ms. Taylor is also a community activist who has been involved with anti-death penalty and anti-war activities. She states that the “appearance of permanent battles across the world, many of which the United States is involved in, is cause for concern, because in this scenario, there will never be any peace.”

Pianist Marcus Persiani; Kelvyn Bell, guitarist; Lonnie Plaxico, bass; and Jeff Haynes, percussionist are the outstanding instrumentalists of Riffs on Race and War.

The Saturday, March 31^st performance will be followed by a panel discussion, “Stop and Frisk and Other Racist Shakedowns.” As of this writing, confirmed participants are Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; Joan Gibbs, Esq. of the Center for Law and Social Justice; and Cleo Silvers, long-time activist.  

Riffs on Race and War is made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; and the Fund for New Works (Aaron Davis Hall).

Riffs on Race and War received the support of public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The commissioning and development of Riffs on Race and War has been provided through the HARLEM STAGE Fund for New Work, which has received support from the Jerome Foundation.



Visit her website at http://www.karendtaylor.net