Performances
Sundiata's works combined poetry, music and drama. His musical influences included jazz, blues, funk and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. He worked closely with Craig Harris on works such as Udu about slavery in modern Mauritania and The Circle Unbroken is a Hard Bop about African Americans reaching adulthood in the 1960s.
Sundiata based his one man show Blessing the Boats on experiences of heroin addiction (back in the 60s), a car crash and a kidney transplant from a friend. He toured the show around the United States and internationally. The impact of the show inspired members of the audience to volunteer to become organ donors.
His last work, the 51st (dream) state, featured music, dance, video and poetry about the responses to the September 11, 2001 attacks. After a performance at the Melbourne Festival, the show was performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in November 2006.
Read more about this topic: Sekou Sundiata
Famous quotes containing the word performances:
“At one of the later performances you asked why they called it a “miracle,”
Since nothing ever happened. That, of course, was the miracle
But you wanted to know why so much action took on so much life
And still managed to remain itself, aloof, smiling and courteous.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“This play holds the season’s record [for early closing], thus far, with a run of four evening performances and one matinee. By an odd coincidence it ran just five performances too many.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)