Project: Public Practice: An Anti-Violence Community Ceremony

Location:1342 Franklin Ave., New Orleans

Date: October 25, 2014 3-4:30PM

Project Description:

Public Practice is a spectacular street performance of New Orleans diverse public ceremonial culture that seeks to counter common representations of crime-ridden neighborhoods. This people-powered event shows alternatives to guns and violence by highlighting creative and nurturing community practices coming from within. Collaborators include horse riding clubs, motorcycle clubs, juvenile bike clubs, a high school drill team, city rappers and Mardi Gras Indians queens. This processional performance is concurrent with the opening weekend of Prospect.3, New Orleans' third international contemporary art biennial. 

This project is artistically led by artist Delaney Martin and curator Claire Tancons. They worked with over 100 participants encouraging them to largely self-direct their roles for this choreographed display along Franklin Avenue, the fractious border of the St. Roch neighborhood. For example participants picked their own songs or sounds that were turned into a soundscape for the unfolding event by hip hop producer Paulus. Highlights of the day included the Caramel Curves all-female motorcycle club's pink smoke, multi-colored dove releases by Big Chief Delco and his Serenity Peace Birds, rap performances by 5th Ward Weebie, Miss Tee, Sess 4 5 and Keedy Black who rapped from a convertible surrounded by her KB dolls youth dance troupe, and an amazing routine by Boss Status Beauty Salon featuring the local shop owner Lynette and her models.

A delegation of Black Indian Queens supported recently released inmate, Taece Defillo, as she read a poem about her incarceration directly underneath Deborah Luster's stark black and white portrait of her as the Shepherdess in Angola Penitentiary’s annual Passion Play. Luster’s photos of Taece and other cast members remain installed on the outside of the Abiding Temple Ministries with their characters names and sentences printed below - a complex statement on the nature of redemption and transformation.

Many meetings and workshops occurred in the lead up to the event, including mentorship opportunities for neighborhood kids at a trick-your-bike workshop with Twon, president of a car club, and a trip to a horse riding stables to learn how to care and ride horses with the 504 Boyz. Not only did the youth have prominent roles in the performance of Public Practice, the lasting effect of these workshops can be seen on the streets where the newly formed "St. Roch Scrapers" regularly ride with their mentor Twon on weekends, dazzling the city with their pageantry and pride. Grades need to be kept up if they want to roll out.

Public Practice was proud to be the opening ceremony for partner project, The Embassy, an historic gun buyback program organized by Kirsha Kaechele and The Museum of Old and New Art, in collaboration with the New Orleans Jefferson Parish Gun Buy Back Committee (NOJPGBC) and the NOPD.

Press: Artforum, BurnAway, ArtNews, Frieze

Location: New Orleans, LA

Practice: Gospel Choir

Airlift Project: Space Rites

Website: Report on WDSU

Location: New Orleans, LA

Practice: Choir Group

Airlift Project: Upstairs at the Wax Museum / Space Rites

Website: Murmurations Video

Location: Osaka, Japan/ Easton, PA.

Practice: Acoustic Sound Artist & Percussionist

Airlift Project: Space Rites

Website: http://www.hhproduction.org

Space Rites: An Interactive Art Installation & Community Performance Series

Location: St. Maurice Church, 605 St. Maurice Ave. New Orleans, LA

Date: October 26, 2014 - January 2015

Check out a video of the event: https://vimeo.com/139244903

New Orleans Airlift presented Space Rites, a wildly diverse concert series, at the deconsecrated St. Maurice Church in the Lower 9th Ward. Inside artist Taylor Lee Shepherd's interactive sound installation, Altarpiece, made from over 50 rewired televisions, formed a giant, sound-responsive altar. Acting as invented oscilloscopes, the televisions reflected every sound that passed through the space in hypnotic patterns of light.

There were six performances in the Space Rites Series featuring diverse performers in front of theAltarpiece. Master percussionist Tatsuya Nakataniand hisGong Orchestra, comprised of eleven local musicians who trained on the day of the performance, created a hallowed sound that got the oscilloscope TV’s buzzing. Weather Warlock, C-Section 8 and Mountain of Wizard brought down the house with smoke filled sets and epic soundscapes. 

In traditional Airlift style their were a number of out-there collaborations beginning with an incredible opening performance by theLower 9th Ward Senior Center Choirwho were joined by the Murmurations Choir, a youthful ensemble singing polyphonic harmonies. Guitar giants Nels Cline, of Wilco, and local avant-garde powerhouseRob Cambre,were mesmerizing in their first ever collaboration. While the Bitchin Bajajs'(Chicago) dreamy drone accompanied a photo retrospective of legendary musical moments culled from years of punk shows by Guggenheim-award winner, Bill Daniel.

The final performance brought members of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra brass section into collaboration with the Van Hahn Lion Dance team from New Orleans East.This traditional Vietnamese dance team features two-person performers in Lion costumes alongside drummers.  Guggenheim-award winning modern composer Yotam Haber created a piece especially for the performance entitledSpace Rites 6 and conducted these unlikely collaborators in what was an unforgettable experience.

However one of the exciting, and radical, things about this project was the joining of this art installation with the booming voice and soaring spirit of Reverend Duplessis, of Mt. Nebo Bible Baptist Church. Every Sunday visitors could hear and see his voiceas he conducted his services through the oscilloscope altar - or what he called "Resurrection Technology." The Reverend's Lower 9th Ward congregation has been displaced since Katrina and currently holds services in his home. As his congregation continues rebuilding their own church nearly ten years after the storm, the Reverend used this moment to reach new audiences from an unusual pulpit.

This project was a satellite of the Prospect.3 international art biennial. Airlift was proud to present his beautiful collaboration between visual art and music in the epic sanctuary of St. Maurice Church, made possible a creative space by the Creative Alliance of New Orleans. Many thanks go to our volunteers and to the neighbors of the Lower 9th ward.

PRESS:

New Orleans Airlift always seems to rise to the occasion, and this year its Space Rites in the Lower 9th Ward explores previously uncharted territory. .…Dubbed "resurrection technology" by Rev. Charles Duplessis, who incorporates (The oscilloscopes) into his Sunday morning services, their metaphysical aura was evident on the evening of Oct. 26, when the Murmurations choir joined the Lower 9th Ward Senior Center Gospel Choir for the first concert of the series Old-time religion met avant-garde innovation as the Murmurations' haunting polyphony interacted with the female gospel group's spirited singing — they substituted "9th Ward spirit" for "old time religion" in the song of the same name. The church, …. is the perfect venue for such festive down-home otherworldliness.

Eric Bookhardt, The Gambit

Number 8 in "Top 10 Are Experiences of 2014" "Sound sculptor Taylor Shepherd breathed new life into 30 old-fashioned televisions, when he converted them into sound-sensitive oscilloscopes mounted in the two-story baroque altar of a ghostly deconsecrated church. The choir, guitar and gong concerts that followed were sublime. Periodic performances through Jan. 25, 2015."

- Doug McCash, NOLA.com

The Lower Ninth Ward Church, has become the new home for musical performances breathing new life into the ethereal (though now deconsecrated) space.

-Nola Defender