Welcome
Left to right: Toni Ringgold, Aaron Sanders, Ebony Stewart, Sean Tate.
Austin 360 Reviews Arrhythmia
By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
Posted: 02/16/2010 2:18 PM
What is love?
Writer Zell Miller III ponders that question in “Arrhythmia,” his newest piece of hip-hop performance theater now getting its debut at Vortex.
In Miller’s hands, love is a many-faceted thing, the source of questions more than answers — the lens through which bigger questions of identity, politics, history and the fundamental roles of men and women are examined.
But mostly, love is the catalyst for Miller — whose interdisciplinary theater works include the award-winning “My Child, My Child, My Alien Child” — to spin a compelling web of lyrical, image-packed verse that intrigues.
Against a spray-painted backdrop of brilliantly-hued graffiti art by Nathan Nordstrom, four actors (Sean Tate, Aaron Sanders, Toni Ringgold and Ebony Stewart) use gesture and movement in complement to the rhythm-based poetry. Like an intricate musical composition voices overlap, phrases repeat or echo back and forth. The performers break off in couples, flirt, argue and try to negotiate the give-and-take.
Miller packs plenty into the two 30-minute intensely-presented music-laced acts. There’s a little Civil Rights history, a discussion of the death and storied reputation of rapper Tupac Shakur, lots of negotiating the unsteady path of male-female relationships. Even the “I Love Lucy” show is tapped, its upbeat theme song and goof laugh track bursting in as the characters spin Miller’s rapid-fire poetry.
So what is the secret of love? Miller seems to suggest it’s the ability to use language as true communication. “Anger and jealousy makes us illiterate,” the characters say.
“What is the essence of poetry? There is no answer, only stories.”
And with “Arrhythmia,” Miller hands us plenty of stories.
The Company
UpRise! Productions: The Root of Rebellious Creativity, was founded in 2005 as a collaboration between members of several established arts groups in Texas including Xenogia Spoken Word Collective, Capoiera Da Rua, Ballet East Dance Company, Cry Havoc Action Choreography, Public Offenders, and Blacklisted Individuals. This diverse band of alchemists blend artistic genres deeply rooted in a framework of social justice.
UpRise! transcends the confines of difference through a multidisciplinary performing arts group that aims to affect social change through performance and empowerment education. UpRise! Productions has performed at Austin’s First Night, Pro Arts Collective’s Black Arts Movement, The National Poetry Slam, Hot September Flurries, Make It Wet Spit Fest, the Austin City MLK Celebration at the Vortex Theater, UT Queer Conference, Austin Latino Theater Alliance, and the Hip Hop Theater Explosion. UpRise! Productions’ piece “Power is Yours: Take It Or leave It” won “Best of the Fest” at Frontera Fest 2006.
