Drama, poetry combine for accounts of violence

    Dusk. The sound of smooth jazz coming from a saxophone fills the stillness on front campus. Students gathered together in front of Atkinson Hall last Thursday night, Oct. 25, in sweet anticipation of “The Street Corner,” a poetísical performed by Art as an Agent for Change (AAC).
    There above the crowd, on the porch of Atkinson Hall, appeared senior Daniel Siebel, his shiny saxophone glimmering in the light of the lamppost.
    “We’re here to see the famous Daniel Siebel,” said Samantha Brown, GCSU freshman and audience member.
    Apart from seeing friends, some students have come to “The Street Corner” to liven up a boring evening.
    “It was something interesting to do,” sophomore Kalen Puckett said.
    Suddenly, the music stops and a woman, performer Tameka Dean, appears at the top of the stairs.
     She begins the story of the street corner.
    Soon appears Paul Grigsby, another performer and founder of the AAC. He also begins his story, intertwined with Dean’s.
“The street corner. A right angle that’s wrong for your life. The empty end of American dreams,” says Grigsby as he walks about the stage. “Sorrow, injustice … and violence. The street corner.”
    Violinist Kelly Millsaps appears from behind Dean, playing the familiar tune “Morning Mood,” to signify the breaking of dawn.
“Daylight. Let the voices of this corner speak,” Dean said.
    The performance continues, addressing violence, suicide and taboo topics of today. A scene unfolds with two young men talking on the street in front of a sign that reads “No Sagging.” The sign also displays a drawing of a man wearing his pants below his underwear line, a satirical jab at the current “No Sagging” legislation.
    The rest of the performance was wonderful, exploring all different types of violence and the influences that create it. Odinaka Ezeokoli performed a piece about the influence television violence has on children. Grisby and Dean recited off one another, expressing the anguish of violence from the prospective of a man and a woman. Tavias Bennet portrayed a politician trying to convince the young people to rebel against authority. The performance ended with night on the street corner.
    As a leader in AAC, Grigsby said he was interested in doing a performance based on domestic violence but did not want to restrict the content of the poetry on one form of violence. Like other AAC performances, “The Street Corner” was written by those that acted it out.
    “First we usually have writing sessions with poets,” said Grigsby. “And at these writing sessions we watch movies and we just talk about the topic of violence and we start to get ideas. And then when we have the poems, we write a script that kind of puts all the poems we’ve written into context.”
    For some of the performers, the material they performed was inspired from everyday tragedies.
    “Reading the news can be kind of a downer,” said Joey Hall, a performer and member of the AAC. “It’s some pretty good inspiration. One of my pieces was about that.”
    Hall said that he also used personal experiences as inspiration for other pieces he performed that night. Tavias Bennet, another performer, said that he just tried to imagine violence after Grigsby had brought it up as a topic and that his imagination brought inspiration for his poems.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 1 2007. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry