More than Just A Collective
Quill Wordsmith
Wordsmith@excapethematrix.com
In part one we were talking about the origin of the Kuumba collective after seeing their performance of Baltimore’s Artscape festivities last summer. In this second half we not only talk about where they originated and how the idea to start came about, but we also talk about what the Collective does for their members and for their community.
QW: What is it that you strive to provide as artists in the communities that you perform in?
RC: Questions, thoughts, getting them to think. With social message type
plays. A lot of social type of message type plays can beat you over the head. It
can be preachy type stuff. We try really really hard not to come across as
preachy or like we know it all. Like we tell people you should hate the
republican party. No. We’re not telling people how to think. But I do really
think it’s important to get people thinking. Regardless of what it is, give you
something that you never considered before. The reason why our community is
going through so much is because of this event that happened in the 1960s or
whatever little thought provoking pieces that we can provide for people is
really really important. Also providing for the community learning
opportunities.
A
lot of time with theater performances, we expect people to show up, sit there
and listen to us, clap for us at the end, say “yea they did a good job” and go
back to their normal lives. It’s really good when you can get the audience to
actively participate. Like in We Need To Talk it was an audience dialogue. You
mentioned Ladies’ Verse with Olu Butterfly and I know they have a town hall
meeting sometimes instead of just having an intermission. Where they’ll put out
a particular topic and people will discuss that topic. We did another piece
called Dialogue where we interwove monologue, dances, songs, poetry, readings
from books, and speeches with people talking in between. Soon as the piece was
over, I would get up and involve the audience on stage with us. That was really
cool. And doing workshops to get young people and their parents to come out and
participate with Gospel or Blues singing or Spoken Word Theater; something we
recently did with 5th L.
QW: Now with you working at Centerstage, is that a possible resource for you to use or Is that another issue with red tape?
RC: It’s been good and bad. We’ve done a couple of guest spots with Centerstage for community type events and that has been great. But as you know….and have probably experienced before in your past (sly grin) sometimes it’s not good to mix work and your personal endeavors. Certain people look as if to say, “Hmm what is she doing and why is her company so involved in everything.” It took me awhile to learn. Because I would volunteer Kuumba for everything when spots opened up at our meetings and then I started to feel the vibe a little bit and decided to pull back. I love Centerstage and if there’s anything that comes up that’s appropriate I’ll definitely do that. And it’s understandable because Centerstage has another purpose. It has a completely different agenda. That’s why I continue to say we need a space. We performed at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum for their Kwanzaa event and it was great. They have a beautiful room space. I was thinking maybe we could talk to them about using their space more. But then they too have their own agenda. I was talking to a visual artist and he said something real deep to me. I was telling him how I need a visual artist and how every time I have one, they fall off and they’re doing their own thing. He said, “well I can help you out for a while but real life takes over for awhile and your project isn’t going to always be on my agenda.” I was like – THAT’S TRUE! Sometimes you have to realize everybody has their own agenda for their project that their doing and that’s okay – but we have to network and support each other. Like we’re sitting down meeting today I hope to help your magazine out in any way that I can and fully support spread the word and hopefully you’ll do the same thing for my company. However I can’t expect your magazine to be on the top of my agenda just like I wouldn’t expect for Kuumba to be at the top of yours. Sometimes I think we get our priorities confused you know? So we need to find a bulding that we can work out of. I look at the history of a lot of other companies and they started out this way. Without a space, getting space wherever they could, just like I’m sure you guys started off from the ground up. And then you just watch it grow.
QW: How long have you all been around?
RC: We’re going into five years.
QW: What are some of the future endeavors you hope to bring forth with the collective. I know you said you mentioned a visual artist. I used to be a part of a poetry ministry and our goal was to incorporate every form of art into what we do. At our last performance we had a music group, we had the spoken word intertwined between two of the songs they were singing, and behind us we had our visual artist interpretating our pieces through his art work. The only thing we left off was the THEATER! Do you plan on bringing in visual artists?
RC: I love that idea that you just put forth! Definitely interdisciplinary arts is my biggest thing. That’s what brought me to Towson is their program. They have one of the only masters programs in interdisciplinary and original art. And it started with me because I write as well. I do poetry and playwriting but I was also an actress. I love being on stage. Performing is so exciting to me. Then I learned I could direct too because I’m an organizer. That just comes from being in the church. And my mom put me over of the junior missionaries. And the people in the group are so talented. We have a Elaine a singer who’s also an actor. Black Root with the spoken word and rap and he’s an actor. Tavon who’s a dancer who’s trained since she was around 8 years old and also an actor. I want to work with a great visual artist. I’m very visual and I’ve always been inspired by painters or people who could draw. It’s just finding and linking up with the right people. Also for set design. We have very minimal sets and we’ve adapted it as apart of our aesthetic. Jessica Hutchinson is another name I wanna mention when you mention the sound and music. She’s the sound designer and a film student. And she brings me the rawest piece of music - - and it’ll inspire a whole show or a whole scene.
QW: I try my best to be humble, but I’m terribly cocky when it comes to my music. I have friends that are afraid to let me listen to certain pieces of music because they think I may not like it. And when the remix to Billie Holiday’s Don’t Explain came on during the performance of “Let’s Talk”. . .
RC: Jessica! I wanted to call her!
QW: Everytime a song came on I was in awe.
RC: Jessica Hutchinson – please give her credit for this. It’s good taste. Don’t feel like you’re not being humble. I’m a music connoisseur too. People who are really into their music like that, you hear it and you just know. Music is really important. And back to what you said about your group is you DID have theater. All of those things you mentioned were theater. What I’m really trying to make clear to the performers I’m working with and the audience is a play in theater is nothing but music, dance and spoken word and all those things put together. When you think back to early culture, theater came from storytelling and sitting by the fire and someone singing an old song. Just like in church: someone sings the song, someone reads the text, someone dances. We have a narrow view in our culture of what theater is and what a play is. That’s why I call them performers and not actors because they can do so many things other than just act. But definitely that music is important right!
QW: Is there a particular target audience that you strive to reach?
RC: Anyone who has a listening ear. Someone asked me not too long ago if we’d have an all black troupe or consider having someone of another race come and join and what would that be like? I would say the African American community. That would make it very clear that what we do is about African American life and culture. It is a social message that everyone can relate to but we are who we are. We all came together because we were all black and couldn’t find anyone else. But I have white friends, asian friends, who come to our shows and are excited about what we’re doing. I’m glad that other people no matter what color they are they can connect.
QW: This year at Artscape I made a point to do something I’d never done before and that was to take in every element of Artscape. I usually walk along the main strip and last year I made a point to purchase some prints. This year I actually saw some performances. I watched the experimental music at University of Baltimore. And I went to the Theater Project. I left out of your performance at a lost for words and everyone I called It was useless because I couldn’t describe what I had just seen. Is there a way for our readers to get in contact with you or do you know when your next show will be?
RC: We are working on that. We thought that we’d have a season and have all these shows planned but we’re doing show to show right now. Our next show is on February 8- 9 and we’ll be a the Baltimore Theater Project for two nights. That’s a Friday and Saturday. It’s for black history month. They’re having a lot of African American performers come out. That’s at 8 o’clock. We have a Myspace page. (laughter) I AM NOT A MYSPACE FAN. But the members said I have to step out of the way sometimes, “Roz we need a Myspace page”. And they all know how I feel about Myspace. They said they’re going to get me a t-shirt that says “I HATE MYSPACE.” We’re also working on a website right now and hope to have it up and running soon. I’m listed under CenterStage and you can always email me there regarding stuff with Kuumba.
QW: Sounds good to me. I’ll be sure to pass all of this on.
Myspace: http://myspace.com/kuumbacollective
Email: Rosalind Cauthen rcauthen@centerstage.org
Theater Project: http://www.theatreproject.org