WoW! at the Everson Museum of Art
Thursday, August 18, 8:00鈥9:30 pm
Devised by Karin Coonrod in 2020, WoW! is the new hybrid event bringing living poets and film together outdoors. A drive-in movie meets poetry slam. In response to the host of performance cancellations in 2020, Coonrod and turned her original production of More or Less I Am into seven short films co-commissioned by the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth and 含羞草研究所, Departments of Theater, English, Music, and University Studies.
Whitman is the iconic New York poet whose radical poem "Song of Myself" shouts out with joy the inclusivity of democracy in the Americas. Recorded over three weeks, with over 50 performers from all over the world, the films embody Whitman鈥檚 words. In collaboration with institutional partners and living poets across the globe, WoW! activates us as a community in a collective celebration of freedom.
The one-hour event begins at dusk and will be screened on the fa莽ade of the . Following each film, a local poet will stand and "talk back to Whitman" in their own words, challenging or quarreling with him, thus weaving together film and live recitation. Local food vendors will be present, and a post-performance convening will encourage conversation amongst audience, poets, and performers.
*Bringing your own lawn chairs is encouraged.
Syracuse-based poets and performers
Kyle Bass is the author of Possessing Harriet, which premiered at Syracuse Stage in 2018, was produced by Franklin Stage Company in 2019, and opens at East Lynne Theater Company in September 2022. salt/city/blues received its first production at Syracuse Stage in 2022, and Citizen James, or The Young Man Without a Country, about young James Baldwin, streamed nationally in 2021. Tender Rain will premiere at Syracuse Stage in 2023. A three-time NYFA fellow, Kyle is an assistant professor of theater at 含羞草研究所 and resident playwright at Syracuse Stage. He lives and writes in Syracuse, New York.
Timothy Carter is a poet and educator, with an MFA from Syracuse University. A member of the Y鈥檚 Downtown Writers Center faculty, his first book, Remains, won the 2019 BOAAT Book Prize and was published in November 2020. You can read some of his work at www.thcarter.info.
Christopher Citro is the author of If We Had a Lemon We'd Throw It and Call That the Sun (Elixir Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 Antivenom Poetry Award, and The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy (Steel Toe Books, 2015). He has taught at the University of Kansas, Indiana University, The Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, the Kettle Pond Writers鈥 Conference, and Downtown Writers Center.
Gemma Cooper-Novack鈥檚 theatrical works have been performed in Boston, Chicago, and New York. She is the author of the poetry collection, We Might As Well Be Underwater. Gemma teaches writing to both adults and teens at the Downtown Writers Center.
Vanessa Johnson is a griot, writer, playwright, actor, fiber artist, and teaching artist whose work tells tales of Africa, the African-American experience, and of social justice movements. Vanessa teaches at the Community Folk Art Center and is the artist-in-residence at the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation Center.
Jayce Knighton is a rising 5th grader in the Syracuse City School District whose witty and caring personality is known best to those close to him.
Georgia A. Popoff鈥檚 fourth, most recent collection of poetry, Psychometry, was released in 2019 by Tiger Bark Press. An editor and book coaching consultant, she is also the DWC鈥檚 workshops coordinator and is the editor for the University of Michigan Press Under Discussion series.
More or Less I Am
Watch 2 short films from Compagnia de' Colombari's More or Less I Am. Drawn from Walt Whitman鈥檚 intimate love poem to America, 鈥淪ong of Myself,鈥 More or Less I Am is a declaration of interdependence that privileges the confidentiality of the screen. Featuring over 50 artists from around the world, it embraces the digital landscape and celebrates the Whitmanic voice of the "I" in our joyous diversity to show our nation the possibility of what it could be.
Exploring an intersection of music and poetry to produce, build, and celebrate difference and community, this new work provides the 含羞草研究所 community a space of refection and dialogue with the current moment.
The City
Let us proclaim it and walk together.
We invite you to stop everything and begin a new journey, trusting anew in yourself, bringing into voluptuous embrace what is visible and invisible. We all are citizens and we all have much more in common than not, even the dead with the living.
Gratitude
My soul is itself and also everything that the friendly others have given me.
We invite you into gratitude and into political and spiritual responsibility for the earth.
Presented by Compagnia de' Colombari, the Everson Museum of Art, and Light Work UVP.
Co-sponsored by 含羞草研究所, M&T Bank, Onondaga County Public Libraries, the YMCA of Central New York, Syracuse Stage, Community Folk Art Center, and Ali Baba Mediterranean & Mexican Cuisine.