13 Oct 2017
18:30 - 22:30
Triptych event: A Rap on Race Revisited (part I) - Read My World
If history were the past, history wouldn’t matter. History is the present, the present.
You and I are history. We carry our history. We act in our history. We act on it.
–– James Baldwin
[T]o choose to have a conversation with someone is to admit them into the field
where worlds are constructed.
–– Monika Szewczyk
The triptych A Rap on Race Revisited reactivates the beautifully complex conversation between the Black writer and social critic James Baldwin (1924-1987) and the white anthropologist and museum curator Margaret Mead (1901-1978). Not in selective pithy sound bites, but slowly, word by word.
The conversation unfolded during three sessions over the course of two days in the summer of 1970 and lasted roughly seven and a half hours in total. Initially there was no audience other than a tape-recorder. Their recorded exchange however, was soon transcribed and made public as A Rap on Race (1971). The triptych is split up in two events, with part I taking place on Friday 13 October and parts II & III on Saturday 14 October. During each of the three parts of the programme Guillermo Blinker and Bea McMahon recite one section of the conversation verbatim. After the first and last performative reading Monique Duurvoort presents a short dance piece performed by Rex Clemensia in re/action to the conversation.
Upon its publication as a book, the conversation was both applauded and vilified in both the American and Dutch press. How do the words of Baldwin and Mead resonate in 2017?
A Rap on Race Revisited is part of Read My World and takes place at Framed Framed.
The project is initiated by Petra Ponte and is supported by the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts).
Full time schedule
Friday October 13, 6:30 – 10:30 pm
Saturday October 14, 5:00 – 7:00 pm
Saturday October 14, 8:00 – 10:30 pm
More info
Admission is free and you can come and go as you please, please note that places are limited.
The performative reading will be in English; there are three copies of the published Dutch translation available to read along.
(Please note: for the rest of the Read My World festival you do need a ticket.)
