john 11:35
[fo(r) all de lazurus(is)]
Written & performed by avery r. young,
with performers Andrew Coleman, Tina M Howell, Crystal Tina Jackson, and Shanā I Young
A 3-part sermon of service addressing the erasure of varied blk bodies (specifically trans-bodies) in the age of #BLKLIVESMATTER. Through narrative, scripture, poetry, movement and sound, a dirge that desires the power of resuscitation for the names that make the front page news and names that have not.
About the Artist
Interdisciplinary artist and educator avery r. young is a 3Arts Awardee and one of four executives for The Floating Museum. His poetry and prose are featured in several anthologies and periodicals including; Berkeley Poetry Review 49, Poetry Magazine, and photographer Cecil McDonald Jr’s In The Company of Black. He is the featured vocalist on flouist Nicole Mitchell’s Mandorla Awakening (FPE Records) and is currently touring with her Black Earth Ensemble and his funk/soul band de deacon board. Young’s latest full length recording tubman. (FPE Records) is the soundtrack to his first collection of poems, neckbone: visual verses (Northwestern University Press).
Artist Reflection
john 11:35
[fo(r) all de lazarus(is)]
reflection 1 . picture 1
in the picture with tina, me, nay-nay & drew, i am fixing trying to fix a potential wardrobe malfunction. nay-nay is checking her phone & drew is silently running choreography. & we’re all looking down though. so now i see prayer. or an altar call. in midst of piano chair & garments. we be blk folk in front of crystal eyes behind her lens, almost ready. intending to meet a task. beat a clock. & (per assignment) have church. fellowship. we be blk folk ready to tarry on the story of that one time when hey-zeus resuscitated him beloved one by calling him from his grave. i think about sis. aretha in front of a choir assembled by james cleveland & directed by alexander hamilton. she singing about how she about to review the story. the story of mary and martha. & how 4 days prior their brother had passed away. i think about the lost of 2021. the knee in neck. the bullet in bone. the bricks in windows. the masks. the masks. the masks, & the masks. i think about how i grew up around folk who sang & believed pharaohs army drowned in the red sea. and how that mean that no matter what pharaoh do, we work with powers that are greater. that power propelled everything that happened within the 30 minutes after this photograph of tina, me, nay-nay & drew was taken. within 30 minutes tina, me, nay-nay, drew & crystal summoned an intersection of blk body, experience and identities into a space that made room for those names, spirits and lives to matter inside dance & song blk!
john 11:35
[fo(r) all de lazarus(is)]
reflection 2 of picture 4
its me. the dude placing a mic into a stand. its me. that dude who talked through 3 different dreams for this moment & wrote 2 different proposals & 3 different scripts. its me. a dude who decided to explore the names that got hashtags and all the names of the blk trans bodies that did not. not to complicate or make political. but to honor & offer reverence. in about an 80 something minutes after this photo was taken, i along with tina, nay-nay (who is behind me) crystal & drew was talking about naming them all lazarus & telling them to come forth blk!
notes on de black bible (kjv)
an archive
inside de johnson library @ stony island arts bank
aint nan nudda book don been wif me long(r).
aint nan nudda book done felt so much of
my eye(s). saw jee-sus weep. in glow-spell of john.
11th chapter. thirty-fif verse.
made it firs(t) poem. spoken off-book.
psalms one hunnid still be salve
on ery ache. i turn to de gospel(s) of matthew
mark & luke. be in fellowship wif a woman wif an issue
of blood whose faith made her whole.
den flip it negro-odyssey. or devotional.
deliver(d) in de tradition of james
weldon johnson – or de good reveren(d)
turner who chew(d) up shakespeare
& spat it out a blue(r) poetik. now we massa
blas(t) ev.ver.ree wall wif us speak.
whoa. i say unto we. aint nan fiyah like a holyghos(t) fiyah
cause de holyghos(t) fiyah burn bush.
liberatin all de dark(s)
underneef de steeple to move.
dance. praise. trombone. harp.
blk!