Every Tongue Confess : A Ritual on Remembering
Installation & Performance
September 6-8, 2024
Goethe-Institut Boston
“An invitation to listen closely so you can hear,” ‘Every Tongue Confess’, is an evening-length performance inspired by Zora Neal Hurtson folktales. Our performance imagines space as a container for a sound collage, memory, and healing. Layering poetry, proverbs, prayers, the sound of the marimba, and oral histories, the performance will express “how it feels to be here on earth or leaving” (Hurston, 2001).
Dzidzor’s ability to collage live poems and soundscapes from speakers, sermons, and nature, combined with Steph Davis’ ability to stir, evoke, and shape the complexity of humanity through the marimba, is a merge of artistic innovation and profound storytelling — a glitch, a disruptive tapestry of memory and confession. The audience is invited to participate as witnesses through the practice of listening closely (Hurston, 2001), call and response, and embodiment.
The performance will weave themes of freedom, spirituality, healing, and pain through visuals, sound, and movement inspired by traditional African/African-American practices. The performance forges a space to manipulate time and disrupt the sonic environment of colonialism. We invite the audience to sit with the discomfort and wonder of the dead, the living, and beyond —as we honor traditions of possibility, resilience, collective care, liberation, and truth-telling.