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‘American Afrikan (M.anifestations Remix)’

February 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

‘American Afrikan (M.anifestations Remix)’
by Jon Jon Scott

With a co-sign from none other than Amiri Baraka and The Last Poets’ Umar Bin Hassan, Minneapolis spoken word artist/curator/educator/producer, e.g. bailey, who’s full length debut, American Afrikan, is a sprawling concept record spanning the middle passage and beyond. With glimpses of jazz, hip-hop, soul, electronica and Fela Kuti, bailey’s words soar, without being preachy. A powerful record that deserves your full attention. Now that Gil Scott-Heron has returned in splendid fashion with the engaging, I’m New Here, the timing couldn’t be better.

eg. bailey
El Guante
Sha Cage
Mankwe Ndosi
Ibe Kaba
Feb. 20th
Bedlam Theather

e.g. bailey ft. M.anifest -“American Afrikan (Manifestations Remix)”-mp3

Originally posted on Sound Verité on 8 February 2010.

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e.g. bailey + Sha Cage direct Poetic Assassins play

April 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

What: Sai Werd Ink Presents…
Poetic Assassins Eliminating Oppression One Ink Shell at a Time
When: Friday and Saturday April 24th + 25th 7:00 pm
Where:Old Arizona Theatre 28th and Nicollet Ave (Free Parking in lot across street)
Directed by Sha Cage and eg bailey
www.saiwerdink.com

Sai Werd Ink artists Poetic Assassins enter the second season of their hip hop theatre production “Eliminating Oppression One Ink Shell at a Time” at the historic Old Arizona Theatre. The Poetic Assassins are winners of the 20009 VERVE grant and are a dynamic spoken word duo dedicated to creating positive change in the community. The play follows the two as they use their words to “assassinate” the evils in the world such as: homophobia, racism, sexism, gender roles, prison industrial complex just to name a few. It is followed by a rhyme and reason session were the audience is invited to ask questions of the artists and engage in dialogue about the complex issues presented during the play. Featuring Verse, B.U.G.S., Crystal Ruiz, Adrian Waters, Jake Virden.

This production runs for one weekend only. Tickets are available at the door. Recommended for audiences 13+ due to language and content.

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Nu Griots on 3-Minute Egg

October 9, 2008 By Leave a Comment

On the heels of a collaborative retreat for black writers, supported by the Givens Foundation for African American Literature, local writers belonging to the Nu Griots collective took the stage at Penumbra Theatre earlier this week to read poems, essays and excerpts of plays and screenplays.

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‘Patriot Acts’ will open minds to new possibilities

November 2, 2005 By Leave a Comment

“Patriot Acts” will open minds to new possibilities
by Lydia Howell

Theater for the 21st century is being born, with Pangea World Theater as midwife. The “Bridges Project” unites different artistic mediums—spoken-word, filmmaking, music, dance and theater—in fresh collaborations. “Patriot Acts,” made by 22 diverse artists (both local and international), crescendos beyond convention to take on today’s crucial post-9/11 issues.

“The theme is freedom, drawn from conversations about the world we live in and where our voices are in the dialogue and where they aren’t,” says co-curator/actor Sha Cage, best known as co-creator of Mama Mosaic, the TC women of color theater group.

“All we knew is we were going on a journey and we’d meet fellow travelers. We’d break bread together, have dialogue. The project would be fragments of—artifacts from—that journey,” Cage’s co-curator and director e.g. bailey elaborates.

Cage and bailey spent time in Europe engaging in political and creative dialogues, bringing back insights and artists’ work for “Patriot Acts.”

A rehearsal of “Patriot Acts” is an exhilarating evolution: Drea Reynolds’ resonant singing; Amanda Furches’ stark dance; Cage as the Statue of Liberty carrying a flag-covered baby; TC hip-hop icon Truthmaze riffing with videotaped Leeds, England, poet Swan; exhilarating poetry performed choral-style. “Characters” range from BBC reporters and the latest racially-profiled people labeled “terrorists” to historical figures like Harriet Tubman and a 15-year-old African-American girl, Kismet.

“Aesthetically it’s like jazz. Group improvisation. Process is the thing itself,” said “Bridges” curator J. Otis Powell, as he explains the “open space” philosophy “Patriot Acts” emerges from.

“The conversation around war—those three letters—is broader than the United States. Being in Bosnia, talking about the effects of war still happening: separation of families, lost neighbors—it’s visceral,” Cage says. “Talking with artists about how they continue their art during war and other subversive ways we might employ here.”

“How is someone in London, Paris, Belgrade dealing with all these issues?” bailey says, as he explains the aims of what he calls “transcontinental collaboration.” “We were pointed to not like the French—but, what are French people on the street talking about? What we see of Americans presented in the media, we know that’s not us!”

“Patriot Acts” is rebellious art that dares to cross artificial boundaries made by traditional theater and the growing national security apparatus. These artists liberate the term “freedom” from being a pro-war slogan to becoming unleashed creative expression and vigorous dissent. Artistic firepower of this magnitude could be both the mightiest weapon against violence and the transformative means towards reconciliation.

$12. Mon-Wed. Nov. 7 to 9, 7:30 p.m. Varsity Theater, 3808–4th St. SE, Dinkytown, Mpls. 612-203-1088.

Originally posted on Pulse of the Twin Cities.

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‘As Channeled Through…’

October 16, 2003 By Leave a Comment

News Release
For more information contact:
Carolyn Holbrook
SASE: The Write Place
Artistic/Executive Director

SASE: The Write Place celebrates its tenth anniversary with authors, living and dead

On Thursday, October 30th, the night before Halloween, SASE: The Write Place will begin a year-long celebration of its 10th anniversary.

The first event, ‘As Channeled Through…’, promises to be a unique fundraiser, featuring conversations with Emily Dickinson, June Jordan, Larry Neal and Ayn Rand, three authors who passed on, leaving America with its incredible literary legacy.  (See attached sheet for biographical information.)

The event will take place at the American Swedish Institute from 6:00 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. with hors díoeurves, cash bar, a silent auction, mystical Tarot readings by Jan Miller and music provided by deejay, Del Dilla.  There is a suggested donation of $25 and up.

At 6:30, America’s most loved poet, Emily Dickinson will be ‘channeled’ through Dickinson scholars, Eleanor Heginbotham and Erika Scheurer.

At 7:15, June Jordan and Larry Neal, celebrated authors from the Black Arts Movement will be ‘channeled’ through multi-disciplinary artists/Black Arts Movement Scholars, e.g. bailey and Sha Cage.

At 8:00, objectivist author, Ayn Rand will be ‘channeled’ through performance artist, Joan Calof and storyteller, Carla Vogel.

The American Swedish Institute is located at 2600 Park Avenue, Minneapolis, MN. Off-street parking is available on the south side of the building. Additional parking can be found on Park Avenue and surrounding streets.

Artist Bios

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is America’s best-known female poet and was one of the foremost authors in American literature. She lived a very private life and only ten of her poems were published in her lifetime. After her death, 1700 poems, which she had bound into booklets, were discovered.

Eleanor Heginbotham, a Professor of English at Concordia University Saint Paul, is the author of Reading the Fascicles of Emily Dickinson: Dwelling in Possibilities (Ohio State University Press,). She is current President of the Minnesota Chapter of the Fulbright Association. Before her arrival in Saint Paul, she taught in Liberia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and for many years in Washington, D. C., her other home. She has been a Board member of the Emily Dickinson International Society. She currently serves on the Cedar Exchange Board and on the Program Committee for the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library. She co-chaired the Fitzgerald International Conference in 2002 and, in earlier years, with Erika Scheurer, the Dickinson Conference, “To Make a Prairie: Emily Dickinson and the Imagination.”

Erika Scheurer is an Associate Professor of English at the University of St. Thomas-St. Paul where she has taught undergraduate writing, literature, and writing theory and graduate seminars in Emily Dickinson for ten years. She has delivered academic papers in her two research specialties—Emily Dickinson studies and composition theory and pedagogy–publishing articles in the Emily Dickinson Journal and the Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin as well as in various composition journals. Her research focuses on the concept of rhetorical voice in Dickinson’s poems and letters and on the poet’s early education in the area of composition. With Eleanor Heginbotham, Scheurer is the co-chair of the Minnesota Chapter of the Emily Dickinson International Society and together they have organized many Dickinson-related gatherings. She currently serves as the Membership Chair of the Emily Dickinson International Society.

June Jordan (1936-2002) is best known for her poetry, which has been noted for its range of emotions. She was also a significant contributor to children’s literature. In addition, she published novels, plays, essays, Poetry for the People, A Blueprint for the Revolution and a memoir, Soldier: a Poet’s Child.

Larry Neal (1937-1981) was one of the most influential scholars, authors and philosophers of the Black Arts Movement. He is best known for his work with Liberator Magazine, Negro Digest and Black World and for co-editing Black Fire, a collection of theory, poetry and prose by writers of the Black Arts Movement, with Amiri Baraka.

e.g. bailey is an actor, spoken word artist, film maker, playwright and producer. The ultimate collaborator, he has co-founded and co-produced many productions and organizations including Write On RaDio!, @rkology, a spoken word and music collective, the MN Spoken Word Association, the first spoken word conference, Singers of Daybreak, blues for nina: a poetic interpretation of the life and music of nina simone, for SASE: The Write Place and the Twin Cities Black Film Festival. He was commissioned by Pangea World Theater to adapt Chinua Achebe’s novel No Longer at Ease to the stage and produces Words Will Heal the Wound: a celebration of community through poetry. For info, visit www.truruts.com.

Shá Cage is Development Director of The MN Spoken Word Association and is founding and co-Managing Director of female theater collective, MaMa mOsAiC. She is a company member of Pillsbury House and Pangea World Theaters and has worked with a wide variety of area theaters. She is co-writer (with MaMa mOsAiC) of Making Medea, The Bi Show and multimedia piece, and The Menstruation Project; also Penumbra Theater’s Conflama. Her awards include 2003 Jerome/Playwrights’ Center Many Voices residency, administered by the Playwright Center, a 2003 Forecast Public Arts Grant and a SASE/Jerome writer’s award for her poetry. For more information about Shá, visit www.truruts.com.

Ayn Rand (Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum) (1905-1982) is best known as the author of the epic Atlas Shrugged.  She also authored The Fountainhead, We The Living, and Anthem.  But she was also an influential intellectual, inspiring thousands of people to study and follow her philosophy of objectivism.

Joan Calof is a playwright and performance artist who has performed at many venues including the Minnesota History Center, the Playwrights’ Center, Patrick’s Cabaret, and four Fringe festivals, to favorable reviews in the StarTribune and City Pages. She was selected by the Playwrights’ Center for a Jones Commission, and was twice selected as an Associate Member. Her work has also been published, including an anthology of scenes for mature actors entitled A Grand Entrance.

Carla Vogel is a writer and storyteller. She specializes in Jewish/Yiddish folklore, performing locally nationally. Presently she works with Kairos, an intergenerational dance group, and the Bridges Program at the Children’s theater. She is co-founder of the Wild Yam Cabaret and Chutzpah Café.

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‘No Longer at Ease’ a thrilling dramatic journey

May 7, 2001 By Leave a Comment

‘No Longer at Ease’ a thrilling dramatic journey
By Jaime Meyer

“No Longer at Ease” begins with a seemingly endless frenzy of blessing. Obi Okonkwo is being sent from his home in Nigeria to England to become educated. His relatives and friends, who are paying his way, praise him, embrace him and pour protective chants over every inch of his being. Obi stands rigidly in his smokestack-gray European suit, a swirl of dancing, clapping Afrikaans encircling him, all dressed in the colors of sunrise. Some new creature is being born amid this glorious cacophony: not quite African any longer, not quite European, ever. Nigeria is at the dawn of independence from Britain, and Obi is the image of that new day. But, bit by bit over the next two hours onstage, Obi’s life splinters, then cracks, then shatters.

e.g. bailey’s adaptation of Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s novel is a big-hearted, thrilling theatrical experience. Pangea World Theater’s production, directed by Dipankar Mukherjee, is sonically and visually overcrowded, and the acting is often underpolished. But the sheer force of bailey’s — and Achebe’s — storytelling, the emotional commitment of the actors and the power of luminous ideas leaping up from the text like solar flares coalesce into an extraordinary evening of theater.

Obi’s story may be specifically Nigerian in context, but it is universal in content. As he becomes educated and moves out into the world, he takes up residence in the rift between modern Western culture and ancient tribal values. Is he becoming absorbed into — or possessed by — the European mind? Or is he rightfully shedding outdated tribal customs? He falls in love with an educated woman who, it turns out, carries a generations-old ancestral curse. Marrying her would bring shame not only to his living family, but also to generations of his children not yet born. For him, this is nonsense; but for his family, it is unquestionable truth.

The beauty of Pangea’s production is in its evenhanded depiction of these burning dilemmas. A story that could become an easy harangue about white people, Europe, Christianity and colonialism becomes instead an intricate, magnetic dance of energies — social, political, religious, ethical and personal.

In the role of Obi, James Young II moves through the play like a single powerful muscle flexing and contracting again and again. As Clara, Obi’s cursed fiancee, marie-francoise theodore fills her character with a modern sexiness and ancient torment. Ronnell Wheeler’s ebullient African dance at the top of act two is a joyful highlight.

Mukherjee likes to direct the living daylights out of a show. Drums pound from above; actors hum and click their teeth and wave their arms in vaguely ritualistic motions; lights undulate across long banners hung from the ceiling, each painted with Seitu Jones’ symbolic visions.

Sometimes it’s all gorgeous, but too often, you feel you need to hack your way through the jungle of theatrics to make your way to the play. Still, it’s stimulating theater.

————————————————————————

Jaime Meyer is a local free-lance reviewer. Originally printed in Saint Paul Pioneer Press.

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Pangea takes on an African classic

May 4, 2001 By Leave a Comment

Pangea takes on an African classic
by Rohan Preston (Star Tribune)

Chinua Achebe is a titan of African literature who lives a quiet life in upstate New York.

Pangea World Theater is a small, ambitious Minneapolis company interested in humanitarian issues. Somehow, the two connected; Pangea will produce the world premiere of the stage adaptation of “No Longer at Ease,” Achebe’s landmark 1960 novel about the conflict between tradition and modernity.

For Pangea, which has staged such heavyweights as “Ajax,” “Rashomon” and Athol Fugard’s “Playland,” this is another opportunity to tackle a world classic.

“No Longer at Ease” is a milestone in the history of literature, and producing it makes us a little nervous,” said Pangea literary manager  as she broke from a pre-rehearsal circle in Waring Jones Theater at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, where the play opens today. “We want to stage it with clarity, so that we can honor its achievement and bring some of its points into sharp, dramatic focus.”

“No Longer at Ease” is the second Achebe book to bring wide recognition to African literature. The main character in “Ease,” Obi Okonkwo, is a grandson of the protagonist in Achebe’s 1958 debut, “Things Fall Apart.”

Set on the eve of Nigeria’s independence from Britain, “Ease” revolves around Obi, a young man whose Ibo people have raised money to send him to school in England. After completing his education — he becomes a poet instead of, say, an engineer — he has returned, full of idealism. He is eager to help usher Nigeria into a new era.

Obi confronts the deep-seated traditions of his countrymen. His mother would rather commit suicide than permit him to marry the woman he loves, who is from a class of untouchables. The ethically and morally upright Obi eventually succumbs to the things he condemns: He takes a bribe and is arrested.

Securing the rights to stage this world premiere was the easy part for Pangea’s creative team. Through a mutual friend, the company got in touch with Achebe, a professor at Bard College in New York. Natarajan then made contact with Achebe’s agent in London.

FINDING THE FOCUS

The hard work was narrowing a sprawling, epic novel for the stage. E.G. Bailey, who adapted the book, and director Dipankar Mukherjee use 11 actors, many in a chorus, to play all the parts.

Bailey, a Liberian-born poet, playwright and performance artist, had other challenges while working on “Ease.” Shortly after he did a first draft of the play in June 1999, he returned to his homeland for the first time since his youth.

“The big danger for me was not making this my own story,” he said during a rehearsal break. “This is really a story of change and tradition. Obi went away to school, like I did. He owes something to the community. He wants to bring enlightenment, but he has too little appreciation for tradition.”

Bailey and Mukherjee brought in leaders of Twin Cities Nigerian organizations to work on accents and to talk about the play’s themes. The Pangea creative team discovered many complexities; for example, the bribery that is so pervasive in the book and in much of contemporary Africa is rooted in a benign traditional practice of gift exchange.

Bailey and Mukherjee also delved into the conflict of values that Obi embodies. Because of his English upbringing, Obi sees bribery as more of a crime than abortion. When his girlfriend — the same one his mother has forbidden him to marry — becomes pregnant, he seeks money for an abortion.

In traditional Ibo culture, to have an abortion is to undo your chi, or spirit, Bailey said. “That is the worst thing you could do, killing your soul,” he continued. “Obi cannot see that. He is a good man, full of righteous, ethical fire. And the things he wants to change will change. But not on his timetable.”

The play’s conflicts have universal applications, Mukherjee said. “We’re talking about Nigeria as much as India,” he said. “In both cases, different mini-states were forged together into a nation, and the traditional values continue to clash with the legacy of colonialism and the possibilities of the future.

“The brilliance of Achebe is that we can see our own struggles here as we try to find a progressive vision of how to live. We want to stay true to his broad vision and ours.”

What: Adapted from Chinua Achebe’s novel by E.G. Bailey. Directed by Dipankar Mukherjee.

When: Opens 7:30 p.m. today. Runs 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sun. Thru May 27.

Where: Waring Jones Theater, Playwrights’ Center, 2301 E. Franklin Av., Mpls.

Tickets: $14-$16. 612-343-3390.

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Pangea World Theatre presents No Longer At Ease

May 4, 2001 By Leave a Comment

No Longer At Ease
by e.g. bailey
based on the novel by Chinua Achebe

May 4-27, 2001

No Longer At Ease is the story of Obi Okonkwo who returns to Nigeria from England filled with romantic idealism and finds a society full of conflicting demands. Set on the eve of Nigeria’s independence from Britain this is an ironic story about the clash between tradition and modernity as represented by the forces of colonialism. e.g. bailey’s stage adaptation brings to life all the emotional force and poetry of this journey into self-hood.

Co-presented by the Playwrights’ Center’s NewStage Directions program

This project is made possible in part by funds from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MRAC) by an appropriation from the State Legislature.

“You got into Achebe’s head.” – Audience Member

“…a big hearted, thrilling theatrical experience.” – St. Paul Pioneer Press

“…Pangea World Theater has adapted the book, titled No Longer at Ease, into a first-rate play, featuring a sparkling performance by James Young II as Obi, the grandson of the hero of Things Fall Apart, newly retuned to Nigeria on the eve of independence.” – City Pages

“If you like economical and evocative theater, go see “No Longer at Ease,” Pangea World Theater’s adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s novel.” – Star Tribune

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‘No Longer at Ease’ a tense, furious work

May 4, 2001 By Leave a Comment

‘No Longer at Ease’
a tense, furious work
by Rohan Preston (Star Tribune)

If you like economical and evocative theater, go see “No Longer at Ease,” Pangea World Theater’s adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s novel.

As adapted by E.G. Bailey and directed by Dipankar Mukherjee, this “Ease,” in a premiere at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, captures the big themes and epic arc of Achebe’s work but little of his wry humor.

The brisk 21⁄2-hour drama veers from haunting ritual to heady realism, mixing these realms with a wonderful, no-fuss theatricality.

Set on the eve of Nigerian independence, the action involves Obi Okonkwo, a headstrong young man who has been sent away to school in England by his Ibo people. After four years abroad, Obi (the reverse of Ibo) returns westernized and scornful of his people’s traditions. His family forbids him to marry his girlfriend, Clara, who is from a group of outcasts. Obi moves in with her instead. When she becomes pregnant, Obi takes a bribe so he can pay for an abortion. He seems no different from the corrupt officials he condemns.

The action plays out on Seitu Jones’ striking, museumlike set. It is lined with elaborate carved African artifacts and furnishings, as well as 11 mainsail-style backdrops behind which the actors retreat. Sarah Schreiber’s expert lighting transforms the space from office to nightclub to home.

In the ritualistic scenes, imaginatively staged by Mukherjee, the broad themes are more important than the individual character development at the heart of most Western drama. The show is at its best during the stylized scenes.

For example, when Clara goes to have the abortion, she meets resistance from the whole community, lined up on one side of the stage. In half-shadows, the hissing, gasping townspeople walk in slow motion, pushing out at her as if trying to stop a car with bare hands. From the other side of the stage, Clara pushes until the two sides meet — and cross — at a threshold.

Then the scene dissolves, the lights brighten and the pace returns to normal. Mukherjee’s sensitive treatment of this section is a highlight.

By contrast, the realistic scenes are more predictable, and while those involving the conflict between European colonizers and African subjects may be historically accurate, they sound stilted.

Actor James Young II plays Obi like an ornery prizefighter. He comes on at full throttle for most of the show, his passion loud and clear. Young’s bombast is somewhat moderated by the company of actors around him, including Gregory Stewart Smith, who plays Obi’s brother and a host of other roles; Ronnell Wheeler as a ritual dancer and conspirator, and Marie-Francoise Theodore, who gives a knitted-brow innocence to the underwritten role of Clara.

– Rohan Preston is at rpreston@startribune.com .

*    Who: Adapted from the Chinua Achebe novel by E.G. Bailey. Directed by Dipankar Mukherjee for Pangea World Theater.

*    Where: Playwrights’ Center, 2301 E. Franklin Av., Minneapolis

*    When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, through May 27.

*    Review: This brisk, 21⁄2-hour drama about Nigeria on the cusp of independence veers between stylized ritual and heady realism, blending these disparate realms with a wonderful, no-fuss theatricality.

*    Tickets: $14-$16. Call 612-343-3390.

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Final Words: Playwright’s Statement

May 4, 2001 By Leave a Comment

No Longer At Ease
Final Words: Playwright’s Statement
e.g. bailey

Achebe is our Elder. For many of us, he is the famed griot teaching us our history, while telling us a great story. Nearly every Afrikan I spoke with about the play said they had read Achebe, perhaps not all his works but the least of all Things Fall Apart. For some, he was mandatory reading. And he should be, at least for all of us of Afrikan descent. Achebe’s goal, which he fully accepts, is to help us reclaim our stories, to help us to understand that our history was rich, and our stories beautiful before our subjugation at the hands of Europe. He states, “Here then is an adequate revolution for me to espous–to help my society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-abasement.” But he is fully aware that this reclamation is not simply a glorification of what we were and who we are, and perhaps even who we want to be, but dealing fully with our past, even facing up to our hand in the matter. Earlier in the same essay he says, “What we need to do is to look back and try and find out where we went wrong, where the rain began to beat us.” In his most recent essay, he writes, “I know that such a tremendously potent and complex reinvention of self–calling, as it must do, on every faculty of mind and soul and spirit; drawing as it must, from every resource of memory and imagination and from a familiarity with our history, our arts and culture; but also from an unflinching consciousness of the flaws that blemished our inheritance…” For him the greatest danger is not remembering the agonies of the past but forgetting them. Though he was speaking about Nigeria after the Biafrian War, I think that statement strikes a deep cord in the consciousness of Afrikans and Afrikan Americans alike. In order to accept our selves and our beauty, we must also be able to accept our scars. And the story of Obi Okonkwo not only celebrates our culture but also forces us to face the difficulties our own culture can present us as we try to evolve into the future, as we try to negotiate and synthesize our existence in an everchanging world and yet hold on to our traditions. An epigraph from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, could serve as a apt summary of the conflict in No Longer At Ease, and even a metaphor for the current state of many Afrikan countries: “The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interrengnum there arises a great diversity of morbid symptoms.” Obi’s tragedy is that he finds himself at the epicenter of this rift. And it is these rifts in our history and encounter with Western culture about which Achebe writes: The arrival of Europeans in Things Fall Apart and the dawning of independence in No Longer At Ease. But these are not simply historical and physical rifts, but primarily psychological ones.

The journey of creating this work has been incredible and a blessing, but not without its struggle and at times exasperation. However, within it, I have discovered a great deal about myself and my people. I have felt in many ways like an apprentice in the company of a profound elder. Yet also, I have discovered that Obi’s story is in many ways my own. There is no conflict that Obi deals with that I have not encountered in one form or another in my experiences both in Afrika and here. These are dilemmas that all of us as Afrikans in America must deal with in our prodigal relationship with our home. But it is not our province alone, even my eldest brother residing in Ivory Coast deals with it as he struggles with his acceptance of Christianity and the traditional spiritual beliefs of our Grandfather, who reared him.

In the Igbo culture there is a tradition called the Mbari celebration. With this tradition, representatives from the community are chosen to prepare a festival of images in honor of Ala, the Earth goddess. The chosen representatives, ordinary citizens of the community and artists alike, go off into seclusion to create their works of art, which they present to the community during the ceremony. They are left alone to create, supported and fed by the community, sometimes for two years. That in many ways is what I see as the role of the artists that have come together to create this work, that speaks for and about the community, with its beauty and flaws. We can only hope that you enjoy our “home of images” as much as the villagers enjoy the Mbari ceremony.

Thanks enough cannot be given to Pangea World Theater for this incredible opportunity, for their faith and trust. Abundant thanks to my future wife, Sha Cage, without whose support, love and input this work would not be. And love and thanks to all the artists involved in this project for their brilliant gifts, from crew to cast, to support network to the whole Pangea family. Thanks to Chinua Achebe, for his work and for giving us permission to bring it to stage. To the Igbo community and Ummune Cultural Association. Special thanks to Hannatu Tongrit-Green, Onyebuchi Njaka, Larry Ubani and Flora Okwa. Also to Susan Robeson, Mimi Girma and J. Otis Powell!. The Playwrights’ Center for their development support. To parents: George and Ginny Bailey. To friends and family. I dedicate this work to my grandparents: Vaslekey and Mayamu. And to my mother, Massa Vaslekey Sirleaf. Without “We” I am nothing.

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