A man walks into a room with his life in his hands. He is the internationally acclaimed artist and playwright Inua Ellams (Barber Shop Chronicles, The Half God of Rainfall) and he has filled thousands of pages in an ongoing attempt to be heard, to give his genius wings that can travel. Every word he’s ever written is captured, all the poems and the theater and the essays, the drafts of projects abandoned and works as yet unknown, indexed, rendered as binary, and waiting patiently within the confines of the electronic tablet he’s holding even now. Pick a word, any word. Prompted by audience suggestion and open conversation, Ellams searches through his archive, unearths refined or raw gold, and presents his treasure in a spontaneous performance. It’s an act of call and response that hearkens back to the birth of storytelling. At this uniquely futuristic and puckishly chaotic interactive event, the artist couldn’t be more present. He’s inviting you to join the work. What do you say?
Search Party forms part of the Under the Radar calendar at Lincoln Center between January 5th and 13th. For further information, please visit the Lincoln Center website.
Images, courtesy of Lincoln Center- Inua Ellams photographed by Adama Jalloh for The New York Times at Potterfields Park in London on September 17th 2020.
About Author
