Guardian Spirit: The Words of bell hooks
July 10 at 8:00 pm
July 11 at 8:00 pm
Artist, composer, vocalist, and Spiegeltent favorite Martha Redbone returns to Bard SummerScape with a musical celebration of the words and legacy of bell hooks. In this developmental work-in-process, Redbone and longtime musical collaborator Aaron Whitby embark on a multidisciplinary musical exploration of bell hooks’s landmark poetry collection, Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place. Known for their powerful and award-winning settings of poets Ntozake Shange in for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf (2019 Drama Desk Award; 2022 Broadway revival) and William Blake on the album, The Garden of Love: Songs of William Blake, Redbone and Whitby channel bell hooks’s meditative, confessional, and political lyricism into a genre-defying soundscape that echoes the spirit of her Kentucky roots and heritage she shares with Redbone.
Artists
Martha Redbone, vocals, percussion
Aaron Whitby, music director, piano, keys
Charlie Burnham, violin, vocals
Robin Macatangay, guitar
Fred Cash, bass
Kevin Johnson, drums
Keith Anthony Fluitt, vocals
Ramona Renea, vocals
Vivian Sessoms, vocals