Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste & LaMont Hamilton: Evil Nigger Part IV for Julius Eastman

Artist, designer and composer Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste opens his 2017 ISSUE residency with a collaboration with interdisciplinary artist LaMont Hamilton on Friday, May 5th and Saturday, May 6th, 2017. The performance is the collaborative duo’s fourth performance around Julius Eastman’s 1979 composition, “Evil Nigger.”

“For this iteration, we are investigating Eastman as a trickster (i.e. B’rer Rabbit or the Signifyin’ Monkey), within the course of Black American cultural practice and a tradition of subterfuge. Here, we’re working with ‘Evil Nigger,’ sonically and conceptually. Specifically the opening motif (me-re-do), as existing within the canon of popular music as ‘broody’ and ‘evil’ (Wolves In The Throne Room’s ‘Vastness And Sorrow’ as well as Three Six Mafia’s ‘Chop Me Up’ are examples which immediately come to mind). In addition to the composition ‘Evil Nigger,’ we are also working with The Eastman-led SEM ensemble’s performance of John Cage’s ‘Song Books’ at SUNY Buffalo in 1975.

Performing Cage’s directives, to do what they wish so long as it falls under the philosophy of Henry David Thoreau, Eastman proclaimed ‘a radical new love’ and proceeded to remove a white woman’s top, then fully undressed a white male crowd-goer. This act of ‘a radical new love’ incensed Cage. What’s important to us is not this rare moment in which we see Cage and Eastman at odds, but searching for the nuance between a joyful, loving act being received as anything but. This phenomenon, which might be seen as a full-on embodiment of Eastman as Trickster, is our point of departure, performatively.” -- Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste

Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste is a Bessie-nominated composer, designer and performer, living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Holding an MFA from Brooklyn College’s Performance and Interactive Media program, his work, through the lens of precarious labor, complicates notions of industry, identity, and environment and the implications of the intersections of such phenomena. He is a founding member of performance collective, Wildcat!, and frequently collaborates with performers and fine artists, including Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, André M. Zachery, and Yanira Castro/a canary torsi. He has presented at the Brooklyn Museum, Newark Museum, Under The Radar at The Public Theater, The Studio Museum In Harlem, National Sawdust, The Jam Handy (Detroit), Tanz Im August at Hau3 (Berlin), American Realness at Abrons, Knockdown Center, Gibney Dance, FringeArts (Philadelphia), Judson Church, Stoa Cultural Center (Helsinki), MIT, Arts East New York, JACK, Painted Bride Art Center (Philadelphia), University Settlement, Harlem Stage, as well as on Dazed Digital, Complex, and Boiler Room. He is a 2017 Artist-In-Residence at Issue Project Room.

LaMont Hamilton is an autodidact interdisciplinary artist working in Chicago and New York. Hamilton works primarily in photography, film and performance. Hamilton has been the recipient of several fellowships and awards including most recently the Brown Foundation Fellowship, MacDowell Colony, Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Artadia Award, ArtMatters Grant and the City of Chicago's IAP Award.

Nyugen E. Smith is a Caribbean-American interdisciplinary artist and educator. He holds an MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a 2016 Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellow. Drawing heavily on his West Indian heritage, Nyugen is committed to raising the consciousness of past and present political struggles through his practice which consists of sculpture, installation, video and performance. He is influenced by the conflation of African cultural practices and the remnants of European colonial rule in the region. Responding to the legacy of this particular environment, Nyugen’s work considers imperialist practices of oppression, violence and ideological misnomers.

Shantelle Courvoisier Jackson is a movement artist exploring duality and the dissolution of identity. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, this one is a 2016 Movement Research VanLier Fellow. Illuminated by mentors Sidra Bell, Daria Faïn, Jaamil Kosoko and the Unseen Hand, this one’s mode of inquiry is centered around the oneness of being. Shantelle aka s+vois has worked with the Alison Chase Project, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Paloma McGregor, and Urban Bush Women. Their works have been presented at Light Lab, The Space Upstairs, Dixon Place, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the New Hazlett and at BRIC with AUNTS. Currently they are collaborating and performing with luciana achugar and the Commons Choir and would like to thank BillT. Jones, and Movement Research for their support. So thankful to all those who support this one.