A white man dressed in all black and a black man dressed in all white approach each other on a dark, deserted street. The single moment in time for which their eyes meet is the subject of Marie-Bernard Koltes’ play, In the Solitude of Cottonfields.

The play, which debuted at 7 Stages last Thursday, is a visually sparse but verbally rich examination of the perspectives, psyches, and motivations of 2 strangers that share a common, but unspoken bond. Ismail ibn Conner – who plays the Dealer, and Del Hamilton - who plays the Client, take turns delivering rhythmically poetic monologues that touch on a variety of opposing themes: light and dark, depth and height, virgin and whore. Like human embodiments of yin and yang, each man wrestles with himself, embracing both sides of the spectrum as he struggles to conceal, yet longs to reveal to the other his reason for being on this deserted street at this time of night.

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For two nights only, 7 Stages Theater in Little 5 is offering $10 previews for the world premiere staging of ‘In the Solitude of Cottonfields’, a play written by Bernard-Marie Koltes’. Originally written and performed in French, the play has been translated into English by Isma’il ibn Conner and will be directed by Eric Vigner. Here’s the description of the play from the 7 Stages site:

A white man approaches a black man on a deserted city street at sunset, and an interaction occurs in the space of a second. Bernard-Marie Koltès, France’s top contemporary playwright whose play has a World Premiere this month at 7 Stages, makes an entire drama of this one glance. Because, in the United States, 40 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., centuries of tension and meaning still exist in this, the smallest of exchanges between two humans, one black, one white. What happens between them? Everything: all the emotion, philosophy, politics, poetry and drama from the solitude of the cotton fields to a present-day city street, deserted at dusk.

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Tripping around the web today, I happend upon a post on The Groundswell Blog about New Orleans-based artist Dan Tague’s latest exhibit.
The collection, entitled ‘Cash Rules Everything Around Me’, features denominations of the almighty dollar in a variety of crumpled-up positions that appear meaningless at first glance. But a closer look reveals that the artist has transformed each note into a simple, but poignant statement of artistic protest.

Here are some images from the collection:

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“gentlemen of an extraordinary league, you never see me blowin’ on no ordinary reed…”
~ Black Thought, from ‘75 Bars’

The Roots - the legendary Philadelphia rap group are at it again. Next week, their 10th album, Rising Down hits the streets.

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Nooo…I’m not talking about this year’s presidential or Senate elections. This is waaaaay more important than those - and you won’t have to contend with long lines at the polls. I’m talking about you having the chance to influence one of Atlanta’s most popular outdoor summer festivals….Screen on the Green.

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Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? Don’t feel bad…neither did I until a few days ago. But when I found out, I thought, “How fitting! Spring and poetry go together like peanut butter and jelly”. So I felt obligated to write a post in honor of the occasion.

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When you hear the same 15 songs play in a seemingly endless loop on local radio stations and club mixes, the city’s more innovative DJs offer a welcome departure from the norm. Equal parts pied pipers, puppeteers and professors, these musical mixologists blend the new, the old, and the obscure not only in their selection of sounds, but also in the venues where they work their magic.

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Trying to describe the Atlanta Ballet’s debut performance of big would be like trying to describe an obscure chemical reaction between two elements on opposite sides of the periodic table (yes, i’m a bit of a science geek). Only metaphor and simile would do the job, but even the best of those would inevitably fall short of imparting the essence of the experience. The best description I can offer is this: Imagine you’re sitting at home listening to one of your favorite Outkast albums while flipping through TV channels with the volume muted. You happen across a ballet on PBS and you pause just long enough to think to yourself, “heyyyy… isn’t that funny? It almost looks like those ballerinas are dancing to ‘Bombs over Baghdad’”. 

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