She was planning the program with good intentions. “Do it just like you do it at home,” Verna Gillis told Frisner as we met with her in the run-up to our first performance at Soundscape, her loft in the Manhattan neighborhood known as Hell’s Kitchen. Verna presented contemporary music from around the world, and Makandal would share the October schedule with such luminaries as Roswell Rudd, Yomo Toro, Daniel Ponce, and Sun Ra.
After we met with her, Frisner told the other Makandal artists that Verna expected a staged Vodou dance. “Oh,” someone said—thinking of a rather sordid performance genre in Haiti—”she wants tourist voodoo!” Well, not exactly, no wild-eyed possessions, no rolling chicken heads. But Verna was asking us to dance on a slippery threshold. Just like you do it at home…
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