My favorite installation from p.2: Dawn Dedeaux’s “Goddess Fortuna and her Dunces.” Prospect 2 biennial closed this week. What was your favorite installation?
New Orleans, Part 2: Fortuna and Her Dunces from BURNAWAY on Vimeo.
I know I said I was on hiatus from writing and trust me after this post I have full intention to sit back and enjoy the holiday season as any good New Orleanian should. However, I am going to make an exception for this one post:
Years ago (about 6/7 years now), native New Orleanians Andrew Larimer and Alex Pomes came together with an idea to create a theater company that brought witty and intelligent theater to New Orleans. At the time Larimer was a theater student at NYU and Pomes was actively pursuing his acting career in New Orleans and true to NOLA form, the duo met in high school while studying at NOCCA (New Orleans Center for Creative Arts).
The idea was simple, bring fresh and undiscovered New York talent to New Orleans where the actors would find themselves participating in real theater in a community that not only appreciated it, but that they could afford to live in. Pomes had the New Orleans connections and Larimer knew the fresh New York talent and in the summer of 2005 the idea was born in their first production, The Cripple of Inishmaan. The production was sharp, witty and dark a perfect satire for the New Orleanian sense of humor. Despite the shows interruption by Katrina, the NOLA project moved forward, offering satirical and intelligent productions every summer.
After completing college, Larimer moved back to New Orleans and the NOLA Project moved from summer theater to year round productions and by this time they had partnered with the talented Creative Director A.J. Allegra. In the post-Katrina, renaissance of New Orleans, the NOLA Project thrived, finding creativity in the adversity of limited theater spaces and funding. The young group not only thrived in the limited environment, their energy and youth actively engaged a once sleepy theater community and revived the cities passion for the stage.
In their most recent collaboration, the NOLA Project teamed up with the New Orleans Museum of Art for an outstanding and sold out production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden where fairies and misfits alike frolicked through the sculptures and pine grove, leading their audiences through the various scenes on foot in a dreamlike trance.
The Shakespeare production was such a success that a creative arts partnership was born. Now on their third production at the museum, the NOLA Project presents their own rendition of Romeo and Juliet. Using the New Orleans Museum of Art’s neo-classical building as inspiration, the company sets the play in the museum’s Great Hall amongst the ionic columns and the grandiose staircase.
The first scenes of the play begin outside the museum, set as the streets of Verona where the Capulet’s and the Montague’s first meet in the famous opening duel. The audience is then brought into the Great Hall for the remainder of the performance, where they are treated to scenes set in the commons of the hall, the steps and even the second floor balcony. In and of itself, the setting brings a romantic quality back to the Shakespearian play that is often missing from modern productions of the piece. Finally a fantastic use of the museum’s problematic great hall design, theater in the round lives at NOMA. New Orleans creativity at its finest, kudos to the NOLA Project for a fantastic performance that literally keeps the audience guessing from every angle.
The show opened last night, so be sure to get your tickets before they sell out!
Dear Readers: I will be taking a temporary hiatus from writing for the Holiday Season. Happy Holidays Y’all!
Twas the night before Christmas an’ all t’ru de house,
Dey don’t a ting pass Not even a mouse.
De chirren been nezzle good snug on de flo’,
An’ Mama pass de pepper t’ru de crack on de do’.De Mama in de fireplace done roas’ up de ham,
Sit up de gumbo an’ make de bake yam.
Den out on de by-you dey got such a clatter,
Make soun’ like old Boudreau done fall off his ladder.I run like a rabbit to got to de do’,
Trip over de dorg an’ fall on de flo’.
As I look out de do’in de light o’ de moon,
I t’ink, “Mahn, you crazy or got ol’ too soon.”Cux dere on de by-you w’en I stretch ma’neck stiff,
Dere’s eight alligator a pullin’ de skiff.
An’ a little fat drover wit’ a long pole-ing stick,
I know r’at away got to be ole St.Nick.Mo’ fas’er an’ fas’er de’ gator dey came
He whistle an’ holler an’ call dem by name:
“Ha, Gaston! Ha, Tiboy! Ha, Pierre an’ Alcee’!
Gee, Ninette! Gee, Suzette! Celeste an’Renee’!To de top o’ de porch to de top o’ de wall,
Make crawl, alligator, an’ be sho’ you don’ fall.”
Like Tante Flo’s cat t’ru de treetop he fly,
W’en de big ole houn’ dorg come a run hisse’s by.Like dat up de porch dem ole ‘gator clim!
Wit’ de skiff full o’ toy an’ St. Nicklus behin’.
Den on top de porch roof it soun’ like de hail,
W’en all dem big gator, done sot down dey tail.Den down de chimney I yell wit’ a bam,
An’ St.Nicklus fall an’ sit on de yam.
“Sacre!” he axclaim, “Ma pant got a hole
I done sot ma’se’f on dem red hot coal.”He got on his foots an’ jump like de cat
Out to de flo’ where he lan’ wit’ a SPLAT!
He was dress in musk-rat from his head to his foot,
An’ his clothes is all dirty wit’ ashes an’ soot.A sack full o’ playt’ing he t’row on his back,
He look like a burglar an’ dass fo’ a fack.
His eyes how dey shine his dimple, how merry!
Maybe he been drink de wine from de blackberry.His cheek was like a rose his nose a cherry,
On secon’ t’ought maybe he lap up de sherry.
Wit’ snow-white chin whisker an’ quiverin’ belly,
He shook w’en he laugh like de stromberry jelly!But a wink in his eye an’ a shook o’ his head,
Make my confi-dence dat I don’t got to be scared.
He don’ do no talkin’ gone strit to hi work,
Put a playt’ing in sock an’ den turn wit’ a jerk.He put bot’ his han’ dere on top o’ his head,
Cas’ an eye on de chimney an’ den he done said:
“Wit’ all o’ dat fire an’ dem burnin’ hot flame,
Me I ain’ goin’ back by de way dat I came.”So he run out de do’ an, he clim’ to de roof,
He ain’ no fool, him for to make one more goof.
He jump in his skiff an’ crack his big whip,
De’ gator move down, An don’ make one slip.An’ I hear him shout loud as a splashin’ he go,
“Merry Christmas to all ’til I saw you some mo’!”-Cajun Night Before Christmas by James Rice
A classic from 2003…
So I’ve been chosen to open this supplement issue with a few words about the party and nightlife scene in New Orleans, eh? Hmmm … this makes me wonder a bit. After all, there are so many people more qualified than I for this honor, dubious though it may be. Perhaps I have been chosen because I have spent more than a few nights in this great city not as the drummer and lead singer for Cowboy Mouth, but as just another inebriated reveler in a town with too many of those to count. If that is the case, then I humbly accept my assignment. I hope I do Gambit proud.
It’s a little known fact that fun was actually invented right here in the great city of New Orleans. I know, I know … there have been other cities that claim to have had “nightlife” in the past. But all of those places merely aspire to a certain nocturnal naughtiness that we just regard as part of the natural genetic makeup of the fools and lunatics who populate the metro New Orleans area.In this town, there is adventure in almost every crevice. It is where most people come in order to discover the very best or the very worst of themselves. A recent online survey said that New Orleans is the top spot that people travel to in order to engage in illicit romantic affairs. Can you think of a better place? Neither can I.
And with each personal adventure on which one may embark in this hallowed city of scandal, there is a drink and/or a piece of music that will fit the accompanying situation. Kermit Ruffins and a cold bottle of Dixie or an Abita draft will just about cure any blues that ail you. Any number of Nevilles, Meters, Battistes or Porters can exorcise demons through unearthly rhythms that simply do not exist beyond our borders. The casual, late-night wildness of the Red Eye Bar on South Peters or the early morning pool tabletop dancing at F & M’s are both good places to let your hair down, have a stiff whiskey and tell the world to go to hell, if necessary.
There’s music built into the walls of the Maple Leaf, the tiles of Tipitina’s, the concrete of the Howlin’ Wolf, the lanes of the Rock ‘n’ Bowl, and the sidewalks of Frenchmen Street. Music pours from the pores of the brick and dirt designed to trick us into believing that we are, in fact, not below sea level and can never, ever be washed away with the whim of the tide and the shift of the storm. We are willingly seduced by the idea that the debt of the dark can be paid with continuous dancing, laughing, singing and drinking — the idea that reality can be stemmed, that morning will never come, at least for right now.
However, within the subconscious knowledge of our eventual fate as part of the river’s soul and soil is a damned-if-we-do-damned-if-we-don’t celebratory attitude that pervades the heart of the nightlife here. The afternoon/evening hours of Mardi Gras day give this spirit its best expression, when the most ardent of revelers defiantly cling to their mantra against all physical, spiritual and emotional sanity: “must … keep … partying.”
It’s not that we defy logic here, we just have our own definition of it. The spirit of celebration for any New Orleanian, in and of itself, is paramount to the myriad of woes that 21st century living has wrought upon us. It is through the craziness that we find our sanity. It is through the laughter that we find our tears. It is through losing our minds that we find our hearts.
Other cities may cite our insatiable desire for merriment as some sort of collective local fault, something that should inspire guilt or shame, something for which we should repent. Let outsiders call it what they will. It is part of our DNA. It is what our parents did and what our children will most probably do, God help them.
It is an essential part of who we are.
So the next time you’re out, raise a glass in toast to the alluring surreality that is New Orleans. In defiance of a world gone mad, we here have the common sense to celebrate our great city, our way of life, and — most important of all — ourselves.
Cheers!
Fred LeBlanc for Gambit on September 9, 2003
The personalities in New Orleans are about as dimensional as a doberge cake. The multifaceted levels of the cultural dynamics have left writers baffled with how to describe the functioning chaos that ensues when the participants interact with one another, serving only to activate and propel their chaotic tendencies in a hermeneutic spiral. Few writers have accurately described this active element in New Orleans culture. It takes someone with keen observation skills, a penchant for social analysis and an intimate knowledge of the cultural landscape.
John Kennedy Toole holds just this trinity in his work Confederacy of Dunces providing a topographic map of New Orleans personalities. The main character, Ignatius J. Reilly, is an over schooled and uninspired 30-something living in his mothers home in Uptown New Orleans. The reader delves even deeper into the mind of the New Orleans mentality through the writings of Ignatius explaining in great detail his many schemes and organizational aspirations. The writings are so detailed into the worldview of the protagonist that I couldn’t help but share some of my favorite excerpts from Ignatius’ writings in the novel:
“The only excursion of my life outside of New Orleans took me through the vortex to the whirlpool of despair: Baton Rouge…New Orleans is, on the other hand, a comfortable metropolis which has a certain apathy and stagnation which I find inoffensive.”
“…I avoid that bleak first hour of the working day during which my still sluggish senses and body make every chore a penance. I find that in arriving later, the work which I do perform is of much higher quality.”
“Their movement into power will be, in a sense, only a part of the global movement toward opportunity, justice, and equality for all. (For example, can you name one good, practicing transvestite in the Senate? No! These people have been without representation long enough. Their plight is a national, a global disgrace.)”
With a Dr. Nut in my belly and a Lucky Dog on my chin, I say good day!
