Deacon Otis Arts

A piece for Voice, Movement, Wearable Electronics and Viola.

Margaret Morris

Julian Otis

Scott Rubin

Feb 2020

Concert Notes:

The theme of the evening is Empathy & Intercession. Pain and Trauma are felt experiences that are violent, initiate a chain of physical,emotional, and spiritual responses that reverberate and feedback on itself. This feedback engages communities in a cyclical narrative of ‘Black Death’ as a norm in which Black people can never fully realize their potential in a world that denies them the right to life when faced with ancillary interactions with a state actor (police). Anthony R Green presents in Empathy I: Diamond Reynolds, an opportunity to process the inner emotional life of Reynolds’ witness to the death of her boyfriend Philando Castille. In documented accounts her words are said in a calm disbelief and shock. Green uses these words to expose the underlying pain, rage, loss not expressed in the moment of the event, but the pain that continues to be made the norm in american society and felt by the collective Black conscious.

As Green’s piece elevates us to an emotional plane for vulnerability and honesty, I wish to explore my emotional state of brokenness. In my brokenness indeed I must move forward as an individual. In my brokenness I must be reconciled. Intercession, is a responsive improvisation for solo voice and electronics. In an attempt to break this feedback loop of the ‘Black Death’ narrative. Julian uses the voice, to navigate through his current condition in space. It is an attempt to make the ‘incomplete’ or ‘broken’ be ‘whole’. It explores terse and beautiful soundscapes in a effort to find new ‘life’ in a body that has experienced trauma. The seen body, the heard voice, combined with the spirit, personified by the entropy of interactive electronic elements are experimental tools to intercede on the behalf of Philando Castille and every ‘Black Death’ at the hands of the state and insert the narrative of our collective ‘wholeness’ as Black people. Our deaths, scars, traumas and pains are symbols of our reliance and a WILL for the Black Spirit to always march on.