Like Decorations in a Cemetery

Continuing its commitment to work that inspires the soul inside the machine, Dharma Road presents Like Decorations in a Cemetery, a 75-minute, solo performance of the Wallace Stevens’ poem “Like Decorations in a Nigger Cemetery,” at the CRS Theatre just south of Union Square.

The show was created by Luminous Work using the vocal theatre techniques of Roy Hart, and is performed by Luminous Work founder and artistic director Laylage Courie. Wallace Stevens’ enigmatic fifty-stanza poem, written in 1935, references the African-American tradition, necessitated by poverty, of marking graves with pots, broken glass, metal scraps, plants, and other detritus. The stanzas, ranging from meditative, poignant, to humorous, are all “decorations” about the idea of death. In this chamber work for voice and debris. Bottles, broken plates, and small toys (most remnants from the performer’s childhood) decorate a table-top “grave” and ingeniously accompany an extraordinary mixture of spoken word, melody, and sound.

Box Office Hours: 3-7 PM

Group Sales Number (10+): 212-677-8621

Appropriate For All Ages