SLAMDANCE garage

Nestled somewhere between performance art, a rock show, and an one-act opera, Ian Andrew Askew hurdles through an hour of music, movement, and text celebrating the absurdity of explaining Black people’s participation in their own culture.

SLAMDANCE garage borrows text from Nina Simone, Audre Lorde, Drexciya, and other luminaries, reharmonizing their words to the sounds of drums, distorted vocals, and the blaring resonance of a custom-one string bass. Inspired by the Malawian babatoni, Mississippi diddley-bow, and the Afro-Brazilian berimbau, the handmade instrument (nearly the same length as its player) is an homage to throughlines of musical technology that weave through the African diaspora.