dat Black Mermaid Man Lady
dat Black Mermaid Man Lady is a performance processional that celebrates multiple ways of embodying gender. HoneyPot, Miss Kitty and dat Black Mermaid man lady work with Oya, Osun and Yemaya (Yoruba deities) to train in a next generation healer, as they lift communal prayers to the Light. In performance all present are invited to make offerings to this world of womanizing, piano playing, knife carrying she'roes and old people that fly. By the end of the piece we discover that the narrator is the next generation healer and that himshe has been conjuring herhe existence into being through the telling of dat Black Mermaid Man Lady. Performers sing, move, tell stories, call the audience to process, chant, holler back, build altars – celebrate life. All present are responsible for the Journey.
Cast Requirements
2 Adult Singers of African Descent.
Gender representation should be fluid.
Set Description
At the bottom of the Ocean and sometimes at the Juke Joint and in the Sky and swamp. The past, the present, the future/the living, the dead, the not yet born, co-exist.
Performers and the audience must be able to process, build altars throughout the room.
Production and Development History
dat Black Mermaid Man Lady is the recipient of development support from New Dramatists Creativity Fund, a program made possible by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Creativity Fund work happened:
September 16 – 20, 2013 @ New Dramatists featuring:
Daniel Alexander Jones and Kelly Erin Sloan
Directed by Sharon Bridgforth
and
October 6 – 10, 2014 @ New Dramatists featuring:
Daniel Alexander Jones and Kelly Erin Sloan
Virginia Grise – Director, Kyla Searle – Dramaturg,
Jillian Jetton – Stage Manager.