House is the culmination of Ralph Lemon’s multi-year performance project, The Geography Trilogy. “Part 1: Geography” began with Lemon's thoughts about apparent African and post-African connections to his life as an African American. “Part 2: Tree” originated in a query about a concept of belief systems (specifically, Buddhism) and how that might generate an art aesthetic. These questions directed Lemon’s research into the complexity of contemporary culture—in West Africa (Part 1), Asia (Part 2) - during which he has examined the relationship of cultures to each other, and to history, tradition, modernity and identity.
In “Part 3” he brings this research home to America – and in particular the southern U.S. with an exploration of his family's shifting tradition as African-Americans straddling the movement of segregation into integration. From investigations into the complicated past and rich folk culture of the South, and into the ways cultural and social ideas are physically translated by different generations, Lemon is building a work that encompasses broad issues of race, community and demographic placement within a society.
In some ways, the South is Lemon’s home, as his parents’ families once lived in Georgia and South Carolina. However, he mainly grew up in Minnesota after his family migrated north. His exploration into the South has been both a return journey and a fieldtrip of pure discovery. Lemon’s research has also included investigations into: historical sources on the blues, lynchings, and the Civil Rights Movement; the works of James Baldwin; and the work of early “post-modernist” artists (his artistic forbearers). All these elements contribute to a body of seemingly disparate forces and events that are the defining and fraught parts of Lemon’s history as an artist and racial being.
For the duration of IN TRANSIT Lemon will be "Artist in Residence" at the House of World Cultures. In the second part of his residency he will describe the development process of his work on location. Lemon will be working with three collaborators, performers David Thomson, Djédjé Djédjé Gervais and Okwui Okpokwasili.
Ralph Lemon studied English and theater at the University of Minnesota. He was a founding member of the Mixed Blood Theater Company. After moving to New York he worked with Meredith Monk. In 1985 he founded the Ralph Lemon Company, receiving a number of awards for his choreography. Since 1995 he has experimented in the interface between dance/choreography, film, video, theatre and multimedia.
|
