Performances – Christopher Massenburg, Gwen Moten

  • Date: February 17, 2022
  • Time: 2:00 pm—3:30 pm
  • Location: SHINE Portrait Studio
  • Speakers
  • Moderator/s

Christopher Massenburg

Penned in Black: Black Life in Verse

I have had a very overactive imagination since I was a child. It is that incessant sense of wonder that made the southern Black folk around me spectacular characters full of flavor, full of some kind of special amazing. There was amazing at my Nanny’s (mother’s mother) church, in the rides out to the country with Grandpa Joe, at the grocery store with my mom, in the moments spent trying not to overhear my aunt’s conversations, and while sitting on the floor of the living room as my paternal Grandmother gave her impression of most things to whomever came to visit. Black Life has always been a magnificent thing to me, especially in the south.

See, it is important to tell stories about these folk. To make sure that the narrowing of Blackness won’t be a prevailing obstacle. With pen, paper and stage there is an opportunity to talk about being Black and southern. To talk about being hopeful and optimistic. To talk about the struggles, dreams, and concerns that we have down here. It is easy to argue and debate theory, ideas, and perspectives. It is a lot harder to argue lived experiences. Our lived experiences are this country’s guilty conscious. To know all that we have faced and to see us still find joy. To see our resilience in the way we play. How we can bring play into any place we occupy. 

Our performance is an exercise in narrative poetry. A way to make the beautiful rebellion of our southern existence tangible. A way of remembrance and celebration. I understand how a good story and the use of character can be a valuable tool of message making and telling. Our goal is to populate people’s minds with affirmations of our wholeness in real everyday context. Two performers at play, using all their southern wiles to create a space of wonder… wondering how Black folks continue to be so got damn fantastic.  

We do this through the art of performance poetry. Spoken Word can be emotional, inspirational, educational, and as creative and expressive as your imagination. It can also be a beacon of light when darkness wants to keep us from seeing our truths. For us, how we bring our words to life on stage is about how prepared we are to deliver them. Combining the skill of oration with the subtle nuance of theatre and improvisation. Pulling from models seen in front of churches, at the lead of demonstrations, on front porches sipping on stumphole, at the barbershop, on the corner explaining to a lover that they got it all wrong, on the playground, at the city council meeting, or on stage at awards show thanking God and momma while being celebrated for knowing something about the devil. 

Our performance is a welcoming. A down home holla to the to the spirit inside us. It is familiar space of enjoyment that is how it is because it is for us and by us. 

Gwen Moten

FROM  BIRMINGHAM  TO  BOTSWANA 

by way of Asia, Europe, Australia, North America, Africa

‘The Journey of an African American International Traveler’

– a lecture/concert presented by Gwen Moten, educator, singer, conductor, United States Cultural Representative, and international traveler who has:

        –  transcribed music for the great Ragtime composer Eubie Blake 

        –  met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and participated in the Civil Rights Movement                

             of the 1960s

        –  lectured, taught, conducted, performed on Broadway and throughout five continents

        –  collaborated on a children’s book with sports legend Muhammad Ali

        –  orchestrated music for the Duke Ellington Orchestra

        –  served as the “American Cultural Specialist” for the United States Information Agency

        –  represented the United States as the cultural liaison in Africa

        –  been a United Nations Non-Governmental Organization representative

These wonderful events are only a few of the many paths Gwen Moten has traveled as an international artist.  They combine to become a compelling story. 

If it had not been for the intercession of her mother, Gwen Moten would have been one of the tragic Civil Rights victims in the 1963 church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama; the bombing that killed four little girls. One of them was Gwen’s best friend.

Through narrative and song, FROM BIRMINGHAM TO BOTSWANA takes the listener on a journey into the social and political societies of the segregated south and living with Jim Crow laws in the United States. While it is a specific narrative into cultural and social experiences in the life of a U.S. citizen, the program also speaks to a global community about international human interchanges, developing a purposeful life, self-esteem, goal setting, determination, breaking the cultural, gender and racial glass ceilings, and rising above historical stereotypes.   

Ms. Moten believes that through her experiences, we can examine our own histories, relationships, personal views and prejudices and allow ourselves to have a more informed and a more caring existence.

A pianist may accompany Ms. Moten with songs integrated within her lectures and directly relative to the subjects at hand.  She overlays and interweaves the songs as a historical chronology of music genres and social commentary.  From the coded messages found in the Negro slave dialectal songs to the rallying melodic cries of the civil rights movement to the popular music found on the Broadway stage as well as the tribal songs of South African folk music, she introduces to audiences a musical voice in her historical journey.

She tells of historic ventures as she traveled to and behind the Berlin Wall into East Germany, academic studies and private tour of the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in the Czech Republic, and government sanctioned cross-country trek through South Africa during Apartheid. 

Her performances have been met with standing ovations and with tears of joy.  The impact of her life experiences are so profound that several public and private undergraduate schools and colleges integrated her narratives into social, history and English language curricula.

Gwen Moten’s memoirs are shared as journeys that few of us ever travel…except through her.


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