A Sponsored Story from Circo Zero Performance
During my interview with the partial cast of Blank Map, two descriptive words kept circling back into the conversation: “abstraction” and “surrealism.” “When it comes to the way that surrealism and abstraction are often commonly talked about, the assumption is that they focus on white performers, white artists — but there’s a really deep tradition of abstraction and surrealism within black performers throughout history,” says Wizard Apprentice, one of five members of the collective Blank Map’s all-Black cast.
A multidisciplinary show comprised of Black artist-performer-musicians, Blank Map defies convention in its description. Another member of the collective, keyon gaskin (always rendered lowercase), described it to me as both “movement” and “music heavy.” “It’s like a psychedelic expansive project between multidisciplinary artists,” gaskin elaborated. “Sound performance, dance, visual, sculpture — all in collaboration.”
If you look at the roster of the collective, you can tell they pack a lot of artistic talent: Tasha Ceyan is an interdisciplinary artist-scholar, while the aforementioned Wizard Apprentice is a singer-songwriter and motion-graphics artist with a background in “digital puppetry.” Adee Robertson is a black feminist/visual artist, and Brontez Purnell is a zine writer, actor and the frontman of the band the Younger Lovers. (He was also a former dancer for Gravy Train!!!).
When I asked keyon to compare Blank Map to another artistic work, they mentioned Culture, Administration & Trembling, a recent collaborative work of “queer choreography.” “Collectivity is definitely a theme for us,” said Wizard. “We’re working together, but in a collective.”
“We all got to go outside our comfort zones,” added gaskin. “We have our strengths and our weaknesses — for instance, I helped paint, which I never do. We have the freedom to engage how we want in the moment.”
Blank Map, which is presented as part of the National Queer Arts Festival, runs from June 3 through June 12 at Dance Mission Theater. All shows start at 8:00 p.m., and tickets range from $15 to $25. Find tickets and more information at their website and on Facebook.
