Sound performance project compares racism to Black Plague
Mikaal Sulaiman, head of the sound design concentration at David Geffen School of Drama, has been awarded a 2022 Creative Capital Award to support the development of Project Black Plague, a new sound performance created for headphones about race and death. Part revival tent, part Afro-futurist reeducation seminar, the work draws parallels between American racism and the Black Death of the Middle Ages in Europe. Over the course of the performance, the audience receives clandestine information on headphones from a secret organization unlocking the code of American racism: how it has spread like a pandemic for centuries, how it replicates and mutates, how it partners with institutional power and with death. At its core, Project Black Plague asks the audience to confront this pandemic of Black Death in America, and to plumb its meaning, both scientifically and spiritually.
Creative Capital is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to fund artists in the creation of groundbreaking new work in the visual arts, performing arts, literature, film, technology, and multidisciplinary practices, including socially engaged work in all forms. Their grantmaking model also provides thousands of artists with scaffolding and infrastructure support via professional development programs, networking opportunities, and educational resources.
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