Title: Workin' On A Building NYC
Description: Workin’ on a Building takes audiences on a musical and cinematographic journey through slavery and the complexities of race on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, one of the infamous places Africans were brought to be sold into bondage. The program begins with Papa’s Branch, a moving documentary short produced especially for the performance. In this documentary, Marlon reflects on Black history through the story of his own great-great grandfather, “Papa” Albert James Walker. Following the film, Marlon and his band, which includes instrumentalists and a trio of jazz vocalists, perform an original three-movement composition which offers a meditation on the Black American experience from the Middle Passage through the present. Funded primarily by a major grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, through the National Endowment for the Arts, and a grant from Stories of the Chesapeake Heritage Area, Inc., with additional support from the Washington College CV Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, Workin’ on a Building was commissioned by the Kent County Arts Council and the Prince Theatre Foundation. The piece premiered in Chestertown, Maryland in February 2006. The New York premiere is July 27, 2007.
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