Rebirth of a Nation - University Musical Society

Transcription

TEACHER RESOURCE GUIDE
Youth Education
creative teachers intelligent students real learning
Rebirth of a Nation
Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky
04 05
About UMS
One of the oldest performing arts presenters in the country, UMS serves diverse audiences through multidisciplinary performing arts programs in three distinct but
interrelated areas: presentation, creation, and education.
With a program steeped in music, dance, and theater,
UMS hosts approximately 80 performances and 150 free
educational activities each season. UMS also commissions
new work, sponsors artist residencies, and organizes
collaborative projects with local, national as well as many
international partners.
While proudly affiliated with the University of Michigan
and housed on the Ann Arbor campus, UMS is a separate
not-for-profit organization that supports itself from ticket
sales, grants, contributions, and endowment income.
UMS Education and Audience Development Department
UMS’s Education and Audience Development Department
seeks to deepen the relationship between audiences and
art, as well as to increase the impact that the performing arts can have on schools and community. The program seeks to create and present the highest quality arts
education experience to a broad spectrum of community
constituencies, proceeding in the spirit of partnership and
collaboration.
The Department coordinates dozens of events with over
100 partners that reach more than 50,000 people
annually. It oversees a dynamic, comprehensive program
encompassing workshops, in-school visits, master classes,
lectures, youth and family programming, teacher
professional development workshops, and “meet the
artist” opportunities, cultivating new audiences while
engaging existing ones.
UMS gratefully acknowledges the
following corporations, foundations
and government agencies for their
generous support of the UMS Youth
Education Program:
Ford Motor Company Fund
Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural
Affairs
University of Michigan
Arts at Michigan
Arts Midwest
Borders Group
Chelsea Flowers
Community Foundation for
Southeastern Michigan
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
Heartland Arts Fund
JazzNet
MASCO Corporation
THE MOSAIC FOUNDATION
(of R. & P. Heydon)
Margot Campos Designs
Music for Little People
National Dance Project of New England
Foundation for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
Office of the Senior Vice Provost for
Academic Affairs, University of
Michigan
Pfizer Global Research and Development
(Ann Arbor Laboratories)
The Power Foundation
Proquest
Schlanderer and Sons Jeweler
Savitski Design
UMS Advisory Committee
Details about educational events for the 04/05 season are
announced a few months prior to each event.
To receive information about educational events by email,
sign up for the UMS E-Mail Club at www.ums.org.
For advance notice of Youth Education events, join the
UMS Teachers email list by emailing umsyouth@umich.
edu or visit www.ums.org/education.
This Teacher Resource Guide is a product of the University Musical
Society’s Youth Education Program. Researched and written by
Dorian Hall, Michelle Lin, Omari Rush and Rowyn Baker. Edited by
Ben Johnson and Rowyn Baker. All photos are courtesy of the artist
unless otherwise noted. Some of the lesson plans accompanying
this Resource Guide have been provided by students enrolled in
Dr. Julie Taylor’s Multi-cultural Education classes at the University of
Michigan Dearborn Campus, and are noted as such.
04/05
UMS Youth Education
Rebirth of a Nation
Friday, January 14, 11 am
Power Center, Ann Arbor
TEACHER RESOURCE GUIDE
Table of Contents
About the Performance
*
*
6
7
Paul Miller
*
10
13
D.W. Griffith
*
Short on Time?
We’ve starred the
most important
pages.
Only Have
15 Minutes?
Try pages 7, 10, 16,
and 55
16
20
22
25
28
History
*
34
38
39
Coming to the Show
The Performance at a Glance
Who is Paul Miller?
Post-Modernism & DJ Spooky
Who was D.W. Griffith?
Who is Bill T. Jones?
What is Birth of a Nation?
What is Rebirth of a Nation?
Other Major Influences
The Reconstruction Era
A Timeline of Reconstruction
A few words the Klan
The Art of Being a DJ
*
42
43
47
51
What exactly is a DJ?
Timeline of the DJ Culture
Vocabulary of a DJ
What is Mixing?
Lesson Plans
*
54
55
56
58
59
60
62
64
65
66
67
68
70
71
72
73
74
Curriculum Connections
Teaching Points
Meeting Michigan Standards
Lesson One: Analyzing Birth of a Nation
Lesson Two: Voting Rights for African-Americans
Lesson Three: Perspectives on Slavery
Lesson Four: Media Images
Lesson Five: Southern Culture - Post War
Lesson Six: Portrayal of Blacks in Film
Lesson Seven: Interpreting Meaning
Lesson Eight: Causes of the Civil War
Lesson Nine: Spooky Collage
Lesson Ten: Create Your Own UMS
Dance Vocabulary Word-O
DJ Word Search Puzzle
Word Search Puzzle Solution
Pre and Post Performance Ideas
Writing to Connect
76
78
79
80
Resources
*
4 | www.ums.org/education
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
90
91
92
93
Writing About a Performance
Examples for Writing
The Classroom Gazette
The Five W’s of Writing
UMS Permission Slip
Bibliography/Videography
Internet Resources
Recommended Reading
Recommended Recordings
Resources CD
Community Resources
Holidays and Events
UMS Youth Education Season
Evening Performance Info
How to Contact UMS
About the
Performance
Scene from DJ Spooky’s Rebirth of a Nation, clip from Griffith’s Birth of a Nation
Coming to the Show
We want you to enjoy your time in the theater, so here are some tips to make your Youth
Performance experience successful and fun! Please review this page prior to attending the
performance.
Who will meet us when we arrive?
After you exit the bus, UMS Education staff and greeters will be outside to meet you. They
might have special directions for you, so be listening and follow their directions. They will
take you to the theater door where ushers will meet your group. The greeters know that your
group is coming, so there’s no need for you to have tickets.
Who will show us where to sit?
The ushers will walk your group to its seats. Please take the first seat available. (When everybody’s seated, your teacher will decide if you can rearrange yourselves.) If you need to make a
trip to the restroom before the show starts, ask your teacher.
How will I know that the show is starting?
You will know the show is starting because the lights in the auditorium will get dim, and a
member of the UMS Education staff will come out on stage to introduce the performance.
What if I get lost?
Please ask an usher or a UMS staff member for help. You will recognize these adults because
they have name tag stickers or a name tag hanging around their neck.
What should I do during the show?
Everyone is expected to be a good audience member. This keeps the show fun for everyone.
Good audience members...
• Are good listeners
• Keep their hands and feet to themselves
• Do not talk or whisper during the performance
• Laugh only at the parts that are funny
• Do not eat gum, candy, food or drink in the theater
• Stay in their seats during the performance
• Do not disturb the people sitting nearby or other schools in attendance
How do I show that I liked what I saw and heard?
The audience shows appreciation during a performance by clapping. In a musical performance, the musicians and dancers are often greeted with applause when they first appear. It
is traditional to applaud at the end of each musical selection and sometimes after impressive
solos. At the end of the show, the performers will bow and be rewarded with your applause.
If you really enjoyed the show, give the performers a standing ovation by standing up and
clapping during the bows. For this particular show, it will be most appropriate to applaud at
the beginning and the ending.
What do I do after the show ends?
Please stay in your seats after the performance ends, even if there are just a few of you in your
group. Someone from UMS will come onstage and announce the names of all the schools.
When you hear your school’s name called, follow your teachers out of the auditorium, out of
the theater and back to your buses.
How can I let the performers know what I thought?
We want to know what you thought of your experience at a UMS Youth Performance. After
the performance, we hope that you will be able to discuss what you saw with your class. Tell
us about your experiences in a letter or drawing. Please send your opinions, letters or artwork
The Performance at a Glance
Who is Paul Miller?
Paul Miller is a conceptual artist, writer, and musician working in NYC. His
written works have appeared in several periodicals, and his work as an artist has
been featured in events such as the Whitney Biennial and The Venice Biennial for
Architecture in 2000. He is most recognized by the name DJ Spooky, his
“constructed persona,” and he has collaborated with a large range of musicians
and composers such as Iannis Xenakis, Killa Priest from Wu-Tang Clan, and Yoko
Ono, to name a few.
Rebirth of a Nation is an adaptation of D.W. Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation.
Rebirth of a Nation is meant to take advantage of our 21st-Century vantage point
on history and to comment on the technique and content of Griffith’s work. This
full-scale, live, multi-media performance piece is a pastiche of electronica and
jazz music that collages high-tech audio and video with live performance. To
emphasize human movement, Spooky intercuts footage from Griffith’s epic film
with dances choreographed by Bill T. Jones, which are digitalized and edited to
look very old.
“Gimme two
records and I’ll
make you a
universe”
- DJ Spooky
The source of Rebirth of a Nation is D.W. Griffith’s racially-charged Birth of a
Nation. Made in 1915, Birth of a Nation was the first masterpiece of cinema,
bringing to film the status accorded to the visual and performing arts. A story of
the Civil War, Birth of a Nation captured the violence, the spectacle, and the
excitement of the war. Using extreme and dramatic camera angles and
complexly interwoven edits, the film brought the Civil War to life unlike any film
had done before. The film, however beautiful, was a sad testament to the deep
prejudices of the times and Black audiences were outraged by the racist distortion
of history. Viewed as a contributor to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the film caused
riots in a number of Black communities. This film was considered a blockbuster
of its time and helped shape many people’s ideas of race and ethnicity during the
post civil war era, and until this day.
What Does a Disc Jockey Do?
There is more than one kind of disc jockey (DJ). One is a radio DJ, a person who
plays music, talks, delivers news, weather, or sports, or holds conversations with
celebrities or call-in listeners. Another kind of DJ is a club DJ, one who mixes
different music, sound effects, special effects and occasionally provides
time-filling chatter between songs. Today you will see the talents of DJ Spooky,
who can loosely be labeled as a club DJ/jazz musician/composer.
Who is D.W. Griffith?
D.W. Griffith is best known for directing the movie, Birth of a Nation. Before he
entered the movie business, he was a writer and an actor of poetry and plays.
He became a director, only after Biograph, the movie studio that he worked for,
persuaded him to make the switch. Griffith had no prior directing experience,
only a basic understanding of the process. He ended up making hundreds of short
films, but became dissatisfied, as Biograph would not allow him to direct longer
films. He ended up leaving Biograph in 1913 and, soon after, released Birth of a
Nation, which was critically hailed despite its controversial nature.
What Will I See at the Performance?
During the performance of DJ Spooky’s ReBirth of a Nation, your visual and aural
senses will be engaged. DJ Spooky has remixed a classic, controversial movie,
Birth of a Nation, in order to ask the questions, “What is an American?, and how
do we live as Americans?”
Music: Code Blue and The Rebirth Suite, both by Paul D. Miller
Visual: Birth of a Nation, directed by D.W. Griffith
Choreography: Bill T. Jones
“You can never
play a record the
same way for
the same crowd.
That’s why remixes
happen. Memory
demands newness. You have
to always update
your archive. “Act
global, think local.”
This is what Dj-ing
tells us in the era
of the sample.”
- DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky’s Rebirth of a Nation will be projected onto three screens; Griffith’s
film often takes the center screen, while hypnotic dances choreographed by Bill
T. Jones and inspired by African-American history in the South, are interspersed
on the side screens and mixed into the middle. DJ Spooky has also composed a
soundtrack blending jungle, dub, space rock, ambient and hip-hop music, with an
original violin piece composed and performed by Daniel Bernard Roumain.
In the live performance, DJ Spooky uses two laptops and various video-mixing
equipment to splice the film. Through this mixing and splicing process the 190
minute original movie becomes an hour long stream-of-conciousness collage.
Because DJ Spooky is mixing the audio and video live, each performance of
Rebirth of a Nation will be different.
Bill T. Jones is a modern dance choreographer/performer and he created two
pieces used in Rebirth of a Nation: Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised
Land and The Maiden. The latter is a solo work danced by Andrea Woods,
while the former is danced by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. The
visuals of these dances have been digitalized and manipulated so much that the
dancers look as though they are a part of the movie and are interacting with the
characters. DJ Spooky and Mr. Jones have also collaborated on Redemption, a
work combining eclectic rhythms with modern ballet.
What is the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company?
Founded as a multicultural dance company in 1982, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane
Dance Company is the product of an eleven-year collaboration between Bill T.
Jones and Arnie Zane. Since their emergence onto the international scene in
1982, the eleven-member Company has performed its ever-enlarging repertoire
(currently over 75 works) in 130 American cities and 30 countries. Annual
audiences of approximately 100,000 see the company across the country and
around the world.
With their work often characterized as a fusion of dance and theater, the
repertoire is diverse in subject matter, visual imagery and length of each dance.
For the works in this repertoire the company has received numerous awards and
been the subject of various documentaries.
Paul Miller
DJ Spooky mixing music live at a turntable.
Who is Paul Miller?
Background
Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid) grew up in a culturally privileged
section of Washington, DC and was exposed to music, mainly jazz, at an early
age. His father, Paul E. Miller, was a lawyer, the Dean of Howard University’s Law
School, and a mentor to jazz legend Donald Byrd (when he was studying for his
law degree). This influential father passed away when Paul Miller was a child, and
he says one of his earliest childhood memories is that of seeing Byrd play at his
father’s funeral. He inherited his father’s extensive jazz record collection, exposing
him to artists whose willingness to break the rules of convention have inspired his
work as a DJ/mixer.
The Miller Family
Paul Miller attended Bowdoin College in Maine and graduated with a degree in
Philosophy and French. He came to New York to write about arts and culture,
fascinated by the city because there, one can easily move between cultures and
sample them at will. His DJ-ing pulls influences from jazz, hip-hop, techno, dance
hall, and ambient music to form his own sound. His intellect also influenced his
style: his vast reading of sci-fi, philosophy, classical literature and whatever else he
can get his hands on greatly contribute to the art he produces today. This unique
style has grabbed the attention of worldwide audiences, as he has given various
performances and lectures throughout the world, released numerous albums and
films, as well as having performed as a DJ at numerous venues.
Not only is Paul Miller a musician, he is also a conceptual artist and writer. He is a
co-publisher of the magazine A Gathering of the Tribes along with the legendary
African-American poet Steve Canon. This periodical is dedicated to new works by
writers from a multi-cultural context, and he was also the first Editor-at-Large of
Artbyte: the Magazine of Digital Culture. Miller is currently in the middle of starting another magazine with many of the more progressive aspects of the Artbyte
project. The new magazine will be called 21C. In 2003 he released the book
Sound Unbound, an anthology of writings on sound art and multimedia.
As previoiusly mentioned, his work as an artist has been displayed in a wide
variety of contexts, including the prestigious Ludwig Museum in Cologne,
Germany; Kunsthalle, Vienna; and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. One
of his recent art projects, Errata Erratum, is an internet-based remix of Marcel
Duchamp’s errata musical and sculpture musical works from the period 19121915, was displayed at L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
But, of course, most people know Paul Miller as “DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid”,
a character from his upcoming novel, Flow My Blood the DJ Said that uses a wide
variety of digitally created music as a form of post-modern sculpture. He is a fervent musician, and has collaborated with other musicians and composers such as
Ryuichi Sakamoto, Butch Morris, Kool Keith a.k.a. Doctor Octagon, and Thurston
Moore from Sonic Youth. Miller also composed the musical score for the Cannes
and Sundance award-winning film, Slam, starring critically acclaimed poet Saul
Williams.
While Spooky admits that his eclectic workload and itinerate lifestyle can be wearing, multi-tasking comes easily to him and when it comes to putting these
multi-tasking skills to use in Dj-ing he doesn’t find it much of a challenge.
Paul Miller’s Thoughts on Rebirth of a Nation
We live in a rapidly changing world. Everything from the environment to the
racial and social categories that were familiar terrain in the 20th century seem
to be undergoing radical mutation as we move through the 21st century. In an
atmosphere of total uncertainty, the “American Dream” remains the yardstick
against which much of the world still measures cultural progress. But the many
paradoxes in the American Dream are all too obvious, from the Columbine High
School massacre to the strange conversion of Jonathan Walker, the young, white,
upper middle class “American Taliban.” America’s media image of itself and the
reality of hyper-post modernity are two sides of the same weird coin, a currency
that fluctuates in value all too often.
Where did America’s image of itself come from? We live in a time where almost
all aspects of daily life are filtered through the media. As an artist, I am fascinated
by the evolution of the media and by how our world view, the perspective that we
naturally take for granted, developed into what it is today. After a full century of
the cinematic image, after the evolution of Hollywood style and technique, after
Andy Warhol (the banal as repetition) and Nam Jun Paik (hyper-editing collage/
cut-up), we’ve reached the point when we now face the option of
channel surfing as a basic way of seeing things. If the scene on TV
gets boring, we change the channel. If the news gets boring, we
change the channel. If the advertising gets a little too redundant, we
change the channel. Personal taste selects the stream you move into.
That’s the way people have looked at the silver screen or heard the
radio for most of the last century, and it has been a factor in almost
every way of experiencing “mediated” spectacle.
I want to go back to D.W. Griffith to help trace the source of our
contemporary vision. It was Griffith who made the “cut-up” film
part of popular culture. Griffith created stories out of fragments
way before it actually was part of the basic structure of the film and
media. For this, and other reasons, I want to take a fresh look at
Birth of a Nation - a profoundly racist film that was also one of the
first “blockbusters” of its era. President Woodrow Wilson was so impressed by
Birth of a Nation, referring to its jump cuts as “writing history with lightning,” that
he used it to inaugurate the brand new White House screening room. In our own
era of the hyper-edited collages of TV, radio, and internet cut-culture, Griffith’s
vision - even at its most horrifyingly racist - tells a parable of modernity unmatched
in contemporary history. In one fell swoop his ideas configured both the content
and the context of how people viewed race and ethnicity and helped create the
foundations for contemporary film and all that followed.
Paul Miller, a.k.a.
DJ Spooky
Call it “Hit or Myth,” but the basic idea - the profound influence of Birth of a
Nation - rings true in almost every ad or movie or website we see today. It’s all
about fragments. To me as an artist, Griffith represents a strange crossroads of
American culture turned upside down. It was a film about the Ku Klux Klan as
saviors of the South; a film made of fragments that is meant to show the power
of myth; a film that is meant to be a call to arms to preserve the fiction of a South
that never existed; a film that was meant to reach back and alter history (the
South did lose the Civil War after all...).
Thought’s, continued...
Please visit the
official DJ Spooky
website at
www.djspooky.com
Inasmuch as the critically acclaimed, early African-American filmmaker Oscar
Michaux (see page 26) made films that were important contemporary responses
to Griffith’s powerful yet totally racist vision, my proposed new work, Rebirth of
a Nation, is meant to take advantage of our 21st century vantage point. I plan
to launch a full-scale, multimedia performance piece, using the latest digital
technology as applied to footage from Griffith’s nearly 100-year-old film, now in
the public domain. In some fundamental way it will be a DJ’s take on Griffith’s
film, in a thoroughly contemporary sense. Some of the earliest pioneers of the
style of DJ-ing created what we call the “scratch” - taking a small fragment of
one record and mixing small elements of it into another. Things have come a
long way since the first waves of DJs exploded out of places like Studio 54 and
the Milky Way - late 1970s hotspots where the mixes were of Blondie, Queen,
and Rapper’s Delight. In my own work I am continually trying to push the
boundaries of content and technique, both audio and visual. Rebirth of a Nation
is intended to be a unified statement, collaging high-tech audio and video with
live performance, addressing Griffith’s work on both its technique and its content.
The strangest thing to me about all of this wasn’t the fact that, with a couple of
small gestures, DJs exploded most of the basic laws of intellectual property. It
was the names the DJs gave themselves that piqued my curiosity. “Grand Master
Flash”... “Grand Wizard Theodore”... they seemed to come from a world turned
upside down. While the Klan took its names from obscure Masonic and
Rosicrucian texts meant to give authority and power, the DJ names were simply
pulled from the cuff - people made them up to give character to their sounds.
African-American culture has always been the subconscious of the rest of the
culture. And here in the mix, the myths of the Klan underworld seemed to pop
up in the most unexpected of places.
That’s what my version of Birth of
a Nation is about: how America’s
myths migrate through the culture’s
operating system. Rebirth of a
Nation is meant to be an update
on an old adage. It’s a post-postpostmodern world, and those who
forget the past are doomed to reboot
it. By excavating the fossil record of
our wired culture, remixing the most
influential film of the pre-internet
era the way a DJ would change a
pop tune, I am trying to uncover
the blueprints of the future we now
DJ Spooky
inhabit. To know where we’re going
we need only look in the rear view mirror. Some objects, as the saying goes, are
closer than they appear. That’s what Rebirth of a Nation is about.
Postmodernism and DJ Spooky
What is postmodernism, anyway?
DJ Spooky is a self-proclaimed postmodernist. What does this mean? The term
“postmodernism” is as complex and broad in scope as it sounds. It can be loosely
defined as an artistic, philosophical, and cultural movement, concerned with the
validity of ‘would-be-ideals,’ known as metanarratives. These societal ideals are
perpetuated through fragmentation, consumerism, and deconstruction.
The term “postmodernism” was coined in the 1960s, and it is said to have arisen
as a reaction to the era preceding it, known as “modernism.” Modernism frames
itself as the culmination of the Enlightenment’s quest for authoritatively-rational
aesthetics, ethics, and knowledge. During the second half of the 20th century,
intellectuals and artists had become alienated with modernism’s reliance on a utopian, new world order characterized by the formal, rational, paradigm of scientific
inquiry; the existential ideal of responsible action; and the quest for certainty, absolutes, and truth. Thus, postmodernism emerged.
DJ artistry comes from combining other people’s art, the performance is made from
other musicians’ performances, so in that respect, the DJ is the epitome of a postmodern artist. Quite simply, DJ-ing is all about mixing things together. Academics
are intrigued by the fact that the DJ makes a living by filtering information.
The DJ uses records to make a musical collage, just like an architect might build a
skyscraper shaped like a grandfather clock. This is the essence of postmodernism:
borrowing forms and ideas that are already around and combining them creatively.
“The best DJs are
griots...whether
their stories are
conscious or
unconscious.”
- DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky’s style, considered to be avant-garde by some scholars, has been
labeled by the creator as what he terms “illbient” music – a hybrid of hip-hop,
rap, jazz, techno, and ambient – a form that illustrates the big expansion of global
multiculturalism. This personalized style is also defined by keeping a positive
outlook, respecting differences, and breaking out of traditional dogma. According
to scholar/writer Byron Hawk, DJ Spooky’s intentions can be described as “a
drive to respect difference by moving forward, traversing established boundaries,
energetically creating new permutations of differences; and there the correlative
drive to establish difference by looking backwards, generating boxes (dimensions),
and [energetically] making rules and regulations that police [the] differences.”
DJ Spooky says:
“To me, every time you even look at a building or see roads of a city from above,
those are different kinds of visual patterns and rhythms. What I’m doing as a DJ,
writer, and artist is thinking about life in our era as kind of exploring all the interrelated patterns that hold the fabric of the everyday world together. A building is a
pattern. You can look at the points of structure, like a window, a corridor, a
chamber; those are done with certain patterns. If you look at a skyscraper, if you
look at a church, all of these are structures, but to me they are also beats. They’re
rhythms that are holding together a structure.
A DJ set of rhythms and patterns is the same thing as a building. It really doesn’t
have that much of a difference except for the material. Music is invisible. It’s made
of software, code. It’s made of people playing in a unit. Buildings are made of steel
and concrete. I just draw a bridge between the two. It’s an urban funk culture.
That’s why I feel like the era of the 21st century is all about information overload.
That’s where I get this idea of Rhythm Cinema because if you’re doing multimedia
from every direction and how the mind makes sense of that, it’s putting it in
patterns, putting it in structure.”
Cary Grant once described his screen persona as “a combination of Jack
Buchanan, Noel Coward and Rex Harrison. I pretended to be somebody I wanted
to be, and, finally, I became that person. Or he became me.” In fact, in the
process of constructing his cool, sophisticated movie star persona, Grant became
not only the illusory presence he would have liked to be but the perfect, debonair
Hollywood star.
Paul Miller, DJ Spooky, has also established a “constructed persona” as part of his
personal evolution as a DJ and creative artist. Many performers will construct this
sort of alter-ego personality in order to experience more freedom of expression in
their chosen art form. Writers will write under a “pen name,” actors will establish
a “stage name,” and DJ artists will also establish a moniker which characterizes
their view of the world.
We use metaphors constantly in our lives because the mind has a powerful capacity to relate through association of thoughts and concepts allowing one the freedom to experience one’s inner psyche. In our everyday, mundane reality, we have
a very clear, precise image of who and what we are in the many roles that we
play. For men, this might include husband, father, employee, Little League Coach,
etc. For a woman, this might include wife, mother, employee, Girl Scout leader,
etc. We are only one person, but we play many roles, depending on whom we are
interacting with.
You may remember a childhood pasttime called “dress-up”. The realm of pretend
was always made more fun with real items. The more real the items we could
scavenge, the better the experience. If we were playing soldier, uniforms, guns
and forts were the order of the day. If we were playing school, chalk, books, and a desk and chair were
required. In this way, the mind works by association, and we can program it just like a computer.
We teach the mind by constantly reinforcing that
which was previously programmed. However, unlike
a computer, we are able to challenge what we perceive. It is the power of thought and emotion that
make imprints on how we perceive, interpret and
respond to the world’s stimulus.
DJ Spooky is no longer
just a jukebox; he is a
free-form artist whose
medium consists of
one hard drive, two
turntables and the
infinite palette of
inorganic sound.
D.W. Griffith
Photo of D.W. Griffith.
Who Was D.W. Griffith?
Background
“To know where
we’re going we
only need to look
in our rear view
mirror”
- DJ Spooky
David Wark Griffith was born in La Grange, Kentucky on January 22, 1875.
Griffith began his career as a hopeful playwright, but failed. Other early jobs
included being a salesman for the Encyclopedia Britannica, a hop-picker, a
newspaper reporter and a drama critic in Louisville. He then entered the motion
picture industry as an actor for Ediston Studios in 1907. In 1908, he moved to
Biograph Studios, a studio that would be a major part of his life. Finding his way
into the motion picture business, he soon began to direct a huge body of work,
despite his lack of experience. Between 1907 and 1913, the years he directed
for the American Biograph Company, Griffith produced an astounding 450
short films. Such output allowed him to experiment with cross-cutting, camera
movement, close-ups, and other methods of spatial and temporal manipulation.
D.W. Griffith has been called the “father of film grammar.” Scholars no longer
dispute that few or any of his innovations actually began with him, but still he is
given credit for a set of codes that have become the universal back-bone to the
film language. In the broadest terms, Griffith contributed Mise en Scene [stage
setting] and various film editing techniques to film grammar. That being said, he
still used many elements attributed to the “primitive style” of movie-making that
predated classical Hollywood’s continuity system. These techniques include frontal
staging, exaggerated gestures, hardly any camera movement, and no point of
view shots. Credit for Griffith’s cinematic innovations must be shared with his
cameraman of many years, Billy Bitzer. In addition, he worked on many of his
best films with the legendary silent star Lillian Gish.
Griffith became increasingly disillusioned with Biograph, because they fought his
attempts to direct longer films. They lived by the notion of keeping it simple and
profitable, and since one-reel films were profitable, they saw no reason to make
them longer or more expensive. During his time at Biograph, Griffith did manage
to make some two-reel films, but it was always under protest from the company.
Convinced that longer films (then called “features”) could be financially viable,
Griffith left Biograph in 1913 and became a co-founder of Triangle, which
produced Birth of a Nation. Intolerance, his follow-up film to Birth of a Nation,
was critically acclaimed, but flopped at the box office. In 1917, Triangle
went bankrupt, and Griffith moved once again, this time to Artcraft (part of
Paramount), and then to First National (1919-1920). At the same time he
founded United Artists, together with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas
Fairbanks.
Griffith continued to direct movies, but by the end of the 1920s Griffith’s movies
were slowly sinking into oblivion. As the era changed, his filmmaking was
considered hopelessly old-fashioned. In hopes of revitalizing his career, Griffith
moved to New York, but his movies lost even more appeal for mainstream
audiences. His last picture, The Struggle, was made in 1931 and played in
theaters only a week before being withdrawn. Soon after, Griffith returned to
Kentucky and his family.
D.W. Griffith was given a break in 1940, when comedy producer Hal Roach invited
him back to Hollywood to supervise the making of One Million B.C. (1940), a
remake of one of his old Biograph films about primitive man. Although Griffith
was hired only as a consultant, he tried to take over the whole production and was
promptly fired.
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D.W. Griffith died on July 22, 1948. Among the mourners at his funeral were
friends and colleagues from the days when the movies were young and Griffith
was the undisputed king of the cinema. Of these, actor Donald Crisp,
delivered a fitting eulogy: “I cannot help feeling that there should always have
been a place for him and his talent in the motion picture field. It is hard to believe
that the industry could not have found a use for his great gift.”
Griffith was, and still remains, a highly controversial figure. Although popular
at the time of its release, his film Birth of a Nation (1915) was also considered
responsible for the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States. On
December 15, 1999, declaring that Griffith “helped foster intolerable racial
stereotypes,” The Director’s Guild of America’s National Board - without
membership consultation - announced it would rename the D.W. Griffith Award,
the Guild’s highest honor. First given in 1953, its recipients included Stanley
Kubrick, David Lean, John Huston, Woody Allen, Akira Kurosawa, John Ford,
Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock and Griffith’s friend Cecil B. DeMille. The
controversy surrounding his name has unfortunately overshadowed his great
contributions. After all, it was D.W. Griffith who single-handedly saved Biograph
Studio from bankruptcy, and, through his incredible talent, had made it a leader in
the fledgling movie industry. And it was Griffith, some say, who turned filmmaking
into an art.
A scene from D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.
D.W. Griffith’s Filmography
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Director
One Million B.C. (1940)
The Struggle (1931)
Abraham Lincoln (1930)
The Battle of the Sexes (1928)
The Sorrows of Satan (1926)
Sally of the Sawdust (1925)
America (1924)
Isn’t Life Wonderful? (1924)
Orphans of the Storm (1922)
Dream Street (1921)
The Idol Dancer (1920)
The Love Flower (1920)
Way Down East (1920)
Broken Blossoms (1919)
The Greatest Question (1919)
True Heart Susie (1919)
Hearts of the World (1918)
Romance of Happy Valley (1918)
Intolerance (1916)
Birth of a Nation/Birth of a Race (1915)
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Birth of a Nation, The - Full Uncut Director’s Version (1915)
The Avenging Conscience (1914)
Home Sweet Home (1914)
Judith of Bethulia (1913)
D.W. Griffith - Musketeers of Pig Alley & Selected Biograph Shorts (Vol. II) (1912)
Short Films of D.W. Griffith - V. 1 (1911)
Short Films of D.W. Griffith - V. 2 (1909)
Producer
The Americano (1917)
Hoodoo Ann (1916)
Reggie Mixes In (1916)
Ghosts (1915)
The Lamb (1915)
The Martyrs of the Alamo (1915)
Bill T. Jones
A still shot featuring a Bill T. Jones Dancer from the performance Rebirth of a Nation.
For more
information on
Bill T. Jones
visit the official
website at
www.billtjones.com.
Bill T. Jones, a 1994 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, began his dance
training at the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY), where he
studied classical ballet and modern dance. After living in Amsterdam, Mr. Jones
returned to SUNY, where he became co-founder of the American Dance Asylum in
1973. Before forming Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982, Mr. Jones
choreographed and performed nationally and internationally as a soloist and duet
company with his late partner, Arnie Zane.
In addition to creating more than 50 works for his own company, Mr. Jones has
received many commissions to create dances for modern and ballet companies
including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Axis Dance Company, Boston Ballet,
Lyon Opera Ballet, Berkshire Ballet, Berlin Opera Ballet and Diversions Dance
Company, among others. He has also received numerous commissions to create
new works for his own company, including premieres for the Next
Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and for St. Luke’s
Chamber Orchestra. In 1995, Mr. Jones directed and performed in
a collaborative work with Toni Morrison and Max Roach, Degga,
at Alice Tully Hall, commissioned by Lincoln Center’s Serious Fun
Festival. His collaboration with Jessye Norman, How! Do! We! Do!
premiered at New York’s City Center in 1999 as part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers New Visions series. The Breathing Show, Mr.
Jones’ evening long solo, premiered at Hancher Auditorium in Iowa
City in the fall of 1999.
In addition to the MacArthur Fellowship, Mr. Jones has received
other prestigious awards. In1979, Mr. Jones was granted the
Creative Artists Public Service Award in Choreography, and in 1980,
1981 and 1982, he was the recipient of the Choreographic
Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 1993, Mr. Jones was presented with the Dance Magazine Award.
In 2000, The Dance Heritage Coalition named Mr. Jones “An
Irreplaceable Dance Treasure.” Mr. Jones has received honorary
doctorates from the Art Institute of Chicago, Bard College,
Columbia College, the Juilliard School, Swarthmore College, and
the SUNY Binghamton Distinguished Alumni Award. Mr. Jones
served as the 1998 Robert Gwathmey Chair at the Cooper Union
for the Advancement of Art and Science.
Choreographer
and Rebirth
of a Nation
collaborator,
Bill T. Jones
Mr. Jones’ memoirs, Last Night on Earth, were published by Pantheon Books in
1995. An in-depth look at the work of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane can be found
in Body Against Body: The Dance and Other Collaborations of Bill T. Jones and
Arnie Zane, published in 1989 by Station Hill Press. Hyperion Books published
Dance, a children’s book written by Bill T. Jones and photographer Susan Kuklin,
in 1998. Mr. Jones is proud to have contributed to Continuous Replay: The
Photography of Arnie Zane, published by MIT Press in 1999.
Birth and
Rebirth of a
Nation
A scene from the controversial 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, feating Abraham Lincoln (seated
(
).
Background
Birth of a Nation is D.W. Griffith’s most well-known and critically-acclaimed film.
However, the glaring inaccuracies of his worldview would later force film scholars
to put qualifiers around summaries of his work, often to separate the form from
the content. Of course, this was not the case when the film premiered in 1915
and its attitude and ideas were much more consistent with those of the audiences
who flocked to see it.
“To me, the film
is more about
paranoia of class
mixing than race
mixing”
- DJ Spooky
However, it is impossible for most people in today’s cultural environment to
become fully involved, for instance, with the final rescue sequences that shows the
Ku Klux Klan as the heroes of the drama. One can take a step back from these
scenes and appreciate them merely for the adept editing and careful direction;
yet in the end this effort is similar to a wild ride, particularly because the rescues
are punctuated with the scene of Klan members keeping Black voters from
voting on election day. Also problematic is the sequence where the “renegade
Negro,” Gus, chases Flora Cameron through a forest full of shadows broken up
by patches of light. From an aesthetic standpoint, this segment is one of the most
well-constructed in the film with its outdoor imagery lending a natural sense of
beauty to the suspenseful chase. Gus, however, is simply a caricature of inherent
barbarism or a symbol on which to project exaggerated fears, and the girl’s suicide
intends to provide justification for the Klan’s striking back on the grounds of racial
hatred.
Nevertheless, there are many moments that can be appreciated without sacrificing
one’s conscience. The Civil War battle scenes are expertly done and surprisingly
moving: two former friends, now on opposite sides, dying next to one another;
the extreme long shots of the chaos on the battlefield; the tracking shot as Ben
Cameron charges against the enemy; the still shots of casualties accompanied
by an intertitle, “War’s peace.” Although the film displays admirable anti-war
sentiments, the violence utilized by the Klan in the second half of the picture is
condoned and celebrated. It seems that by showing the grievous results of war,
Griffith is not so much mourning the losses of a regrettable but inevitable conflict
as he is indicting the North for not allowing the South to continue their traditional
lifestyle by maintaining slavery. The rosy, nostalgic scenes, taking place at the
Cameron home before the war, support this idea as the sets of friends take a
leisurely stroll around the estate, stopping here to chat and there to be entertained
by slaves dancing during a break from their twelve-hour work day. Clearly,
something is not right here in the prewar utopia the film hopes to establish.
Yet an effective later scene depends on the longing for this past when Ben
Cameron first returns home after his recuperation and waits outside with a kind
of slow bewilderment. His meeting with little sister Flora is a skillfully acted
encounter as the two can’t find words to express their conflicting emotions; the joy
accompanying Ben’s return is undercut by thoughts of his younger brothers and
of the loss of past happiness. But for every poignant, well-handled scene like this
one, there is an embarrassing and offensive segment soon to follow.
The Klan’s “fair trial” of Gus is made even more absurd by interrupting a shot of
the proceedings with a title reading “Guilty,” as if the white-hooded jury might
have considered an acquittal. In this way the film keeps a viewer off-guard,
not knowing whether the next sequence will exhibit briliant filmmaking,
inflammatory racism, or most likely, a combination of both.
Motion pictures’ natural ability to represent the world along with Griffith’s
craftsmanship enabled this film to clearly speak to audiences’ racial fear - so
much so that when the Klan makes their heroic ride at the end of the film,
one critic wrote that “every audience spontaneously applauds when it flashes
upon the screen.”
Birth of a Nation gives interesting insight into the nature of American cultural conflicts near the start of the century. The fact that it most likely
propagated racial hatred and led to increased enrollment in the Ku Klux
Klan disturbingly reveals the power effective filmmaking can wield over a
wide audience. This fact was not only picked up on by Lenin, Eisenstein,
and the Soviet realists but by the American government during World War
I who sent speakers to movie theaters to ensure their propaganda would
reach a large audience. Cinema needed someone like Griffith, a skilled filmmaker and innovator as well as a spokesman for the medium. He worked to
give it importance and influence with inspiring quotes such as, “We’ve gone
beyond Babel, beyond words. We’ve found a universal language—a power
that can make men brothers and end wars forever.” Birth of a Nation was
not only an artistic success but an unqualified economic one as well, proving
that movies of substantial length and quality would bring in audiences.
Brief Summary, in two parts.
Part One
The movie opens in pre-Civil War America with the descriptions of two families: the Stonemans, a northern family led by an abolitionist Congressman
Austin Stoneman who has a daughter Elsie and two sons; and the Southern
Camerons who have two daughters, Margaret and Flora, and three sons
including the central character Ben Cameron. The Stoneman boys are friends
with the Camerons and visit their South Carolina estate, where the grandeur
and hospitality of the Old South still exists, as does slavery. There, the eldest
Stoneman boy becomes enamored by Margaret Cameron, and Ben Cameron
is given a picture of Elsie Stoneman, who he begins to idealize. The Civil
War begins, and all of the sons from both families join their respective sides.
The Cameron house is ransacked by a Black militia led by a white captain,
but a Confederate unit eventually shows up to drive off these intruders. As
the War drags on, the youngest Stoneman boy is killed, as are two of the
Cameron’s sons. Ben Cameron survives but is injured, and he recuperates in
a Northern hospital where Elsie is a nurse. Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s
Theater is dramatized, and his death allows political leaders, such as Austin
Stoneman, to pursue their agenda of punishing the South for their secession.
Birth of a Nation continued...
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Part Two
The second part of the movie begins and attempts to illustrate the period of
Reconstruction following the Civil War. Stoneman and his mulatto protege Silas
Lynch go to South Carolina to see their plans to empower Southern Blacks carried out as their factions sweep the elections. Ben Cameron intends to strike back
against the perceived powerlessness of Southern Whites by forming the Ku Klux
Klan, and his participation in this group distances him from Elsie Stoneman. Later,
a former slave, Gus, hints at wanting to marry Flora Cameron, and she runs off
into the forest with him in pursuit.
Trapped by him on a precipice, Flora jumps to her death rather than let him catch
her. The Klan tracks down Gus, hangs him, and deposits his body at the door of
Lieutenant Governor Silas Lynch’s house. Lynch retaliates by ordering that Klan
members be hunted down and executed. The Cameron household escapes his
militia and take refuge in an isolated country home. Meanwhile, with Austin
Stoneman out of town, Lynch attempts to force Elsie to marry him. Disguised Klan
spies find her screaming for help and ride off for reinforcements. The Klan speeds
to her rescue and clears the rest of the unruly Blacks out of town.
Elsewhere, the militia is about to close in on the trapped Cameron family, when
the Klan approaches to make their second successful rescue. A celebration follows
as the white-robed heroes triumphantly ride through the streets, and we leap
forward to the next election day where Klan members supervise the proceedings
and prevent Blacks from voting. The film ends with a double honeymoon of Phil
Stoneman and Maragaret Cameron and Ben Cameron with Elsie Stoneman. A
final allegorical image shows masses of suffering people under a warlike ruler
transformed into angelic figures under an representation of Christ, and it is
accompanied by a title asking if we dare dream of a day when war shall rule no
more.
A scene from D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.
Background
Rebirth of a Nation is an adaptation of D.W. Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation. This work
was originally commissioned by the Lincoln Center Festival, the Festival d’Automne
a Paris, the Spoleto Festival USA, and the Wiener Festwochen in Vienna. Rebirth of
a Nation is meant to take advantage of our 21st Century vantage point on history,
to comment on the technique and content of Griffith’s work. This full-scale, live
multimedia performance piece is a pastiche of live hip-hop, electronica, and jazz
that mixes high-tech audio and video with live performance. To emphasize human
movement, Spooky intercuts footage from Griffith’s epic with dances choreographed
by Bill T. Jones, which are digitalized and edited to look very old.
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In performance, you have DJ Spooky at the turntables, while behind him re-edited
segments from Griffith’s 190-minute film are projected in rapid music-video style
clips, his comment on the dwindling American attention span…because people today
are conditioned to view things in short segments. Through this work, DJ Spooky
hopes to highlight the fact that underlying racial divisions remain in our society, and
invoke a parallel world to that of Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.
More Thoughts on Rebirth of a Nation
By Paul Miller
With the news dominated by broken treaties, ethnic oppressions, raw power grabs
and security threats, the time seems just right for revisiting D.W. Griffith’s infamous
Birth of a Nation. There are so many resonances with contemporary culture’s
indefatigable sense of shock and surprise. Turn on the TV, read a newspaper, check
any website you feel like visiting, and you’ll see the same resonance. Continuous
transformation, constant change. What Griffith did with cinema was create a context
of mythic propositions - of a nation occupied by foreign troops, of laws imposed
without concern for the local populace, of exploitation and political corruption. All
these issues still haunt the world to this day - but in radically different forms.
Rebirth of a Nation posits, like Marcel Duchamp and Grand Master Flash, a multiple
vision of the record as “found object” - it’s a situation where art and music,
multimedia and cinema, act in the same light as the Hispanic-American philosopher
Santayana’s prescient phase “those who do not remember the past are doomed
to repeat it.” For Rebirth of a Nation, cinematic history is the starting point for a
critique, not only of history, but how film has come to represent historical events
and conditions. Rebirth of a Nation asks that the viewer break the loops holding
the past and present together so that the future can leak through.
It says that there is never one way to view history - it asks that we engage multiple
perspectives of a horrifying past, and presents us with an interrogation of how we
think of multi-culturalism in a world that is rapidly becoming Americanized beyond
any and all expectations. The past is prologue. The question this film asks, essentially,
is “What is American? And how do we live as Americans?” One walks away with
no answers, only more questions.
A Response to the Original Film
Oscar Micheaux is remembered today as the first African-American filmmaker
and as an outstanding entrepreneur of the early film industry. His films, some of
which have been lost, include The Homesteader (1919), Within Our Gates (1920),
The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920), and Body and Soul (1925), and range
from mysteries to westerns, from political commentaries to musicals.
The fifth child in a family of thirteen from Chicago, Micheaux worked as a shoeshine boy, farm laborer and Pullman porter. In his early twenties, he invested
his savings in farmland in an all-white community in South Dakota. Within nine
years, he had expanded his holdings to 500 acres while writing, publishing and
distributing his first semi-autobiographical novel, The Conquest (1913). He
popularized it by selling it door to door to the farmers of South Dakota.
In 1918, the Lincoln Film Company in Nebraska offered to film Micheaux’s 1917
novel, The Homesteader. Lincoln Film refused to produce the film on the scale
that he desired. Micheaux responded by founding his own production company
and shooting the work himself, thus starting the Micheaux Book and Film Company. The Homesteader was the first full-length feature film directed, written and
produced by an African-American. It secured Micheaux’s name in history books,
and was declared a success when it grossed over $5,000.
In 1920, Micheaux’s film entitled Within Our Gates responded directly to the most
highly acclaimed silent movie of all time, D.W. Griffith’s masterpiece, The Birth
of a Nation (1915). Griffith depicted Blacks as lazy alcoholics who raped white
women. In response, Micheaux turned the table on Griffith, filming a scene
where a white man tries to rape a black woman, using exactly the same lighting,
blocking, and setting as the rape scene in The Birth of a Nation.
Oscar Micheaux
Unfortunately for Micheaux, Within Our Gates came out right after the race riots,
which plagued America throughout the summer of 1919. Officials feared further
violence if the movie was shown, and forced Micheaux to edit out controversial
scenes. Micheaux, however, booked other theatres to show the “uncut version”
to even bigger audiences. While many of his films were created for an AfricanAmerican audience and shown in segregated, “colored only” theaters, Micheaux’s
films reached an audience which included Whites.
Micheaux offered audiences a black version of Hollywood fare, complete with
actors typecast as the “Black Valentino” or the “sepia Mae West.” Above all,
Micheaux saw his films as “propaganda” designed to “uplift the race.” In the
1930’s, his films represented a radical departure from Hollywood’s portrayal of
Blacks as servants and brought diverse images of ghetto life and related social
issues to the screen for the first time.
Today, the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame honors artists every year at the Oscar
Micheaux Award Ceremony. In South Dakota, the Oscar Micheaux Festival is an
eagerly anticipated annual event. In Hollywood, the Oscar Micheaux Award is
presented each year by the Producers Guild of America.
In spite of the controversy which surrounded his career, Oscar Micheaux even
received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Cultural
Influences
A raid by the Ku Klux Klan from the performance of Rebirthof a Nation.
Cultural Influences
Minstrelsy
“The first of all
the negro minstrel
shows came to
town,
and made
a sensation.”
- an excerpt from
The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer
The minstrel show was “born” about the same time as Stephen Foster (18261864) and quickly became the most popular form of public entertainment in the
U.S. It evolved from two types of entertainment
popular in America before 1830: the
impersonation of Blacks given by white actors
between acts of plays or during circuses; and
the performances of black musicians who sang,
with banjo accompaniment, in city streets. The
“father of American minstrelsy” was Thomas
Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice, who, between 1828
and 1831, developed a song-and-dance routine
in which he impersonated an old, crippled black
slave, dubbed Jim Crow. This routine achieved
immediate popularity, and throughout the
1830s Rice had many imitators.
In 1842, in New York City, the songwriter
Daniel Decatur Emmett and three companions devised a program of singing and
dancing in blackface to the accompaniment of bone castanets, violin, banjo,
and tambourine. Calling themselves the Virginia Minstrels, they
made their first public appearance in February 1843. The Christy
Minstrels, headed by actor Edwin P. Christy, began appearing a few
years later and originated many essential features of the minstrel
show, including the seating of the entertainers in a semicircle on
the stage, with a tambourine player (Mr. Tambo) at one end and
a castanet player (Mr. Bones) at the other; the singing of songs,
often referred to as Ethiopian melodies, with harmonized choruses;
the exchange of jokes between the endmen and the performer in
the center seat (Mr. Interlocutor).
During the 1840s, the show was divided into two parts. The first
concentrated largely upon the urban black dandy, the second
on the southern plantation slave. Both featured stereotyped
caricatures rather than genuine depictions of Blacks, and were
usually demeaning. By the 1850s, however, Black elements had
been reduced and moved to the concluding section of a three part
show. Music of the “genteel” tradition now prevailed in the first
section, where popular and sentimental ballads of the day and
polished minstrel songs, including those of Foster, supplanted the
older and cruder dialect tunes. The middle part consisted of the
“olio,” a potpourri of dancing and musical virtuosity, with parodies
of Italian operas, stage plays, and visiting European singing groups.
The high point of the show was the concluding section, the “walkaround.” This was an ensemble finale in which members of the
troupe in various combinations participated in song, instrumental
and choral music and dance.
Urban Black Dandy
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Stephen Foster (1826-1864)
As a professional songwriter of unparalleled skill and technique, he had made
it his business to study the various music and poetic styles circulating in the
immigrant populations of the new United States. His intention was to write the
people’s music, using images and a musical vocabulary that would be widely
understood by all groups.
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But, while he was still an amateur songwriter, Foster realized that the minstrel
stage was the key to securing an audience for his songs. During the 1850s,
Foster had two goals: to raise the standards of the minstrelsy style, making it
acceptable to those in the “higher” circles, and to make as much money as he
could while doing so. To accomplish this, he eliminated offensive words from his
music, and attempted to portray African-Americans as people, rather than lowerclass property.
Rather than writing nostalgically for an old South (it was, after all,
the present day for him), or trivializing the hardships of slavery,
Foster sought to humanize the characters in his songs, to have
them care for one another, and to convey a sense that all people,
regardless of their ethnic identities or social and economic class,
share the same longings and needs for family and home. He
instructed white performers of his songs not to mock slaves but
to get their audiences to feel compassion for them. In his own
words, he sought to “build up taste...among refined people by
making words suitable to their taste, instead of the trashy and
really offensive words which belong to some songs of that order.”
Stephen Foster was a man with a mission, to reform black-face
minstrelsy, then the most pervasive and powerful force in American
popular culture.
Stephen Foster, Composer
Foster began offering a different image, that of the Black as a human being
experiencing pain, love, joy, even nostalgia. Nelly Was a Lady (1849) is an
eloquent lament of a slave for his loved one who has died, apparently the first
song written by a white composer for the white audience of the minstrel shows
that portrays a black man and woman as loving husband and wife, and insists
on calling the woman a “lady,” which was a term reserved for well-born white
women. Angelina Baker (1851) similarly laments a slave who has been sent
away by “old Massa.” Ring, Ring de Banjo! (1851), despite its apparent surface
of frivolity, has the slave/singer leaving the plantation while the bloodhounds
try to pick up his scent, and traveling to freedom on the Underground Railroad.
Old Folks at Home (1851), which was to become the most popular of all Foster’s
songs, conveys a sentiment that had almost universal appeal - yearning for lost
home, youth, family and happiness.
As the Civil War approached, Foster’s once-promising songwriting career seemed
to be doomed. Possibly in an effort to revive his popularity, Foster reverted to
writing plantation melodies. Of the four he wrote in 1860, Old Black Joe is
among his most memorable compositions. Belying the racial condescension its
title epitomizes in the Civil Rights era, Old Black Joe comes closest of Foster’s
famous songs to the African-American spiritual.
Other Major Influences
Al Jolson (1885-1950)
In 1904, while playing an engagement at Keeney’s Theater in Brooklyn, Al started
performing in blackface, supposedly at the suggestion of veteran blackface
comedian James Francis Dooley. Working behind a burnt cork mask gave Al a
sense of freedom and spontaneity he had never known before. The act became a
surefire laugh-getter, and was soon booked on vaudeville’s Orpheum circuit.
Blackface was not considered racially offensive in the early 1900s. The act of
White men smearing their faces black and imitating African Americans had been
common on American stages since the 1830s, and was just one form of the
coarse humor that all racial and ethnic groups were subjected to at that time. We
have no reason to believe Al Jolson’s use of blackface was motivated by anything
other than a desire to entertain. But many people would disagree.
Jolson was never known to express racist attitudes, and often went out of his
way to befriend black performers who were subjected to segregation in theaters,
hotels and restaurants. Jolson’s use of blackface is probably best understood in
the context of his era. He was not making a statement; he was hiding behind a
mask, a mask that gave him an extraordinary sense of confidence while on stage.
singing comedian
Al Jolson
Some believe that Jewish entertainers like Al Jolson also put on blackface for
another reason. According to Ronald Sanders, both groups felt a deep woe, had
suffered at the hands of oppressors, and lived close to their pain. Many of the
new songs hailed the brighter day and the aggressiveness necessary to live in the
new land, but the singers invested blackface with a plaintive note, which kept
them in touch with their past though with the pain once removed, hidden behind
a black face.
In 1906, Al Jolson’s solo career as a “singing comedian” began. He wore
blackface with a dark suit, black shoes, white socks and gloves, and his mouth
outlined in white. This drew maximum attention to his hands and mouth, the
key tools for any vaudeville singer. A triumphant engagement in San Francisco
made him a top star on the Western circuits. This was no small accomplishment.
Smoking was still allowed in most theatres, and customers often paged through
newspapers until something on stage demanded their attention. Electronic sound
systems had not been invented yet, so performers had to rely on all sorts of tricks
to catch an audiences’s attention.
Jolson knew them all, and even invented a few of his own. He danced, stamped,
and cried real tears, improvised risqué jokes and outrageous physical gags – even
sashayed about with wildly effeminate gestures. Once he had an audience, Jolson
wouldn’t let go until they were begging for more.
Al Jolson in blackface
Gone With the Wind
In 1940, Hattie McDaniel made history, becoming the first African-American to win
an Oscar, as well as the first African-American (that wasn’t a maid) to be invited to
the ceremonies. During the ceremonies, protesters held signs and demonstrated
against the movie and its racial stereotypes. Groups such as the NAACP were troubled by Hollywood’s unwillingness to allow Blacks to be seen in roles other than
servants, and no characters seemed to personify those limitations more than the
maids Hattie McDaniel played.
Although the film provides a compelling, romanticized portrait of the southern
planter class, it vilifies the white lower class (mainly represented by the overseer
Jonas Wilkerson), and slaves and ex-slaves are viewed both as clowns and as faithful servants. Gone With the Wind was hardly alone in the 1930s in its caricature of
African American characters, and it did offer previously unavailable opportunities
to such black actors as Hattie McDaniel (Mammy), Butterfly McQueen (Prissy), and
Eddie Anderson (Uncle Peter).
When David O. Selznick bought the film rights to Margaret Mitchell’s best-selling
Civil War epic Gone With the Wind in 1936, he was mindful of the protests
surrounding Griffith’s work. As he translated the tale of Scarlett O’Hara in wartime
and Reconstruction onto the screen, Selznick recognized the racial politics of film
established by challenges to The Birth of a Nation. Leonard Leff explains in his
essay, David Selznick’s Gone With the Wind: ‘The Negro Problem’ that this required
a far more calculated effort from the producer than the final results might indicate.
The first problem Selznick faced was the way Mitchell’s novel depicted AfricanAmericans.
Despite Selznick’s desire to be historically accurate in the movie, he often adhered
to much of the “Old South” coding of American film that both enforced the
mythification of black characters and created clear historical inaccuracies. Selznick
hoped the hiring of consultants, Wilbur Kurtz, an Atlanta architect and Susan
Myrick, a reporter for the Macon Telegraph, would remedy their own limited
understanding of plantation life.
“Mitchell’s
treatment of
postwar blacks, for
example, divides
the race: the
“good” Negroes
retained their
loyalty and servility
to former owners,
and the “bad”
ones--running
wild, either from
perverse pleasure
in destruction or
simply because of
their ignorance-caused trouble for
White and Black
alike.”
-Leonard Leff
Vivien
L
“Scarle eigh as
tt O’H
ara”
s
able a
Clark G utler”
B
“Rhett
Gone With the Wind author,
Margaret Mitchell
Other Major Influences cont...
Like earlier film slaves, Hattie McDaniel’s character is motivated almost solely out
of the concern for the master family, but her Mammy also feels confident enough
to express anger toward her masters. She berates and hounds anyone who goes
against her conception of right and wrong, whether it be Mrs. O’Hara or Scarlett.
But most significantly, Scarlett and Mammy maintain a complex mother-daughter
relationship, much like those, which actually existed in the old South, the kind of
relationship that was either glossed over or treated condescendingly in other films.
Racial stereotypes were so prevalent during this time, and limited the characters
that African-American actors played. Before Gone With the Wind, Butterfly
McQueen acted on the stage. When she was signed to play Prissy, she was
appearing in the Benny Goodman-Louis Armstrong musical inspired by A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, entitled Swingin’ On A Dream. After Gone With
the Wind, the world of black squeaky-voiced comic maids could have been her
oyster; she played the same character in four successive movies, and then issued
a statement saying she would no longer accept such parts. Her refusal to be
typecast damaged her film career, but Butterfly McQueen would stick to her
decision, even walking out of a Jack Benny show rather than resurrect Prissy.
Sadly, although the U.S. was ready for Hattie McDaniel’s portrayal of a black slave
woman, they were not ready to accept her on all accounts. Hattie McDaniel,
winner of the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of
Mamie, was not allowed to attend the award ceremony because of her race.
A Scene from the Academy Award winning motion picture, Gone with the Wind.
Reconstruction
Era
Reconstruction Era (1865-1877)
In December 1865, President Lincoln and Congress abolished slavery in the
United States with the approval of the Thirteenth Amendment. The period of
rebuilding that rapidly followed the Civil War became known as the Reconstruction Era. A major focus during Reconstruction centered on the plight of approximately four million newly freed slaves called the “freedmen.” Most of them had
no homes, were extremely poor, and could not read or write. The term also refers
to the political process by which the Union attempted to restore relations with the
eleven Confederate states of the South after their defeat. To this day, Reconstruction remains one of the controversial periods in American history.
In March 1865, in an effort to aid the emancipated slaves, Congress established
the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, better known as
the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Freedmen’s Bureau spent an estimated $17 million
toward the aid of the nation’s new citizens. It provided food and medical care to
newly freed Blacks; set up over 100 hospitals; helped resettle more than 30,000
people; and most importantly, it founded over 4,000 schools. Teacher-training
academies (normal schools) were created and several institutions developed into
outstanding black colleges, such as Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta University), Fisk University (Nashville), Hampton Institute (Virginia) and Howard University
(Washington, D.C.). The Freedmen’s Bureau financed many of these now historic
institutions in their infancy.
Abraham Lincoln,
16th President
of the United States
Born: February 12,
1809: Hodgenville,
KY
Died: April 15,
1865: the morning
after being shot at
Ford’s Theatre in
Washington, D.C.
Despite the bureau’s significant achievements, most African Americans still suffered and lived in severe poverty. The agency failed to produce and realize longterm goals and effects, and was unable to solve the serious economic turmoil of
African Americans. Integral factors that led to the organization’s demise included
inadequate funds, fierce political resistance from President Andrew Johnson and
majority of Southern leaders, and the emergence of the “Black Codes” in 1865.
Several Southern states enacted legislation devising the Black Codes. These
codes, or laws, generally restricted Black Americans the right to own property,
regulated where Blacks could live, established a nightly curfew and forced them
to work as menial laborers or domestics. Soon afterwards, an influential group
of Northern congressmen, called Radical Republicans, disdained the Black Codes,
and in the following year Congress quickly eliminated them with the passage of
the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This act gave African Americans the rights and
privileges of full citizenship.
However, progress came with a price. Most Southern Whites resented this newly
imposed Reconstruction, and saw the new government as a way for the Northern states to dominate the country, politically and economically. Agitated White
Southerners nicknamed the Northerners “carpetbaggers” suggesting they carried
everything they owned when they came to the South in a carpetbag (suitcase).
Fellow Southerners who supported Reconstruction and allied with Blacks and the
Radical Republicans were called “scalawags.” This growing amount of widespread resentment led to the formation of terrorist, vigilant groups such as the Ku
Klux Klan (KKK) and the Knights of the White Camellia. The KKK were very
successful in their effort to restore and protect White supremacy in the former
slaveholding states of the South. Their use of fraud, gang violence (mob lynching), killings, and various forms of scare tactics and intimidation would, eventually,
help Southern conservatives regain control of their state governments. And thus
give rise to the birth of the Jim Crow Laws.
In June of 1866, Congress proposed the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, which provided African Americans with citizenship and guaranteed
that all federal and state laws applied equally to both Black and White
Americans. Furthermore, the amendment prohibited former federal and state
elected officials, who had supported the Confederacy, from holding high political
office at that time. Congress also stipulated that Southern states could not be
readmitted into the Union until it ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. President
Johnson urged the Southern states to reject it, and all of the former Confederate
states except Tennessee did so. By 1868, however, the remaining ten states
ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
During the Reconstruction Era, the policies of the Radical Republicans enabled
Black Americans to participate in the political process. During the Republican
Conventions of 1867 and 1868, African Americans helped write new laws and
rewrite Southern state constitutions. Moreover, during Reconstruction more
than twenty blacks were elected to Congress and some even went to serve in
the Senate and other high political offices. Most of these pioneering men had
received a college education. In particular, Congressman George Henry White
of North Carolina, the last and only African American to serve in the House
of Representatives by 1898, campaigned against racial discrimination, urged
the enforcement of the second section of the Fourteenth Amendment, which
reduced the representation in the House of Representatives of those states that
denied African Americans the right to vote and proved very outspoken on the
issues of civil rights and protection against mob violence.
In 1870, all African Americans men, regardless of color and any previous social
status, gained the right to vote through the Fifteenth Amendment. In spite
of this right, some Southern states added grandfather clauses to their state
constitutions in an attempt to counter the Fifteenth Amendment. Such clauses
stated that the right to vote pertained only to citizens or their descendants, who
had the right to vote prior to 1866 or 1867. Eventually, the Supreme Court
declared grandfather clauses unconstitutional in 1915 and again in 1939.
Andrew Johnson,
17th President of the
United States
Born: December 29,
1808. Raleigh, NC
Died: July 31, 1875,
Carter’s Station, TN
On April 20, 1871, Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act. This act gave the
president of the United States the power to intervene in troubled states with the
authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus where disturbances occurred.
The writ of habeas corpus required documented reasons for detaining a person
in jail. Although then President Ulysses S. Grant supported and enforced this
legislation, the full support of the Southern governments was overwhelming
and the KKK, through their quiet “Reign of Terror,” proved quite effective in the
Deep South.
On March 1, 1875, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act. It provided Black
Americans with the right to equal treatment in public places and means of
transportation. Soon after, the United States Supreme Court declared this
act unconstitutional. This proved to be a major blow to the Reconstruction
movement, and along with the withdrawal of federal troops from the South in
1877, the Reconstruction Era quickly ended and many of the hard-foughtfor freedoms and rights were gradually lost. Southern Whites who had stayed
away from the polls to protest Black participation began voting again. By the
end of 1877, Southern White conservatives, who identified themselves with the
Democratic Party, held power in all the former Confederate states.
Reconstruction Era continued...
By the 1890s, Whites in both the North and the South became less supportive of
civil rights and racial tensions began to flare. Additionally, several Supreme Court
decisions overturned Reconstruction legislation by promoting racial segregation.
The Supreme Court set the stage for “Jim Crow Laws” by several of its decisions.
The Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional and
ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment did not prohibit individuals and private
organizations from discriminating on the basis of race.
Two pivotal Supreme Court decisions also came into play at this time. Plessy
v. Ferguson (1896) led the way to racial segregation. In 1890, Louisiana
had passed a law that required Blacks to ride in separate railroad cars. Blacks
protested and challenged the law. Homer Plessy, a carpenter in Louisiana who
was seven-eighths Caucasian, was chosen to test the constitutionality of the law.
On June 7, 1892, Plessy boarded a train and sat in a car reserved for Whites. He
refused to move and was arrested. A local judge ruled against Plessy and in 1896
the Supreme Court upheld the lower courts ruling. It held that “separate but
equal” accommodations did not violate Plessy’s rights and that the law did not
stamp the “colored race with a badge of inferiority.” The Court provided further
support for separate accommodations when it ruled in Cumming v. County
Board of Education (1899) that separate schools were valid even if comparable
schools for Blacks were not available.
Ulysses S. Grant,
18th President of the
United States
Born: April 27, 1822
Point Pleasant, OH
Died: July 23, 1885
Mount McGregor, NY
With the Supreme Court’s approval, the Plessy decision paved the way for racial
segregation. Southern states passed laws that restricted African Americans access
to schools, restaurants, hospitals, and public places. Signs that said “Whites
Only” or “Colored” were posted at entrances and exits, water fountains, waiting
rooms and public restrooms. Laws were enacted that restricted all aspects of life
and varied from state to state. In 1905, Georgia passed a law requiring separate
public parks. In 1909, Mobile, Alabama created a 10:00p.m. curfew for Blacks
and in 1915, South Carolina Blacks and Whites were restricted from working
together in the same rooms of textile factories.
By 1915, the strength of the Jim Crow Laws were slowly beginning to erode.
The Supreme Court in Guinn v. United States (1915) ruled that an Oklahoma
law which denied the right to vote to some citizens was unconstitutional. Many
Southern Whites become very challenged and threatened by this course of action.
In the same year, William J. Simmons, a preacher influenced by Thomas Dixon’s
book, The Ku Klux Klan (1905) and the film of the book, D.W. Griffin’s Birth
of a Nation, revived the KKK organization. Newly reformed, the Ku Klux Klan
reinstituted their “Reign of Terror,” successfully obstructed justice and extended
their hostility toward other “foreigners,” including Jews, Roman Catholics,
socialists and communists. Their influence on American culture still has had a
lasting affect. But even during this time of great strife, there were Black educators
and intellectual leaders such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois who
challenged the system and made political and social pleas on behalf of African
Americans. This powerful demand for social justice led to the formation of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),
which became the main opponent of the Ku Klux Klan in the Civil Rights
Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Title
On January 29, 1901, George H. White (R-North Carolina), the last former slave to
serve in the House of Representatives, delivered his Farewell Speech to Congress.
Even to this day, the following words, though only a small portion, remain a
powerful and emotional plea for a stronger America: Do these noble words still
possess relevance and truth in the twentieth-first century?
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www.ums.org/
education
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A Timeline of Reconstruction
1865
Thirteenth Amendment approved in January. Ratified in December. Abolished
slavery in the United States. Congress establishes Freedmen’s Bureau in March to
provide assistance to the emancipated slaves. Assassination of President Lincoln,
April 15. Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes president. End of the Civil
War (April 9, 1965). Lee surrenders to Grant. President Johnson presents plans
for Reconstruction. Benjamin Butler, notorious Union General in the Civil War and
advocate of rights for African Americans, elected to Congress as a radical member
of the Republican party. Mississippi enacts Black Code. Joint Committee of
Fifteen on Reconstruction created. The Ku Klux Klan is created in Tennessee.
1866
Civil Rights Act passed despite Johnson’s earlier veto. Fourteenth Amendment
to the Constitution approved by Congress. Memphis race riot/Massacre (May 1).
Freedmen’s Bureau responsibilities and powers expanded by Congress. Legislation
is vetoed by Johnson but Congress overrides his veto. New Orleans Race Riot/
Massacre (July 30).
1867
First Reconstruction Act passed over Johnson’s veto. Second Reconstruction Act
passed over Johnson’s veto. Third Reconstruction Act passed over Johnson’s
veto. Republican convention in New Orleans. Party platform includes equality for
African-Americans.
Rutherford B.
Hayes,
19th President of
the United States
Born: October 4,
1822, Delaware, OH
Died: January 17,
1893, Fremont, OH
1868
Fourth Reconstruction Act passed. Fourteenth Amendment ratified. Entitles
all persons born or naturalized in the United States to citizenship and equal
protection under the laws of the United States. John W. Menard of Louisiana
elected to the United States Congress. Menard is barred from his seat by white
members of Congress. When Menard pleaded his case to be seated, he became
the first Black representative to speak on the floor of the House.
1869
Former Union General Ulysses S. Grant becomes president. Although allied with
the Radical Republicans in Congress he does not provide strong leadership for
Reconstruction.
1870
Fifteenth Amendment ratified. The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
gave the vote to all male citizens regardless of color or previous condition of
servitude.
1871
Act to Enforce Fourteenth Amendment (Ku Klux Klan Act).
1872
Freedmen’s Bureau abolished.
1875
March 1 Civil Rights Act enacted by Congress. It provides Blacks with the right
to equal treatment in public places and transportation. The Supreme Court later
declared this Act unconstitutional.
1877
Rutherford B. Hayes inaugurated President of the United States.
A Few Words on the Klan
History of the Ku Klux Klan
The Klan was first organized in 1866 by young ex-Confederate soldiers in Pulaski,
Tennessee. Their purpose was to organize a secret “hilarious social club,” to
“have fun, make mischief, and play pranks on the public,” with the objects of
their pranks typically being recently-freed former slaves. They called themselves
“ku klux,” a corruption of the Greek word for “circle” (kuklos), and changed the
spelling of the word clan for aesthetic quality. In keeping with the intended fun,
they gave themselves mythical-sounding titles such as “grand cyclops,” “night
hawk,” “grand wizard,” and “magi.” These men then had their wives sew
together outfits to make them look like ghosts. From these beginnings, every
night in Pulaski became Halloween as the white-robed and hooded Klansmen
terrorized Blacks. One of the founders later told a congressional investigative
committee that the “impression sought to be made upon them (freedmen) was
that these white-robed night prowlers were the ghosts of the Confederate dead,
who had arisen from their graves in order to wreak vengeance.”
Before long, the Klan found a new mission; to thwart any and all efforts on the
part of the federal government to include Blacks in Southern life, from politics to
government to economy. In the antebellum South, Blacks could not legally own
any land or property, could not vote in any elections, and were not legally allowed
to learn to read and write. Ex-Confederates bristled at the federally-mandated
changes that Reconstruction brought to their homes, feeling that Reconstruction
was pushed on the noble South as a form of post-Civil War Northern revenge. As
Reconstruction became a way of life in the South, Klansmen intimidated, beat,
and murdered any Black that attempted to practice his newfound freedom and
rights or find employment outside sharecropping, and any White who attempted
to aid him. To the Klan, the South was still a White man’s land and Blacks
needed to be reminded of their place, which was the bottom of the social order.
Within a year, each former Confederate state, plus Kentucky, contained an active
klavern. Within five years, thousands would be murdered, and tens of thousands
menaced, beaten, mutilated, and driven from their homes.
A lynching in 1921 becomes a KKK trademark.
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www.ums.org/
education
The members of
the KKK began in
1866 as a secret
social group, which
quickly turned to
terroristic acts of
violence.
As quickly as it had appeared, though, the invisible empire of the Klan dissipated.
Historians are not sure of the exact date that the Reconstruction Klan disappeared;
Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Confederate general, had ordered
all Klan activities to end by 1869 under federal pressure, but that only affected
the state of Tennessee. Klan-like violence continued in Florida and other pockets
of the South into the 1880’s and beyond, but no evidence exists of any organized
activity at this point. However, this lack of activity did not signal surrender. As
years passed after the Civil War and Southern states were readmitted into the
Union, representatives were elected that were more friendly to the old order.
Laws were passed at the state and federal level that chipped away at the new
rights of African-Americans; poll taxes were required, as were literacy tests at the
voting booths. Since many Blacks still owned no property or were unable to read
or write, they were effectively disenfranchised.
The Rebirth of the Klan
The Klan found a new audience, however, in the years preceding American
involvement in World War I. Between 1890 and 1920, over 23 million foreign
immigrants moved to America from eastern and southern Europe and Asia. This
influx of people carried with it unfamiliar customs, languages, and religions.
Native-born white Protestants all over the country chaffed at the number of new
residents. The call was made for another Ku Klux Klan in 1915, one that would
have national importance. The second Klan spread rapidly throughout the South
and into many Northern communities as well by taking a broader stance against
immigrants, Catholics, Jews, Communists, organized labor, and Blacks.
Woodrow J. Wilson,
the 28th President
of the United States
Born: December
28, 1856, Staunton,
Virginia
Died: February 3,
1924, Washington
D.C.
President Wilson screened The Birth of a Nation for the president on February 18,
1915 (the first film, in fact, ever to be screened in the White House). The film’s
power and message reportedly overwhelmed Wilson. A former history professor,
President Wilson viewed the film and proclaimed it not only historically accurate,
but like “writing history with lightning.” Like Woodrow Wilson, many Whites felt
it a truthful and accurate portrayal of racial politics, so much so that they flocked
to join the rejuvenated Ku Klux Klan. President Wilson viewed his segregation
policy as “separate but equal” in his own eyes, by confining Blacks to specific
departments and divisions of the federal government so contact between Whites
and Blacks could be held to a minimum. Wilson defended this policy asserting
that it was “distinctly to the advantage of the colored people themselves” and a
policy that made them “more safe in their possession of office and the less likely
to be discriminated against.”
As the civil rights movement gained force in the late 1950s and as resistance to
integration began to diminish throughout the South, the Klan continued to offer
hard-core opposition to civil rights programs and was believed to be involved in
many incidents of racial violence, intimidation, and reprisal, particularly bombings.
After the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 it experienced a marked increase in membership in 1965.
By the mid-1970s, the Klan had gained somewhat in respectability. Acknowledged
Klan leaders ran for public office in the South, amassing sizable numbers of votes.
Approximately 15 separate organizations existed, including the Knights of the Ku
Klux Klan, the United Klans of America, and the National Klan. A resurgence of
Klan violence occurred in the late 1970s, and in 1980 a Klan office was opened in
Toronto, Canada. A former grand wizard of the Klan, David Duke was elected to
the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1989, but thankfully he was unsuccessfull in the state’s gubernatorial election in 1991.
The Art of the DJ
DJ Spooky mixing at his turntables.
What
at Exactly is a DJ?
From the first time a record was played over the airwaves in 1906 to a modern
club economy that totals $3 billion annually in New York City alone, the DJ has
been at the center of popular music.
Starting as little more than a talking jukebox, the DJ is now a premier entertainer,
producer, businessman, and musician in his own right. Superstar DJs command
worship and adoration from millions, flying around the globe to earn tens of
thousands of dollars for one night’s work. Increasingly, they are replacing live
musicians as the central figures of the music industry.
“Part obsessive
record collectors,
part mad scientists, part intuitive
psychologists of
party groove...DJs
are responsible for
most of the significant changes in
music over the past
forty years. “
- From “Last Night a DJ
Saved My Life,” written
by music journalists
Bill Brewster and
Frank Broughton
The history of these mysterious and charismatic figures behind the turntables
includes England’s rabid Northern Soul scene to the birth of disco in New York,
from the sound systems of Jamaica to the scratch wars of early hip-hop in the
Bronx, from Chicago house to Detroit techno to London rave.
It all began with the phonograph in 1877, and it had nothing to do with music.
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) patented the phonograph and called it a “talking machine” and “sound writing machine.” The phonograph was actually nothing new to the existing technology of the time. However, the invention of the
phonograph was by accident.
Edison was working on ways to record telegraph transmissions (telephone) messages automatically. His original idea of utilizing a cylinder to record sound (phonograph) was advanced with Emile Berliner’s (1851-1920) design that used a flat
disk to record sound (gramophone). Berliner’s new design allowed inexpensive,
mass duplication, and allowed mainstream access to this technology. Further,
the Victor Talking Machine Company (known today as RCA) eventually acquired
Berliner’s gramophone and method for duplicating records, thus establishing the
record technology into the mainstream.
Unknown radio DJ photo from the website jahsonic.com.
A Timeline of the DJ Culture
1940s
The first DJs emerge as entertainers for troops overseas. During WWII, persons
armed with a turntable, an armful of records, and a basic amplifier would entertain
troops in mess halls, spinning Glen Miller, the Andrews Sisters, and Benny Goodman. It was much easier than sending an entire band overseas.
1950s
The 45 RPM 7-inch records are invented. These records are cheaper to make and
easier for American youths to carry to parties. In Jamaica, as the popularity of jazz
and R&B increases, sound systems are used to promote the music. Their sound systems are developed from enterprising record shop DJs who have reliable American
connections for 45 RPM records.
Early turntable
1951
John Cage composes imaginary Landscape #4, the first piece to use radios as
instruments.
1956
Ska is developed in Jamaica, which causes the sound system to explode in popularity. During this time, Duke Reid and Clement Dodd emerge as sound system
operators in Jamaica. Composer Karlheinz Stockhausen composes Gesang der
Junglinge using both natural sounds and electronically generated noises.
1958
The electric piano is invented.
1959
Artists begin to conduct recording sessions that center on sound systems. Duke
Reid held his first recording session, which included the duo Chuck and Dobby,
and the Jiving Juniors. He also recorded Derrick Morgan and Eric Morris for sound
system play. Clement Dodd also held his first recording session, and recorded over
a dozen tracks with artists like Alton Ellis, Eddie Perkins, Theophilius Beckford,
Beresford Ricketts and Lascelles Perkins.
1960s
During the 1960s, modern electronics enters the music domain. The first Moog
Synthesizer, named for its creator Robert Moog, hits the market. New concepts
and sounds begin to be used in music composition, such as mathematically-based
compositions by Arnold Schoenberg and Erik Satie, and “machine” sound by Luigi
Russolo. The late 1960s brought the birth of Dub music and the first remixes pioneered by King Tubby.
Also, the “afterbeat” and “syncopation” concepts are born. Prince Buster and
Voice of the People begin to emphasize the afterbeat, which became the essence
of Jamaican syncopation.
1966
Rocksteady, a musical style, emerges in Jamaica. This later develops into reggae as
bass patterns became more complex, percussion more prominent, and brass sections are replaced by the rhythm guitar.
1967
Stockhausen Telemusik uses shortwave radio as instruments to create a “world
music.” Reggae begins to take over rocksteady foundations for remix, and rap
music is born. Lee “Scratch” Perry, Edward “Bunny” Lee and Osbourne Ruddock
(King Tubby) begin to operate multi-track studios; they go on to become major
reggae producers.
Timeline continued...
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1968
King Tubby develops the idea of cutting, and is the master cutter for Duke Reid.
He would cut acetates (soft wax discs) that were designed exclusively for his own,
and a few other, sounds systems. When he left out portions of the vocal on a
“dub plate” (the term for the acetate disc), he effectively created a new “version”
of a song.
1969
Kool Herc, considered to be the first hip-hop DJ, develops “Cutting Breaks.” Kool
Herc adapted his style by chanting over the instrumental or percussion sections of
the day’s popular songs. Because these breaks were relatively short, he learned
to extend them indefinitely by using an audio mixer and two identical records in
which he continuously replaced the desired segment. His particular skill, later
copied by many others, was to meld the percussion breaks from two identical
records by playing the break over and over again, switching from one deck to
the other. Additionally, hip-hop is derived from “hip-hopping” on the turntable.
“Toasting” begins in dance halls, and is considered to be a direct link to rap music.
This skill involves the act of talking or chanting over a rhythm or beat. Technics
released the original SL-1200 as a hi-fi turntable, and Giorgio Moroder is considered to be the pioneer of pro-synthesizer electronic disco music.
1971
Ralf Hutter, Florian Schneider and company form Kraftwerk, the first electronic
band.
1975
Grand Wizard Theodore discovers the scratch by accident.
1979
The Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight is released. While they didn’t really utilize
the skills of a DJ, this song had a profound influence on the sound of commercial hip-hop during the early 1980s. Technics works on their 1200s turntables by
improving the motor, redesigning the casing, and adding a separate ground wire
and pitch control.
1980s
DJ Frankie Knuckles lays down drum machine-generated 4/4 beats on top of soul
and disco tunes while playing at the club, Warehouse. Marshall Jefferson develops
a deep, melodic sound that relies on big strings and pounding piano. The result
of this is Move Your Body, which becomes the house record of 1986. 12” disco
records that include long percussion breaks (ideal for mixing) contribute to the
emergence of House Music. Grandmaster Flash is one of the first DJs to utilize the
“breaks” of certain songs, which when looped in a table to table fashion, creates
the “breakbeat”.
1981
Grandmaster Flash’s single, “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels
of Steel” was Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five’s first record to demonstrate
hip-hop DJ-ing skills.
1982
Afrika Bambaata’s Planet Rock samples Kraftwerk and creates electro.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s The Message becomes a hit, and is seen
by many as the first serious rap record.
1983
Grandmaster D.S.T.’s Megamix is released. Herbie Hancock’s Rockit, featuring
cuts and scratches by Grandmaster D.S.T., brings turntablism to a much wider
audience. During this time, the first affordable samplers hit the market, which
enable musicians to capture and manipulate existing sounds. Other hip-hop DJs
in New York begin to use the spinback capabilities of the Technics 1200 turntable
for “scratching”, and to extend grooves and “breaks” by cutting back and forth
between two copies of the same record, as first exhibited by Grandmaster Flash.
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1987
The Disco Mix Club (DMC) holds its first annual DJ Competition.
1989
The rave scene develops. It becomes so big that promoters come up with the
idea of putting on huge events in the countryside outside of London - events that
hold thousands of people and go on all night.
1990s
Breakbeat emerges and produces Drum ‘n Bass and Trip Hop. Breakbeat, a
descendant of techno music, has hints of hip-hop’s frenetic beats and high pitch
samples. There are many variations of breakbeats: Darkside, Jungle, and the
most popular, Drum ‘n Bass. Trip Hop has roots in breakbeat, and is a montage
of beats, vocals, guitar and bass strings, and jazz elements. The Cut Professor
from the Get Fresh Crew begins experimenting with The Funk, which further
develops and comes to be known as “beat juggling”, or “remixing right before
your eyes.” He later founds the X-Men, who begin utilizing the style, and take
beat juggling to a higher level.
1990
Mix Master Mike and DJ Apollo form the first all-turntable scratch band called
Shadow of the Prophet. They are also the DJs for a rap group named F.M.2.0.
and perform at various radio shows and venues in the Bay Area.
1991
Scratch DJ innovator and perfectionist DJ QBert gains worldwide attention in the
Technics DMC DJ Championships.
1992
DJ Flare introduces the “Flare”, and QBert, Mix Master Mike, and Apollo are
dubbed as the “Rocksteady DJs” by Crazy Legs. 1992 also marks the year of the
first scratch/ battle record that was designed for the ease of cutting and other
skillsbecause the samples are on the beats, one after the other, with no pause or
lag time. This is called “Battlebreaks.”
1994
Shortkut, Disk, and QBert form the band, “Tern Tabel Dragunz”, and perform
at local hip-hop events around the Bay. Shortkut, who is strongly influenced
by Steve Dee and the X-Men, wins the Rap Pages DJ Battle in L.A., and also
introduces his patented “strobe” juggling technique. Later in the year, he also
wins the Technics DMC West Coast championships. QBert’s mixtape Demolition
Pumpkin Squeeze Musik, dubbed by Rap Pages as the greatest mixtape of all
time, ignites the fire of the experimental scratch/mixtape revolution. DJ Shadow
releases In/Flux, which further fuels the movement towards a more sampler-oriented movement in turntablism.
Timeline continued...
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1995
QBert and Mix Master Flash retire from the DMC to become judges, and enter
a new challenge - the creation of music with turntables. Mix Master Mike and
Disc unknowingly create the name “Invisibl Skratch Piklz” for the crew by jokingly throwing out hundreds of goofy names for bands. This year also marks the
birth of the first “all-samples scratched song” by QBert entitled, “Invasion of the
Octopus People,” which starts another phase in turntablist culture.
With the help of Shortkut’s initial introduction to them in 1995, ISP becomes the
first DJ band to be sponsored by manufacturer of DJ products called “Vestax”.
With the help of ISP’s designs, such as the PMC 05 pro, 06 pro, 07 pro and 05
pro ltd., Vestax has now captured first place as the world’s leader in sales of
mixers, and becomes the largest DJ product company.
1996
The International Turntablist Federation (I.T.F.) holds its first world championship competition, showcasing the new era of turntablism. This historic battle
between ISP and the X-Men (now called the X-Ecutioners) takes place at the
Rocksteady Reunion.
QBert has a starring role in the movie, Hang the DJ, which is later picked up by
Miramax, and plays in theatres in Europe, Canada, and the U.S. Also in 1996,
ISP records the classic turntable-orchestrated piece, Invisibl Skratch Piklz Vs. Da
Klamz uv Deth, on vinyl.
1997
ISP films the educational and hilarious Turntable Mechanics Workshop for Vestax.
In this video, scratches are more publicly defined, and are given names so that
turntablists can now share a mutual “scratch language.”
Turntable T.V. is established in 1997, and has since become an international
turntablist video magazine featuring the Piklz practicing and hanging out with
DJs from all over the world showing off their talents, skills, tips, tricks, and other
turntable entertainment.
1998
Yoga Frog creates and gives away the first ISP music grant to aspiring artists
in the Bay Area. Mix Master Mike joins the Beastie Boys in 1998, and brings
scratching to the awareness of the mainstream public. QBert receives a lifetime
achievement award from the DMC.
During the mid- to late-1990s, individual DJs and crews such as the Invisibl
Skratch Piklz, BulletProof Scratch Hamsters/Space Travelers, Allies, Supernatural
Turntable Artists, Fifth Platoon, Beat Junkies, 1200 Hobos, X-Men/X-Ecutioners,
Cosmic Crew, and manmy others continue to expand on the frontiers of turntablism as an artform.
2000
Scratchcon 2000, hosted by QBert and Yoga Frog, is held in San Francisco.
This event brings fellow DJs and turntable enthusiasts from around the world
together for the purpose of demonstrating and discussing the turntable as a true
musical instrument. Some scratch DJs begin to publicly experiment with, and
develop their own methods of scratch notation. The most notable of the group,
John Carluccio, director and creator of “Battle Sounds,” shares his system of
scratch notation with other DJs around the world.
Vocabulary of a DJ
Beats - Many DJs call the music they perform to “beats.” Their producers “make
beats.”
Beatbox - This art form involves having the ability to create sounds with the
mouth that often sound like music. At one point, beatboxing was an essential
part of one’s act. It can be very simplistic where one creates rhythmic patterns
or if done by a master like, Rozell (the Godfather of Noise) from the Roots, the
person beatboxing can reproduce entire songs with his mouth.
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Freestyle - To improvise vocally. This is an intuitive process which is both a skill
and an artform.
Flow - Flow describes a lyricist’s cadence. It is the interaction of words with
musical arrangements. The intermingling of words with rhythmic patterns.
Rhyming - Rhyming is synonymous with the word rapping. The word rap is often
used to communicate with outsiders.
Underground - Underground refers to music that is not mainstream. The term is
also used to refer to a certain sound or feeling that one gets from that sound.
Whack - This word has been with us for almost two decades and is used to
describe music of poor quality. To say that something or someone is “whack” is to
say that it is terrible!
Turntablism - The art of manipulating/restructuring previously existing
phonograph recordings to produce new, musically creative combinations of sound
using turntables and a mixer.
Hamster Style - Normally a DJ setup would be configured with the right turntable
playing on the right channel of the mixer and the left turntable playing on the left
channel of the mixer. With a hamster style setup, however, the opposite is true.
The right turntable plays through the left channel, and the left turntable plays
through the right channel.
Hamster Switch - A switch on a mixer that reverses the crossfader without
reversing the volume faders so that you can scratch hamster style without
physically hooking up the turntables to different channels on the back of the mixer.
Baby Scratch - The simplest of scratches, the baby scratch is performed without
the use of the crossfader by simply moving the record back and forth. A simple
example would be one forward stroke, and one backward stroke (or vice versa) in
sequence.
Forward and Backward Scratches - Forward and backward scratches are also
fairly simple scratches but unlike the baby scratch they are performed using
the fader to cut the sound in and out. As an example, to perform two forward
scratches you would just do two baby scratches with your record hand using your
fader hand to cut the sound in when you move the record forward both times and
out while you’re pulling the record back both times so that all you hear are the two
forward strokes. To do backward scratches you would do the same thing, but cut
the backward strokes in and the forward strokes out.
Vocabulary of a DJ cont...
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Tear Scratch - The tear is much like a baby scratch in that you do not need the
fader to perform it, but unlike a baby scratch, when you pull the record back you
pause your hand for a split second in the middle of the stroke. The result is one
forward sound and two distinct backward sounds. Doing the opposite and placing
the pause on the forward stroke instead can also perform this scratch. A basic
tear is usually performed with the crossfader open the entire time, but it can also
be combined with other scratches such as flares for example by doing tears with
you’re record hand and cutting the sound in and out with your fader hand.
Transform Scratch - Most famously associated with DJ Cash Money who is
credited with coining the term “transform” or “transformer” scratch, this scratch
is achieved by moving a sound with your record hand while repeatedly tapping
the fader to cut the sound in and out in sequence with your fader hand as the
sound plays. A transform scratch should begin with the sound off tapping the
fader once you want the effect/sound to start. What you would be doing is
tapping the button repeatedly as the sound plays giving a stuttering or tremolo
type effect.
Flare Scratch - In this scratch, you start with the sound on and concentrate on
cutting the sound into pieces by bouncing the fader off of the cut out side of the
fader slot to make the sound cut out and then back in a split second. Each time
you bounce the fader off of the side of the fader slot it makes a distinct clicking
noise.
Orbit Scratch - An orbit is most generally any scratch move performed both
forward then backward or backward then forward in sequence. Orbits can
be performed once as a single orbit move, or sequenced to produce a cyclical
neverending type of orbit sound.
Crab Scratch - To do a crab scratch you quickly rub/tap the fader knob with
three or four different fingers in sequence starting with the pinkie or ring finger
while using the thumb as a spring to cut the fader back out after each tap (or in
if you scratch hamster style). The result is much like a three or four tap transform
(or a three or four click flare if you scratch hamster style) only much quicker than
you could probably do with one finger. Crabs can be performed once as a single
distinct move, or sequenced to produce a cyclical neverending type of crab sound.
Twiddle Scratch - The Twiddle scratch is the precursor to the crab and its
introduction is most commonly attributed to DJ Excel of the UK. Quite basically,
the twiddle is a crab scratch using two fingers instead of three or four to
repeatedly “twiddle” the fader.
Chirp Scratch - The chirp scratch is performed by fading the sound out with the
crossfader as you push the record forward and fading the sound back in with the
crossfader as you pull the record back. Done slowly the effect might not be too
impressive, but done quickly and accurately, a chirp sounding scratch is the effect.
While the concept is easy to understand, chirps are one of the hardest scratches
to perfect with great speed and consistency
Scribble Scratch - A scribble is performed by tensing up the forearm muscles and
moving the record back and forth with very small shaky sounding increments. The
result is best described as a vibrating “scribbly” sounding effect.
Tweak Scratch - The tweak scratch is a scratch perhaps made most famous by
Mixmaster Mike. To perform a tweak scratch, you turn the motor off on your
turntable and move the platter and record back and forth manually with your
fingers and thumb in whatever pattern you desire. The fader may be used to do
transform sounding tweaks, but the fader doesn’t have to be used at all for this
move if you choose not to use it. This scratch is best performed on long tone
type samples, but can be applied to any sound. The result varies, but usually is a
somewhat jerky sounding scratch. Because the turntable is turned off, each time
your finger hits the record in a certain direction, it continues to go in that direction,
but slows down as it does instead of returning to a constant speed after each time
it is released as it does when the motor is on.
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Zig-Zag Scratch - The zig zag is a move that I first saw Qbert perform where you
use one hand on the record, and one hand moving back and forth between the
volume fader and the record to create a unique scratch effect. If you scratch with
your right hand on the record the technique would go something like this:
1. right hand pulls back sound and lets go
2. left hand taps the record as it’s coming back forward to make a quick
pause in the forward movement of the sound to make two distinct for
ward sounds instead of one
3. left hand quickly moves and taps down the volume fader a small incre
ment to make the volume a little lower (or higher since you could do
the same thing in reverse).
4. repeat pattern
Bubble Scratch - Fist demonstrated by DJ Noize, this technique is achieved by
moving the record back and forth while at the same time turning the EQ knob
back and forth from minimum to maximum to get a sort of wah-wah pedal
sounding scratch effect.
Hydroplane - A hydroplane is performed while the record is spinning and you
lightly apply pressure to the surface with one or more fingers without stopping
the record. The idea is to create light friction between your fingers and the record
and if you have the right touch, a bassy friction sound is the result.
Airplane Scratch/Phazing - This move takes two identical sounds and plays
them simultaneously on both turntables with the crossfader in the middle position.
Although you’re trying to match them up exactly, the beats will always be a little
bit off (but not enough off for too much of a noticeable delay) so the end product
doesn’t sound the same as just one of the channels playing the beat on it’s own.
The result is a flange/phaze sounding effect.
Vocabulary of a DJ cont...
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Beat Juggling - To beat juggle, you use two records with a beat on each
turntable and mix them together with the crossfader to create new combinations
of beats or to create new beats altogether in a “cut and paste” fashion.
Strobing - Strobing is a type of beat juggling first associated with DJs Shortkut
and Yoshi. In strobing you pretty much alternate back and forth between two
records with a beat on each while you take turns tapping or pulling the records
back slightly with your hand to manipulate the tempo on each record and
keep them in sync in an alternating incremental fashion. By cutting back and
forth you’re usually separating kicks, snares, cymbal sounds, etc., to make new
sounding or doubled sounding beats.
Looping - Alternating between two different copies of the same record, this
technique is achieved by using the crossfader cutting in a phrase of music from
one record, then cutting in the same phrase of music from the other record while
at the same time pulling back each cut out record to the phrase’s beginning point
before it is cut back in again. By doing this you end up playing the same sound
over and over again much like a sampler looping a beat (or any other sound for
that matter).
Tools of the trade, a
modern turntable and
a recording/mixing
studio.
What is Mixing?
Learning how to mix songs isn’t as easy as it sounds. Whenever you go to a
club, rave or some sort of performance. There are many types of “mixing” in
the industry. This section of the Resource Guide will focus on explaining how
to mix songs together using a basic DJ-setup and briefly mention some different
techniques there are in the industry.
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There is a wide range of speed for each song of every category in the world.
Measuring speed of songs can be determined in many ways. For the typical DJ
and the DJ-industry, the Beats Per Minute or BPM is one measuring “tool” used
for seamless mixing.
Some record labels do not reveal the BPM and some do. The record labels that
do reveal the actual BPM are the ones that are made for the club DJ industry.
Also, there are devices and computer programs-found free via the Internet, which
measure a song’s BPM. Another way is counting for six seconds while the song is
playing-starting from the first beat of the first or beginning of any bar, and taking
the sum, multiplying it by ten. For quick mixing, make sure your records that you
intend to use are labeled with the proper BPM. Matching the BPM is the very first
step when determining what song to mix.
BEATS and BARS
8-count = 1-bar
16-count = 2-bars
24-count = 3-bars
32-count = 4-bars
If you don’t know about your “counts” and “measures” here’s a generous
description:
8-count:
Also known as the 1st bar of a 4/4 measure; most songs begin their count at the
down-beat (the first beat u hear). Some start their song at the upbeat (snare), but
overall the “bar”, for DJ-mixing, is based on the downbeat. It is the starting point
of a 4/4 full measure.
16-count:
2nd bar; Repeat count of 8, therefore 8+8=16. Some LP’s have very short
“breaks” at the beginning, in-between chorus’ and during lyrics etc. In other
words, some LP’s have a 16-count or 2-bar break. It is possible to mix another
song during this bar if the introduction of the mix-in song has a 16-count
introduction or same “count”.
24-count:
3rd bar; 8+8+8=24, right?? Good. Almost all the time, the bad mixes occur on
this count or the 3rd bar--which makes the whole mix between songs awful
and “off count”. The song would mix given you have the correct pitch setting/
adjustments, but it would be off count and you might stumble over the lyrics or
chorus of the song you’re mixing OUT from. If you start your mix at this point, it’s
almost guaranteed that you’ll be “off count” and it’ll sound awful. This part of
the count is usually your “get ready to put it in-the-mix” point.
What is Mixing? continued...
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32-count:
4th bar; 8+8+8+8=32, right? --Good. It’s easier to count 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 each
time instead of counting up to 32. At the end of the count, you’ve reached a full
measure and the green light to put in your second song-given that you’ve got
it cued up at count “1” of bar “1”. When you’ve reached the end of your final
8-count for example: “ 5,6,7,8.” You start on count 1 on both songs. Sure, the
first song will be into its 8th or 9th or so-forth measure, but you’ll be “on count”regardless, and the mix will sound good when you carry both songs throughout
a count of 32. Usually, the start of a song’s chorus line is the beginning of a 32count and usually, the beginning of a “song”... is a 32-count as well before the
lyrics comes in. If you start your second song or “mix-in” song at the start of the
chorus line, you’ll hit the mix perfect!!!
Pitch-control:
How you use the pitch control will determine how clean a mix will be. No one is
perfect and you will almost NEVER get two songs (vinyl--of course) mixed perfectly
without having one song being too slow or too fast. Remember this: It’s best that
you adjust the song “mixing-in” instead of the song “mixing-out” because people
are focused on the song that is already playing. Adjusting the mix-in song would
be less obvious of the dreaded “choo-choo train effect”. If you messed up, re-cue
up the mix-in record back to the beginning and START OVER!!!! Be patient.
You can hear your “pre-program” mix through the headphones, which should
be cued up to the “mix-in” song. This is the only time where you can just forget
the counting, and just match beats and snares, but if you haven’t mastered the
“counting” method, you should just keep practicing via headphones before
throwing it out throughout the main-program mix out. Every time you adjust the
song with the pitch, catch the song at the downbeat or “kick-drum” and scratch
it in on the right count with the newly pitch-setting. If it still doesn’t mix for at
least 16-count, you’ll have trouble adjusting the song while it’s going through the
main program mix.
Different Styles:
This is one example of Mixing. This is called Beat Mixing-getting it on the right
beat and count and hearing both songs via the crossfader through the main mix
out and in-through your speakers/output source. There is another style, called
the “praying mantis” technique. But seriously another kind is “slamming.” This
is when you’ve pretty much have both songs at the right count and measure but
you don’t let the crowd or “output source” hear that you’ve got it matched up
and then after the last bar that you want to mix the song into you just switch
over, slamming the crossfader from one channel to the “mix-in” song.
Then there’s the mix when you just calmly fade in the “mix-in” song--matching
the same out-fade time of the song that’s “OVER”. Another style is the “backn-forth” mixing-used a lot by house and techno DJs. You achieve this method
by first matching up both beats, counts, etc. Then when you have reached the
beginning of the 32-count mix-in point, you “slam” over to your mix-in record for
the first bar, then slam it back to the original song for the next bar then back to
the mix-in song, and so forth until you’ve reached the last bar. When this occurs
you’ll hit the mix perfect at the beginning of the mix-in song when the chorus or
introduction comes up.
Lesson Plans
Student busily working during a UMS in-school visit.
Are you interested
in more lesson
plans?
Visit the Kennedy
Center’s ArtsEdge
web site, the
nation’s most
comprehensive
source of artsbased lesson
plans.
www.artsedge.
kennedy-center.
org
Introduction
The following lessons and activities offer suggestions intended to be used in
preparation for the UMS Youth Performance. These lessons are meant to be both
fun and educational, and should be used to create anticipation for the performance.
Use them as a guide to further exploration of the art form. Teachers may pick and
choose from the cross-disciplinary activities and can coordinate with other subject
area teachers. You may wish to use several activities, a single plan, or pursue a
single activity in greater depth, depending on your subject area, the skill level or
maturity of your students and the intended learner outcomes.
New to our Resource Guide this year is a “Teaching Points” section (See next page.)
This section is provided to teachers who may have a limited understanding of the art
form, or who just want a brief refresher course before delving into the lessons that
follow. It is intended to provide major bullet points to significant details about the
art form or performance.
Learner Outcomes
•
Each student will develop a feeling of self-worth, pride in work, respect,
appreciation and understanding of other people and cultures, and a desire
for learning now and in the future in a multicultural, gender-fair, and abilitysensitive environment.
•
Each student will develop appropriately to that individual’s potential, skill
in reading, writing, mathematics, speaking, listening, problem solving, and
examining and utilizing information using multicultural, gender-fair and
ability-sensitive materials.
•
Each student will become literate through the acquisition and use of
knowledge appropriate to that individual’s potential,
through a comprehensive, coordinated curriculum, including
computer literacy in a multicultural, gender-fair, and ability-sensitive
environment.
Teaching Points
•
DJ Spooky pulls influences from hip-hop, techno, dance hall, and
ambient music to form his own sound.
•
D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation heavily influenced racist attitudes and
the rise of the Klu Klux Klan in the early 20th century.
•
DJ Spooky uses his knowlege of music and philospohy to create concepts for his work.
•
One of DJ Spooky’s major influences is W.E.B. Dubois.
•
DJ Spooky is a constructed persona that Paul Miller uses.
•
DJ Spooky claims to be a postmodernist and uses his art to effect
change.
•
DJs are viewed by Paul Miller as the new griots of our society.
Teaching Points
are designed to
provide quick
facts about the art
form.
Meeting Michigan Standards
UMS can help you
meet Michigan’s
Curricular
Standards!
The activities in this
study guide,
combined with the
live performance, are
aligned with Michigan
Standards and
Benchmarks.
For a complete list of
Standards and
Benchmarks, visit the
Michigan Department
of Education online:
www.michigan.gov/
mde
ARTS EDUCATION
Standard 1: Performing All students will apply skills and knowledge to perform in the arts.
Standard 2: Creating All students will apply skills and knowledge to create in the arts.
Standard 3: Analyzing in Context All students will analyze, describe, and evaluate works of art.
Standard 4: Arts in Context All students will understand, analyze and describe the arts in their
historical, social, and cultural contexts.
Standard 5: Connecting to other Arts, other Disciplines, and Life All students will recognize,
analyze and describe connections among the arts; between the arts and other disciplines;
between the arts and everyday life.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
Standard 3: Meaning and Communication All students will focus on meaning and communication as they listen, speak, view, read, and write in personal, social, occupational, and civic
contexts.
Standard 6: Voice All students will learn to communicate information accurately and effectively
and demonstrate their expressive abilities by creating oral, written and visual texts that
enlighten and engage an audience.
SOCIAL STUDIES
Standard I-1: Time and Chronology All students will sequence chronologically eras of American
history and key events within these eras in order to examine relationships and to explain
cause and effect.
Standard I-3: Analyzing and Interpreting the Past All students will reconstruct the past by
comparing interpretations written by others from a variety of perspectives and creating
narratives from evidence.
Standard II-1: People, Places, and Cultures All students will describe, compare and explain the
locations and characteristics of places, cultures and settlements.
Standard VII-1: Responsible Personal Conduct All students will consider the effects of an
individual’s actions on other people, how one acts in accordance with the rule of law and
how one acts in a virtuous and ethically responsible way as a member of society.
MATH
Standard I-1: Patterns Students recognize similarities and generalize patterns, use patterns to
create models and make predictions, describe the nature of patterns and relationships and
construct representations of mathematical relationships.
Standard I-2: Variability and Change Students describe the relationships among variables, predict
what will happen to one variable as another variable is changed, analyze natural variation
and sources of variability and compare patterns of change.
Standard III-3: Inference and Prediction Students draw defensible inferences about unknown
outcomes, make predictions and identify the degree of confidence they have in their predictions.
SCIENCE
Standard I-1: Constructing New Scientific Knowledge All students will ask questions that help
them learn about the world; design and conduct investigations using appropriate
methodology and technology; learn from books and other sources of information; communicate their findings using appropriate technology; and reconstruct previously learned
knowledge.
Standard IV-4: Waves and Vibrations All students will describe sounds and sound waves; explain
shadows, color, and other light phenomena; measure and describe vibrations and waves;
and explain how waves and vibrations transfer energy.
CAREER & EMPLOYABILITY
Standard 1: Applied Academic Skills All students will apply basic communication skills, apply
scientific and social studies concepts, perform mathematical processes and apply
technology in work-related situations.
Standard 2: Career Planning All students will acquire, organize, interpret and evaluate information from career awareness and exploration activities, career assessment and work-based
experiences to identify and to pursue their career goals.
Standard 3: Developing and Presenting Information All students will demonstrate the ability to
combine ideas or information in new ways, make connections between seemingly unrelated
ideas and organize and present information in formats such as symbols, pictures, schemat
ics, charts, and graphs.
Standard 4: Problem Solving All students will make decisions and solve problems by specifying
goals, identifying resources and constraints, generating alternatives, considering impacts,
choosing appropriate alternatives, implementing plans of action and evaluating results.
Standard 5: Personal Management All students will display personal qualities such as
responsibility, self-management, self-confidence, ethical behavior and respect for self and
others.
Standard 7: Teamwork All students will work cooperatively with people of diverse backgrounds
and abilities, identify with the group’s goals and values, learn to exercise leadership, teach
others new skills, serve clients or customers and contribute to a group process with ideas,
suggestions and efforts.
Each UMS lesson
plan is aligned to
specific State of
Michigan
Standards.
TECHNOLOGY
Standard 2: Using Information Technologies All students will use technologies to input, retrieve,
organize, manipulate, evaluate and communicate information.
Standard 3: Applying Appropriate Technologies All students will apply appropriate technologies
to critical thinking, creative expression and decision-making skills.
WORLD LANGUAGES
Standard 2: Using Strategies All students will use a varietry of strategies to communicate in a nonEnglish language.
Standard 8: Global Community All students will define and characterize the global community.
Standard 9: Diversity All students will identify diverse languages and cultures throughout the
world.
LESSON
ONE
LESSON ONE
Analyzing The Birth of a Nation
Grade Levels:
9-12
Objective
Students will be able to analyze how different choices could lead to different consequences. Students will be able to evaluate the responses of individuals to historic
violations of human dignity involving discrimination.
ARTS STANDARD
Arts Education 3: Analyzing Context
CONTENT STANDARD
Social Studies I-3: Analyzing and
Interpreting the Past
Materials
Movie D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, list of questions for discussion.
Activity
1. Open the class with a brainstorming activity. Show a controversial picture/
scene from Birth of a Nation and discuss it as a class. Ask questions to promote
discussion.
A
B
C
D
When does this scene take place in the movie? Put it in context.
How do you feel about this picture?
What makes this controversial?
What is happening in the picture? (describe people and their roles
and emotions in the photo)
2. After the brainstorming, rewind and show the film. Have students break into
groups and prepare them for a jigsaw activity by assigning each member within
each group a letter. Assign each group a question to discuss. Everyone should
be taking notes on the discussion so they can later “teach” other students about
their discussion. Have the students form their second group based on their
letter. Allow a few minutes for each person in the group to recap/teach
the rest of the students in the group about their discussion of the question.
Group Questions:
1. Think about some of the most disturbing scenes in the movie. Why were
they disturbing? How are the disturbing scenes similar or different throughout
the movie?
2. Is the movie still useful and valuable to watch despite its biases and
historical inaccuracy? Why or why not? How is it useful/ not useful? What
biases and inaccuracies can you think of in the film that makes it
valuable/invaluable to watch?
3. In 1999, the Directors Guild, a Hollywood directors group, decided to remove
their D.W. Griffith award, which is an annual award for excellence in film
direction. This award had been given out since 1953. They removed the award
because of the amount of racism Griffith portrayed in Birth of a Nation. Why did
it take so long for the guild to remove this award? Was it the right thing to do?
4. One of the controversies of the film was that it helped increase racial tensions
and spawned a revival of the KKK in the 1920s. Do you think that movies or
television have the power to shape attitudes? How did they influence thinking
of that era? Can you think of any current/recent shows or movies that have
been influential on our society and our thinking?
5. Call on volunteers to state some of the things they came up with and record it
on the board.
Voting Rights for African-Americans
Objective
Students will understand the chronology of Reconstruction and the voting rights
of African Americans. Students will have knowledge of the 13th, 14th and 15th
amendments to the United States Constitution. Students will be able to discuss and
write persuasive essays on African American voting rights.
Grade Levels:
9-12
CONTENT STANDARD
Social Studies I-3: Analyzing and
Interpreting the Past
Materials
Handouts of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.
An overhead of the J.H. Wares engraving “Republican Ticket” found in curriculum
materials accompanying this guide.
Activity
1. Project an overhead of J.H. Wares’ engraving “Republican Ticket” for the
students. Post the following question up on the board: Based on the picture,
what can you infer about voting rights in the South during Reconstruction? Give
the students time to write down their thoughts. Go over their responses.
2. Divide the students into groups of two to three. Give different amendments to
the groups.
3. Write the following tasks on the board:
A.
B.
C.
D.
Translate the amendments into English which is easy to understand today.
Describe the historical context of the amendment.
What resistance was there to the amendment and by whom?
What do think are the strengths and weaknesses of the amendment?
4. Allow students to have twenty to twenty five minutes to read and answer the
questions.
5. Ask each group any one of the four questions above. This will allow for
classroom discussion.
6. After the discussion, assign a one-page persuasive paper on the Voting Rights act
of 1965. Ask students to discuss whether they feel African American voters are
still being disenfranchised.
LESSON TWO
ARTS STANDARD
Perspectives on Slavery
Grade Levels:
10-12
Objective
The students will be able to explain the viewpoint of some White southerners and
sharecroppers during Reconstruction.
LESSON THREE
ARTS STANDARD
CONTENT STANDARD
English Language Arts 3: Meaning &
Communication
English Language Arts 6: Voice
Materials
None
Opening Discussion
At the time of slavery, White non-slave owners and slaves had differing opinions
and perspectives on the propriety of slavery from White slavemasters.
Activity
1. Guided reading of The Cruel Years excerpt, edited by William
Loren Katz and Laurie R. Lehman
A. Introduce the excerpt by reading the following introduction from
Georgia Sharecroppers Slavery’s New Clothes:
“The story of this Georgia peon and his wife, dictated to a magazine
writer who put into a form suitable for publication, shows their
lives were not their own nor did they have any rights Whites felt
obliged to respect.”
B. Read the excerpt on the following page together and discuss the following:
How were the sharecroppers misled?
Why did the sharecropper feel that he had sold himself into slavery?
What power did the White man have?
What power did the sharecropper have?
How do you think the sharecropper felt about his life and newfound
“freedom”?
Is the sharecropper really free?
2. Guided read of excerpt of Reminiscences of a Mississippian in
Peace and War by Frank A. Montgomery
A. Read the excerpt on the following page together and discuss the following:
How did Mr. Montgomery feel about his slaves?
Do you think Mr. Montgomery’s slaves felt about him?
Do you think Mr. Montgomery would sympathize with the Georgia
sharecropper?
Perspectives on Slavery
Word came back that we were all under contract for ten years and that the Senator would hold us to the letter of the contract, or put us in chains and lock us up-the
same as the other prisoners. It was made plain to us by some White people we talked
to that in the contracts we had signed we had all agreed to be locked up in a stockade at night or at any other time that our employer saw fit; further, we learned that
we could not lawfully break our contract for any reason and go and hire ourselves to
somebody else without the consent of our employer; and more than that, if we got
mad and ran away, we could be run down by bloodhounds, arrested without process
of law, and be returned to our employer, who according to the contract, might beat
us brutally or administer any other kind of punishment that he thought proper. In
other words, we had sold ourselves into slavery, and what could we do about it? The
White folks had all the courts, all the guns, all the hounds, all the railroads, all the
telegraph wires, all the newspapers, all the money, and nearly all the land, and we had
only our ignorance, our poverty, and our empty hands. We decided that the best thing
to do was to shut our mouths, say nothing, and go back to work.
Reminiscences Of A Mississippian In Peace And War
Frank Alexander Montgomery, b. 1830
Meantime the old soldiers, as well as all the citizens, were trying to start over in the
race of life. The Negroes, considering the fact that soldiers had been sent into every
county, and agents of the freedman’s bureau were busy with them, were doing well.
They had not as yet lost the habit of obedience to the White people, though few,
if any, after the first year, would remain with their old owners. My own, or rather
those who had been my own Negroes, at the end of the first year left me for another
employer, and a neighbor’s Negroes came to me. They had an idea they were not
really free as long as they remained with their old masters. One old man I had, Uncle
Hector, as he had been called from the time I could remember, I talked to and told him
he was too old to make a living by work, and that he had better stay with me, that as
long as I was able to make a living for myself, he should not suffer. But he too left me,
and it was not long till I heard he was destitute and went to see him and provided for
his wants for the short time he had to live. I had a real affection for the old man; he
had been born a slave to my family, being a son of native Africans, and I remembered
his mother, and of how much afraid I was of her when I was a little boy. The people of
the North never did understand the feeling of the master for his slave, nor that of the
slave for his master, till they were taught to believe that their owners were enemies,
and that they were as good as White people.
LESSON THREE
Georgia Sharecroppers from The Cruel Years: American Voices at the Dawn of
the Twentieth Century
edited by William Katz and Laurie Lehman
Grade Levels:
10-12
Media Images
Grade Levels:
9-12
Objective
To get students to analyze and express their feelings about images from the early
twentieth century.
LESSON FOUR
ARTS STANDARD
Arts Education 3: Analyzing Context
CONTENT STANDARD
Social Studies I-3: Analyzing and Interpreting the Past
Materials
None
Opening Discussion
Being expressive while remaining perfectly still is often times just as important to a
dancer as being able to move effectively.
Activity
1. Picture Analysis:
Analyze the picture on the page and have the student write about the following
questions:
A. How does the picture make you feel?
B. What are the roles of the white men in the picture?
C. What are the black people doing?
Media Images
Cartoon Analysis
1. Analyze the cartoon on the following page as a group and discuss the following:
Grade Levels:
9-12
Who are the main characters?
What is “The Lost Cause”?
What do you predict will happen to this family?
What do the alphabet book, the lynched figure and the burning schoolhouse
symbolize?
What does “Worse Than Slavery” mean in this photo?
LESSON FOUR
What are the symbols in this cartoon?
Southern Culture - Post War
Grade Levels:
9-12
Objective
To help students understand the racial tensions prevalent in the South after the Civil War
and have knowledge of African Americans’ struggle against racism and violence during
Reconstruction.
LESSON FIVE
ARTS STANDARD
CONTENT STANDARD
Social Studies II-2: People, Place, &
Culture
English Language Arts 6: Voice
Materials
PowerPoint Presentation, Lesson 5-Southern Culture
Online Article
Computer Equipment for presentation or overhead projector
Pre-Activity
Before coming to class, have the students read the following online article: The Birth of
a Nation (1915) by Tim Dirks (http://www.filmsite.org/birt.html).
Activity
1. Ask the students the following questions:
A. Why do you think this film was so popular and accepted by Whites? Why
wasn’t it just rejected?
B. What were people’s reactions to the film? White reaction? Black reaction?
C. What was the filmmaker’s message and goal in producing the film?
D. Why do you think the film stood the test of time and became a classic?
2. Give the Powerpoint lecture provided on the key points of Reconstruction, Black
Codes, Jim Crow laws, and how African Americans survived and adapted.
3. Have students write a newspaper article and find, or draw, a picture on of the
following questions:
A. What motivated southern Whites to continuously attempt to hold back
Black people?
B. Why did southern Whites continuously implement laws that restricted
Blacks?
Discussion/Follow-up
How is Post War Southern Culture similar to or different from Popular Culture today?
What lessons in human and civil rights do you think people have learned since the war?
Are there any lessons that still need to be learned?
Portrayal of Blacks in Film
Objective
Students will learn about and evaluate the changing portrayal of Blacks in American
Film.
Grade Levels:
7-12
ARTS STANDARD
CONTENT STANDARD
Career & Employability 7: Teamwork
Materials
Activity
1. Run the power point presentation. With each slide ask the students what they
notice about the pictures presented.
A. What do the pictures say about the time?
B. What are the differences between the eras?
C. What are the artistic differences in the pictures?
D. How do the settings in the pictures tell a story?
E. How do the movies conform to the trends of the time?
2. After viewing slide show, have students break into small groups of 4-6.
3. Ask them to discuss how the portrayal of Blacks in each era contributed to
society’s viewpoints at that time. Have students list at least two points for
each era and appoint a speaker to report the group’s findings.
4. Allow ten minutes for final group presentations.
While the PowerPoint Presentation addressed the portrayal of Blacks up until
1939, how are African Americans currently portrayed in film? Has their image or
role in films changed or improved?
LESSON SIX
PowerPoint Presentation: Lesson Six - Blacks in Film
Computer equipment for presentation or overhead projector
Grade Levels:
7-12
Objective
LESSON SEVEN
Interpreting Meaning
Students will be able to analyze and interpret the meaning of certain words and images.
Students will gain knowledge of various stages of film.
ARTS STANDARD
Arts Education 3: Analyzing in Context
CONTENT STANDARD
Language Arts 3: Meaning and Communication
Materials
Movie or video/DVD recording
TV and VCR/DVD player
Opening Discussion
1. DJ Spooky uses music and mixed images to give new meaning to the film Birth of a
Nation by D.W. Griffith. Music and sound have especially affected viewers experience
and interpretation of film.
2. The Interpretation of film
The role of the film industry has undergone major transitions over the years.
Silent Films --- Soundies --- Major Motion Pictures
3. Soundies were a phenomenon of the early 1940s. Filmed for reverse projection
through mirrors in nickelodeon-style jukeboxes, the Soundies all have titles which, when
projected normally, are backwards. Soundies seem to have prefigured a familiar aspect
of contemporary culture, music videos.
Activity
1. Introductory Question: What influences the way in which you interpret meaning?
A prior knowledge, emotions expressed, the setting, background noise?
2. Select and show movie scenes or portions of a news broadcast without any sound.
Then show the same scene with sound.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
How does the scene change when there is music or sound?
Is the meaning or mood completely different? How so?
What does the sound or song add to the scene?
What nonaudible elements affect meaning?
Does it draw the viewer away from the importance of the scene or
bring them closer into what is going on?
1. What innovations could be added to movie theaters to help the audience better
understand the meaning or have a more vivid experience? Does sound/music ever,
usually, or always improve interpretation?
Causes of the Civil War
Objective
Students will understand the causes of the Civil War and the view point of each side.
Grade Levels:
7-12
CONTENT STANDARD
Language Arts 3: Meaning and Communication
Career & Employability 7: Teamwork
Materials
PowerPoint Presentation: Lesson Eight - Causes of the Civil War
Computer equipment for presentation or overheard projector
Opening Discussion
The Civil War began because each side, the North and the South, had a cause they
believed in and for which they were willing to fight. However right or wrong they may
have been, each side had specific reasons for going to war.
Activity
1. Run the PowerPoint presentation for the class
2. Following the presentation, have the students answer the following questions in a
short essay or journal entry:
Pretend you are a Northerner in 1861. What are your reasons for wanting to
enter the Civil War?
Pretend you are a Southerner in 1861. What are your reasons for wanting to
enter the Civil War?
How do you feel about the Civil War today?
What other Civil Wars are happening in the world today?
What do you think the country would look like today if the South had won, in
terms of the size, people, and style of government?
3. Once they have finished writing, set up a class debate by dividing the class in half
with one side representing the South and the other the North.
4. As a group, have students develop arguments for why their side was right during
the Civil War and have them choose three people to debate these issues against the
other group.
5. Facilitate three rounds of debating and at the end decide as a class which side was
more convincing.
1. Do you have the same opinion of the North or South as before you began this
lesson?
2. Do you sympathize with the cause of either side now that you have learned
more?
3. What were the strongest points mentioned in the debate?
4. Did they sway anyone’s opinion?
LESSON EIGHT
ARTS STANDARD
LESSON
ONE
NINE
LESSON ONE
Spooky Collage
Grade Levels:
9-12
Objective
Students will understand how historical facts can be skewed by the media. Students will
also be able to express their own opinions about events and their portrayals in a creative
manner.
ARTS STANDARD
Arts Education 2: Creating
CONTENT STANDARD
Career & Employability 3: Developing
and Presenting Information
Materials
Computers /color printer/ paper
Poster Board
Glue
Scissors
Construction Paper
Old Magazines for cut-outs
Opening Discussion
This lesson will take place a day after the performance of DJ Spooky’s Rebirth of a Nation.
A. Open the discussion by asking how the kids felt during DJ Spooky’s presentation.
B. Lecture briefly on how facts can be skewed and personal prejudices can come out
in movies and other media. Relate to The Birth of a Nation.
C. Have the students create a DJ Spooky-type presentation in the form of a collage.
D. Refer to assignment sheet on the following page.
While this collage was a small scale project, if you had unlimited resources, what kind of
multi-media collage would you create, similar to DJ Spooky’s presentation? What makes a
good collage or multi-media presentation?
Spooky Collage
Make an Informed Statement
Possible Topics (or choose your own with teacher approval)
*Slavery
*Women’s Rights
*Native Americans/Relocation
*Glory of War
*Information Age
*Celebration of Holidays
*Melting Pot
*The Environment
*Right to Bear Arms
*Us vs. Them
*The Constitution
*Religious Freedom
*Conspiracy Theories
*Democracy
*Global Economy
*Education
*Patriotism
*Healthcare Reform
*Right to Free Speech
*1950s Nuclear Family
*World Peace
*Democrats vs. Republicans
*The Red Scare/Communism
*Equality
*Capitalism
*The Media
Use school appropriate language and imagery. If you are unsure, ask before you
print or paste! Be creative.
Presentation Form
2.
You may create a large poster board collage, a detailed series of inspiration
diagrams (at least two), a Power Point presentation, or another approved form of
media.
Include a song that represents what you are trying to say. Print the lyrics.
(Optional: play the song during your presentation).
LESSON TWO
1.
Choose a topic in history or the world today that you feel strongly about or you
feel has been misrepresented. Research the topic using the internet and classroom
resources. Use images, drawings, quotes, political cartoons, and magazine cut-outs
to contrast what the government or media tries to show and what you see, feel,
or know to the contrary. Be sure you can explain to the class exactly what your
images are and why they are important in your presentation.
69 |69
www.ums.org/education
| www.ums.org/education
LESSON
ONE
TEN
LESSON ONE
Create Your Own UMS
Grade Levels:
7-12
Objective
Students will learn about the structure and goals of an arts organization, increase
internet research skills and become familiar with a wider variety of art forms and
performers.
ARTS STANDARD
Arts Education 2: Creating
Arts Education 3: Analyzing in Context
Arts Education 5: Connecting to Life
CONTENT STANDARD
English Language Arts 2-2: Meaning
and Communication
English Language Arts 4-5: Language
English Language Arts 6-2: Voice
Social Studies II.1: People, Places, and
Cultures
Social Studies V.1: Inquiry
Career & Employability 3-3: Developing
and presenting Information
Technology 2-4: Using Information
Technologies
Materials
Internet Access
Opening Discussion
At arts organizations a great deal of work is needed to put on a concert series. Each
year, the organization must decide which artists it will hire, when they will perform and
in what venue. It is very important to have a variety of art forms. It is also important
to UMS to choose performers who will appeal to people from different backgrounds.
In order to meet these goals, negotiations between UMS staff and the performers’
representatives sometimes begin years in advance.
Procedures
1. After explaining briefly how an arts organization like UMS works,
explain that the students will be designing a concert series of their own.
2. Direct the students to UMS’s web site at www.ums.org to explore and
read about the different performances being presented this season. What shows
sound most interesting? Is there an art form or style they particularly like?
3. Have students select concerts they would put into their own concert
series. Why did they select those specific artists? How are the concerts linked?
Is there a theme connecting them all? Is there an artist or art form not
represented that should be?
4. Write to Ken Fischer, President of University Musical Society. Tell him what shows
you think should be presented and why you selected them. Mail letters to the
Youth Education Department and we’ll deliver them to Mr. Fischer for you!!
What did you learn from this experience? How was your list different from that of
others? How did you justify your choices?
DJ Vocabulary Word-o
FREE
SPACE
Before the game begins, fill in each box with one of the vocabulary words or phrases below. Your
teacher will call out the definition for one of the words below. If you’ve got the matching word
on your board, cover the space with your chip. When you’ve got a horizontal, vertical, or
diagonal row of five chips, call out WORD-O!
Beats
Whack
Flare Scratch
Scribble
Scratch
Phazing
Beatbox
Turntablism
Orbit Scratch
Tweak Scratch
Beat Juggling
Freestyle
Hamster Style
Crab Scratch
Zig-Zag
Scratch
Strobing
Rhyming
Tear Scratch
Twiddle Scratch
Bubble Scratch
Underground
Baby Scratch
Chirp Scratch
Hydroplane
Hamster Scratch Looping
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DJ Word Search
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All of the words from the left column can be found in the puzzle. These words
relate to the DJ Spooky performance. Look in all directions for the words!
beatbox
Bill T. Jones
Birth of a Nation
blackface
DJ Qbert
DJ Spooky
D.W. Griffith
freestyle
hamster style
Kool Herc
rhyming
underground
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An art form that involves the ability to create sounds with the mouth that can
sound like music.
A well-known choreographer and co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Artie Zane
Company.
A movie made in the early 1900s that remains controversial, even today.
Make-up that was used primarily by Whites in order to imitate or present
caricatures of African-Americans.
One of the most respected DJs in the music world.
Also known as Paul Miller, he uses his DJ-ing skills not only for entertainment,
but also to bring awareness of social issues to the public.
Director who is mainly remembered for his highly controversial film,
Birth of a Nation.
The process of improvising vocally.
This style involves the right turntable playing through the left channel,
and vice versa.
Kool Herc is widely considered to be the first hip-hop DJ.
rapping
This refers to music that is not mainstream. It can also refer to a certain sound or
feeling that comes from that sound.
Word Search Solution
Here are the answers to the word search:
beatbox
Bill T. Jones
Birth of a Nation
blackface
DJ Qbert
DJ Spooky
D.W. Griffith
freestyle
hamster style
Kool Herc
rhyming
underground
r
h
y
m
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n
g
e
w
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b
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Pre and Post-Performance Ideas
Pre-Performance Activities
Share your
students’ work
with UMS!
We love to see
how you connect
your curriculum
with UMS Youth
Performances.
See the inside
back cover for
UMS’s contact
information.
1. Working Together - Write “Rebirth of a Nation” on the board. Divide
students into groups and assign a short period of time. Each group must
work together to think of as many words as possible that can be spelled
with the letters in the phrase on the board.
2. Scavenger Hunt - After reviewing some of the writings and activities in this
guide, divide the students into groups. Ask each to come up with a list of
at least three things their peers should watch for at the performance, such
as signs of oppression, racial stereotypes, and so on. Collect each group’s
list and compile them into a single piece of paper. See how many you find
at the performance!
3. Discussion/Writing Prompt - DJ Spooky works to keep racial identity and
positive racial stereotypes alive. What traditions, issues or causes do you
have in your own background that you would like to maintain or
promote? Why?
4. Discussion/Writing Prompt - DJ Spooky has made a commitment to
educating the public about racial discrimination. Research and describe
other Americans who have worked to provide opportunities for others.
Post-Performance Activities
1. Discussion/Writing Prompt - If you could change one thing about the
performance, what would it be?
2. Visualizing Favorite Moments - TV style -Imagine that you are a television
reporter who has been sent to see Rebirth of a Nation. You can show a
maximum of two minutes’ worth of the production to your television
audience. What moments would you choose? Why?
3. Newspaper Report - Imagine that you are a newspaper reporter who has
been chosen to report on the Youth Performance by DJ Spooky. Create
a factual report of what you saw. Here are some tips to help you write an
effective news story:
•
Remember to answer the famous “Five W” questions
(who, what, when, where, why) and how.
•
Put the main ideas in the first paragraph.
4. Essay Assignment - Ask students to create a comparison between the music
used in the Rebirth of a Nation performance and a style of music they
think of as their own.
5. Collage - Students can prepare a collage of various images and textures
they saw or felt in the music that was used during the performance. A
class discussion about these images could then be held with the entire
class participating.
A scene from DJ Spooky’s Birth of a Nation
The following English Language Arts standards are addressed in this section:
Standard 3: Meaning and Communication All students will focus on meaning and communica
tion as they listen, speak, view, read and write in personal, social, occupational, and civic
contexts.
Standard 5: Literature All students will read and analyze a wide variety of classic and contemporary
literature and other texts to seek information, ideas, enjoyment and understanding of their
individuality, our common heritage and common humanity, and the rich diversity of our society.
Standard 6: Voice All students will learn to communicate information accurately and effectively and
demonstrate their expressive abilities by creating oral, written and visual texts that enlighten
and engage an audience.
Standard 7: Skills and Processes All students will demonstrate, analyze and reflect upon the skills
and processes used to communicate through listening, speaking, viewing, reading and
writing.
Standard 12: Critical Standards All students will develop and apply personal, shared and academic
criteria for the enjoyment, appreciation and evaluation of their own and others’ oral,
written and visual texts.
Writing to
Connect
Writing About a Performance
Visit UMS Online
www.ums.org/
education
Watching the Performance with a Keen Eye and Ear
Critique (writing or talking) and evaluation of a performance is affected by the
past experience, sensitivity, involvement and personal judgement of the writer.
Writers try to be multi-dimensional in their responses by describing auditory and
visual perceptions and feelings. When you evaluate a performance give your
reasons for anything you liked or disliked.
Writing a critique entails three processes: description, interpretation and judgement of the particular piece(s) being analyzed. When a critic writes or talks about
a performance, he or she considers four different elements:
Dynamics:
This includes examining the overall form, use of space, rhythmic and timing
factors, and use of dynamics, style, music and movement.
Skill:
This includes evaluating the technical skill of the performer, and his or her
ability to communicate through movement.
Production:
The writer takes a close look at the costumes, lighting, props, sets and music
used in each piece.
General Impact:
Does the performance have clear intention? Is the impact of the performance
felt by the audience?
Thinking through and rephrasing experiences are important learning tools.
Critiquing, whether it be literature, dance or art, allows us to reflect on our experiences and connect the work of others to our own world, providing each of us
with new life experiences.
Reading and Writing Ideas
Here are some ideas to incorporate into your own writing repertoire:
1. Create a magazine advertisement for Rebirth of a Nation.
2. Compose a “9 Minute Report Paper” (see page 78 for description).
3. Write a “How To” Poem about being a DJ (see page 78 for an example).
4. Make a “Top Ten List,” like David Letterman, about why a person might like
to be a DJ (see page 78 for description).
5. With your teacher’s permission, research local and national critics who write
for the Washington Post, the Ann Arbor News and the New York Times, such
as Alan Cohen, Alex Ross and Susan Nesbitt.
Title
Asking Important Questions Following the Performance
After attending the performance, or after watching the Resource Video of
DJ Spooky’s Rebirth of a Nation, you have probably formed some opinions of
what you saw. Remember as you write, to consider who your audience will be.
What is the message you want to send to the readers? It might be helpful to
make a list of all of the things you remember about the performance to keep it
fresh in your mind. As you think about and create your own description, interpretation and judgement, you might check the following questions to further
your thinking:
Visit UMS Online
www.ums.org/
education
 What emotional reaction did you have to the performance?
 What was the most interesting feature of the performance?
 Was there an apparent motive for the performance? Was it dramatic,
abstract or comical?
 Were there any social or historical elements incorporated into the
piece(s)?
 Did the artist convey a certain message? If so, what was the message?
 What did you notice about the form?
 How did the performance begin? Where did it go and how did it end?
 Was there a logical sequence or was the form fragmented?
 Was there variety, contrast, balance, unity, repetition and/or harmony?
 What was the skill level of the performer, in your opinion?
 What kind of music was used?
 Did the music support the themes in the performance or did it conflict
with them?
 Did the dance movement go with the music or against it?
 What were your reactions to the technical aspects of the performance?
 Did you like the use of multimedia? What made you react this way?
 Was the performance a positive experience for you? Did it stimulate
questions or ideas?
 What could have helped your understanding of the performance prior to
watching it?
Examples for Writing
How
To
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Use these
examples to spur
your students’
ideas to create
similar pieces of
focused writing.
WANTED:
One Abraham Lincoln.
Must be 6’4” tall, have a beard and a tall silk hat. Must hate
slavery and be very honest. Religious attitude toward war and
suffering a must. No rebels, please. Call 775-6754; ask for Union
Powers.
The 9-Minute Report Paper
It’s Sunday afternoon, and you haven’t finished your homework! Your teacher
assigned a term paper two weeks ago, and it is due on Monday! What are
you going to do? Try this:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Read through one of the articles included with this Resource Guide.
Write a lead or title for your paper.
Now you are ready to write! Set a timer for nine minutes and find a
comfortable chair.
Write your paper from beginning to end thinking of all the things you
already know. Write fast! Don’t worry about punctuation or spelling.
When the timer rings, look over what you have written.
Divide what you have written into sections to make paragraphs.
Using the structure and information you have created, fill in other
important to create an excellent report!
The ideas on this page were taken from the Reviser’s Toolbox, written and edited by Barry Lane,
copyright, 1999; Discover Writing Press, Horeham, VT.
All the shocking news that’s fit to print!
Volume I; Issue 2
35 cents
The Five W’s of Writing
Use this worksheet to answer questions about one of the articles you have chosen to
read about DJ Spooky and the Rebirth of a Nation. Please write in complete sentences.
or what is the article about?
does the article say about this person?
was the article written?
is the setting for the article?
did the author write this article? To persuade the reader or to inform the
reader? How do you know this?
Resources
A scene from D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation.
UMS FIELD TRIP PERMISSION SLIP
Dear Parents and Guardians,
We will be taking a field trip to see a University Musical Society (UMS) Youth Performance of DJ Spooky’s
Rebirth of a Nation on Friday, January 14, from 11am-12:30pm at the Power Center in Ann Arbor.
We will travel (please circle one) • by car
• by school bus
• by private bus
• by foot
Leaving school at approximately ________am and returning at approximately ________pm.
The UMS Youth Performance Series brings the world’s finest performers in music, dance, theater, opera,
and world cultures to Ann Arbor. This performance features the Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky.
We (circle one)
• need
• do not need
additional chaperones for this event. (See below to sign up as a chaperone.)
Please (circle one)
• send
lunch along with your child on this day.
• do not send
If your child requires medication to be taken while we are on the trip, please contact us to make
arrangements.
If you would like more information about this Youth Performance, please visit the Education section of
www.ums.org/education. Copies of the Teacher Resource Guide for this performance are available for
you to download.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call me at ____________________________________
or send email to _________________________________________________________________________.
Please return this form to the teacher no later than ________________._____________________________
Sincerely,
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - My son/daughter, __________________________________, has permission to attend the UMS Youth
Performance on Friday, January 14, 2004. I understand that transportation will be by _____________.
I am interested in chaperoning if needed (circle one).
• yes
• no
Parent/Guardian Signature________________________________________ Date_____________________
Relationship to student ____________________________________________
Daytime phone number__________________________________________
Emergency contact person________________________________________
Emergency contact phone number_________________________________
Bibliography/Videography
Some of the textual information as well as some of the graphics included
in this guide were derived from the following sources:
Bibliography
Biography of Paul Miller: www.djspooky.com/hype.html. Copyright 2004. DJ Spooky.
Biography of D.W. Griffith: www.2020site.org/griffith/bio.html. Copyright 2002. 2020 Site.
There are more
study guides
like this one, on
a variety of
topics online!
Just visit...
www.ums.org/
education
D.W. Griffith: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wark_Griffith. Copyright 2002. Wikipedia.
Biography: Bill T. Jones: www.billtjones.org/bill/index.html. Copyright 2002.
Bill T. Jones.
The Birth of a Nation: www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Bungalow/1204/bnation.htm.
Copyright 1999. Film Commentary.
Scratch DJ Terminology: www.scratchdj.com/terminology.shtml. Copyright 1996-2001.
Scratch DJ dot com.
What is Mixing?: www.scratchdj.com/mixing.shtml. Copyright 1996-2001. Scratch DJ
dot com.
Stephen Foster: www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/appendix/Composers/F/Stephen
Foster.html. Copyright 1996-2004. Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary.
Stephen Collins Foster: Biographical Sketch: www.pitt.edu/~amerimus/foster.htm.
Copyright 2003. Center for American Music.
Kenrick, John. Al Jolson: A Biography: www.musicals101.com/jolsonbio.htm. Copyright
2003. Musicals 101.
Blackman, Toni and Terence Nicholson. The Art of Freestyling. Copyright 1995.
Ruppersburg, Hugh. Gone With the Wind (the film):www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/
nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2472. Copyright 2004. New Georgia Encyclopedia.
Lewis, Andrea. Celebrating Hattie McDaniel: www.progressive.org/mediaproj04/
mlf2404. html. Copyright 2004. The Progressive Media Project.
The Depiction of African-Americans in David Selznick’s Gone With the Wind: xroads.
virginia. edu/~MA99/diller/mammy/gone/depiction.html. Copyight 1999.
American Studies.
Black Myths and White Columns: xroads.virginia.edu/~MA99/diller/mammy/gone/
myrick.html. Copyright 1999. American Studies.
Public Reaction to The Birth of a Nation and its Influence on David O. Selznick: xroads.vir
ginia.edu/~MA99/diller/mammy/gone/reaction.html. Copyright 1999. American
Studies.
Internet Resources
Visit UMS Online
www.ums.org/
education
Arts Resources
The official website of UMS. Visit the Education section (www.ums.org/education)
for study guides, information about community and family events and more
information about the UMS Youth Education Program.
www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org
The nation’s most comprehensive web site for arts education, including lesson
plans, arts education news, grant information, etc.
Paul Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid
www.djspooky.com - The official website of Paul Miller.
Other Sites of Interest
www.billtjones.org - The official website of Bill T. Jones and the Bill T. Jones/
Arnie Zane Dance Company.
http://shorock.com/arts/micheaux - The offical website for African-American
filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.
www.bin.com - Black Information Network
www.ipl.org/exhibit/maah - The offical site of the Museum of African American
History
www.bighorn.trra.net/artonline/aol/history - Black History as told by artists
www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html - The official site of New York Public Library
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
www.umich.edu/~iinet/caas/ - the University of Michigan’s Center for
Afroamerican and African Studies
www.si.edu/nmaahc/ - the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American
History and Culture
Although UMS previewed each web site, we recommend that teachers check all web sites
before introducing them to students, as content may have changed since this guide was
published.
Recommended Reading
Resources for your classroom
This page lists several recommended books to help reinforce the DJ culture
and Reconstruction era through literature.
ELEMENTARY & YOUNG ADULT READING
Barney, William. The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Student Companion
Companion. Oxford
University Press: 2001.
There are
many more
books available
about the
Reformation Era!
Just visit
www.amazon.com
Danzer, Gerald. The Americans: Reconstruction through the 20th Century
Century.
Houghton Mifflin: 2002.
Dudley, William and Spaeth, Frank. Reconstruction (At Issue in History).
Greenhaven Press: 2003.
Golay, Michael. Reconstruction and Reaction: The Emancipation of Slaves (Library of
African-American History). Facts on File: 1996.
Hakim, Joy. Reconstruction and Reform (A History of US, Book 7). Oxford University
Press: 1994.
January, Brendan. Reconstruction (Cornerstone of Freedom, Second Series).
Children’s Press (CT): 1999.
King, David. Civil War and Reconstruction (American Heritage
Heritage, American Voices
Series). Wiley: 2003.
Perry, Michael and Cunningham, Doug. Turntable Timmy. Free Will Press: 2002.
Smith, John David. Black Voices from Reconstruction 1865-1877. University Press of
Florida: 1997.
UPPER MIDDLE & SECONDARY GRADES
Brewster, Bill and Broughton, Frank. Last Night a DJ Saved my Life: A History of the
Disk Jockey. New York, NY: Grove Press. 1999.
Brewster, Bill and Broughton, Frank. How to DJ Right. New York, NY: Grove Press.
2002.
Cavanaugh, Peter C. Local DJ: A Rock and Roll History. Xilbris: 2004.
Diner, Steven J. A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era
Era. Hill and
Wang: 1988.
Foner, Erik. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution. Perennial: 2002.
Foner, Erik. A Short History of Reconstruction. Perennial: 1990.
Graudins, Charles A. How to be a DJ. Muska & Lipman: 2004.
McPherson, James. The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States). Oxford
University Press: 1988.
Reighley B., Kurt. Looking for the Perfect Beat: The Art and Culture of the DJ. MTV:
2000.
Stampp, Kenneth. The Era of Reconstruction. Vintage: 1967.
Webber, Stephen. Turntable Technique: Art of the DJ. Berkelee Press Publications:
2000.
Reccomended Recordings
Resources for your classroom
This page lists several recommended recordings by DJ Spooky to help students gain a better understanding of his style.
DJ Spooky Albums
Riddim Warfare (Outpost-Geffen) [September 1998]
Haunted Breaks Volumes I and II (Liquid Sky Music) [October & December 1998]
Synthetic Fury EP (Asphodel Records 0110) [February 1998]
Songs of a Dead Dreamer (Asphodel Records 0961) [April 1996]
Necropolis (Knitting Factory Works KFW 185) [March 1996]
Collaborative Releases
Anodyne (Main, core and Peripheral mixes) Picture disk w/Sound Secretion (BSI
Records) Cat. BSI 014-1[10/00]
The Quick and the Dead DJ Spooky and Scanner (Sulphur Records) Meld series
[1/31/00] Cat No. MELCD001 (UK) BBWULCD004 (US)
DJ Spooky vs. The Freight Elevator Quartet File Under Futurism (Caipirinha
Records) [September 1999]
10” DJ Spooky and Merzbo (Manifold Records) [2000]
10” DJ Spooky and Quoit (Manifold Records) [2000]
10” DJ Spooky and Arto Lindsay (Manifold Records) [July 1999]
Kaotik : Transgression DJ Spooky and Totemplow (Manifold Records) [June 1999]
10” DJ Spooky and Alan Licht (Manifold Records) [1998]
Template 12” DJ Spooky and Totemplow (Manifold Records) [1998]
Remixes
Hydroponic Sound System Routine (Insanity/Evolution Records) [Sept. 2000]
Show Lee Netsu: Electro: snd>>cd: zero sum mix BMG Funhouse (Japan) BVCR11015 [Oct. 1999]
Cibo Matto Swords and Paintbrush (Warner Bros.) [TBA 1999]
Steve Reich City Life (Coalition/None Such Recordings) [March 1999]
Korn Got the Life (Immortal/Epic) [November 1998] (Limited Edition)
Resource CD
The CD accompanying this Resource Guide includes excerpts PowerPoint
Presentations used in the Lessons plans, as well as others that my be helpful.
PowerPoint Presentations:
Lesson Five - Souther Culture
Lesson Six - Portrayal of Blacks in Film
Lesson Eight - Causes of the Civil War
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
African Americans in Visual Media
Blacks in Film
Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes in Film and Literature
Civil War - Reconstruction to 1877
The Klu Klux Klan
Tolerance and the KKK
The Multimedia Resources are for educational purposes only and should not
be duplicated.
Community Resources
These groups and
organizations can
help you to learn
more about this
topic.
University Musical Society
University of Michigan
Burton Memorial Tower
881 N. University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1011
(734) 615-0122
umsyouth@umich.edu
www.ums.org
Ann Arbor Chapter of The Links, Inc.
contact: Barbara Meadows
(734) 677-4422
email: tmeadows@umich.edu
University of Michigan Center for Afro-American
and African Studies
4700 Haven
505 S State St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
(734) 764-5513
caasinfo@umich.edu
contact: Elizabeth James
African American Cultural and Historical
Museum of Ann Arbor
1100 N Main Street, Suite 201-C
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 663-9348
contact: Letitia Byrd
Rebirth, Inc.
81 Chandler
Detroit, MI
(313) 875-0289
wenhajazz@aol.com
contact: Wendall Harrison
Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute
65 Cadillac Square
Suite 2200
Detroit, MI
(313) 965-0606
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
2990 E. Grand Boulevard
Detroit, MI
(313) 871-2087
Community Resources continued...
Title
Black Folk Arts, Inc.
4266 Fullerton
Detroit, MI 48238
313-834-9115
contact: Kahemba Kitwana
The Societie of Culturally Concerned
phone: (313) 864-2337
People’s Creative Ensemble
11000 W. McNichols, Ste. B-1,
Detroit, MI
(313) 862-2900
contact: Ron Jackson
Arts League of Michigan
phone: (313) 964-1670
Detroit Institute of Arts
5200 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, MI
(313) 833-7900
Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village
20900 Oakwood Blvd.
Dearborn, MI
(313) 271-1620
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
315 Warren Avenue
Detroit, MI
(313) 494-5800
Detroit Historical Museum
5401 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, MI
(313) 833-1805
John Freeman Walls Historic Site/Underground Railroad
Museum
Maidstone, Township
Ontario
(519) 258-6253 or (519) 971-7790
Holidays and Events
Send memos
from your
students to:
UMS Youth
Education
Burton Memorial
Tower
881 N. University
Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI
48019-1011
January
Martin Luther King Birthday Celebration: On January 15, this
national holiday is celebrated in and around the state of Michigan.
Please call (313) 336-1500 for further information.
February
African American Heritage Month: Detroit celebrates Black
History Month at virtually every cultural institution.
Check local media for events.
March
or email us at:
umsyouth.umich.edu
Salute to Distinguished Warriors: Each year, the Detroit Urban
League honors several individuals who have made outstanding
contributions the the casue of human and civil rights.
July
Afro-American Music Festival: Hart Plaza, Detoit. This event
occurs the third weekend in July and includes three days of
entertainment spanning trraditional African American music forms
as well as hip-hop, jazz, gospel and blues.
August
Celebration of Emancipation: Greenfield Village, Dearborn. This
weekend event in August features traditional music and
storytelling depicting struggles and triumphs of African-Americans
throughout US history as well as exhibits and reenactments fromthis
time period.
UMS Youth Education Season
September
17 12 am
Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, trumpet
27 4:30pm
Paul Taylor Dance Company: Dance is Art, Music and Storytelling
-Youth Performance, Hill Auditorium
-Performing Arts Teacher Workshop, WISD
October
4
4:30pm
Punch’s Progress: A Brief History of the Puppet Theater
8
11am
Paul Taylor Dance Company
For more
information or to
receive a brochure,
please call
734.615.0122 or
e-mail umsyouth
@umich.edu
-Youth Performance, Power Center
November
8
4:30pm
Arts Advocacy: You Can Make A Difference!
December
6
4:30pm
Race, Identity and Art: Getting Beyond the Discomfort of Talking
About “Normal” (Part One)
January
14 11am
Rebirth of a Nation, Paul Miller (DJ Spooky)
20 4:30pm
Facing Mekka: Hip Hop in Academic and Theatrical Context
-Performing Arts Teacher Workshop, Community High School
28 12am
Sphinx Competition
-Youth Performance, Rackham Auditorium
February
7
4:30pm
Story Songs for the Young Child
-Kennedy Center Teacher Workshop, WISD
11 11am
Rennie Harris Puremovement-Facing Mekka
17 4:30pm
Race, Identity and Art: Getting Beyond the Discomfort of Talking
About “Normal” (Part Two)
March
4
7
10am
12am
4:30pm
Dan Zanes and Friends
-Youth Performance, Rackham Auditorium
Malouma: The Culture, Dance and Music of Mauritania
April
8
11am
Malouma
-Youth Performance, Michigan Theater
May
23 4:30pm
Preparing for Collaboration: Theatre Games and Activities that
Promote Team-Building
26 4:30pm
Acting Right: Drama as a Classroom Management Strategy
Locations:
Community High School - 401 N. Division Street, Ann Arbor
Hill Auditorium - 888 N. University, Ann Arbor
Michigan League - 911 N. University, Ann Arbor
Michigan Theater - 603 E. Liberty, Ann Arbor
Power Center - 121 Fletcher, Ann Arbor
WISD (Washtenaw Intermediate School District) - 1819 S. Wagner, Ann Arbor
Evening Performance Info
To purchase UMS
tickets:
Online
www.ums.org/tickets
By Phone
(734) 764-2538
DJ Spooky’s Rebirth of a Nation
Friday, January 14, 8pm
Power Center
D.W. Griffith’s monumental 1915 movie Birth of a Nation is considered both a
technical masterpiece of filmmaking and a highly controversial work due to its
racist content (it was used as a recruitment film for the Ku Klux Klan). Based
on Thomas Dixon’s anti-Black play The Clansman, the storyline exalts a White
“law-and-order” United States and is set during the American Civil War and
Reconstruction era. Paul Miller, best known under the moniker of “DJ Spooky
That Subliminal Kid,” makes his UMS debut with this compelling remix of the
silent classic, combining footage from Griffith’s film with other video imagery
projected on three giant screens, including performance footage of dance master
Bill T. Jones, and a pulsating live audio mix. Miller says, “The whole idea is to
break the film apart. Griffith was one of the masters of editing. So I am reediting his edit.” DJ Spooky’s uninhibited style and intellectual approach have
landed him on the cutting edge of the hip-hop world. He has written novels and
articles for major papers, has exhibited his visual art at the Whitney Biennial and
the Andy Warhol Museum, and is one of the most popular DJs on the New York
circuit.
Additional Options for Teens
in half-price
tickets for
evening UMS
performances
may read about
this special offer at
www.ums.org
/education
04/05
ums teen rush ticket coupon
experience the world’s best live music, dance and theater in your own backyard
The University Musical
Society (UMS) is a
performing arts presenter
on the University of
Michigan campus that
brings professional
performing artists to the
area to perform. We host
everything from dance
troupes to jazz musicians,
theater companies to
world famous opera
singers all right here in
Southeastern Michigan.
WH AT I S U M S ?
Teens interested
In response to the needs of our teen audience members, the University Musical
Society has implemented the Teen Rush Ticket Coupon program. The coupons
may be downloaded from our web site at www.ums.org/education and can be
used to purchase tickets for any evening performance at half the price! See the
copy of our coupon below.
Check out UMS for
half the price!
Rush Tickets are sold to high school students for 50% off the
published ticket price 90 minutes before every UMS performance. These
tickets are only available if the performance is not sold out. Tickets may
be purchased in person at the performance hall ticket office, but plan to
get there early, because tickets go fast! You can also get a ticket in advance at the Michigan League for $10 the day of the show between 9am5pm. The student must be present and have a student ID.
Call our box office at 734-764-2538 to check ticket availability.
The fine print...
Bring your student ID and this coupon to the performance hall ticket office the night of the
show. This coupon is good for ONE 50% off ticket, subject to availability. Seating is at the
discretion of the UMS ticket office personnel.
for our full season and more information, visit
student name
school
email
Send Us Your Feedback!
UMS wants to know what teachers and students think about this Youth Performance.
We hope you’ll send us your thoughts, drawings, letters or reviews.
UMS Youth Education Program
Burton Memorial Tower • 881 N. University Ave. • Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1011
(734) 615-0122 phone • (734) 998-7526 fax • umsyouth@umich.edu
Download additional copies of this study guide
throughout the 2004-2005 season!

Rebirth of a Nation - University Musical Society

Transcription

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