ANYWHERE, USA
A love letter to how I learned to love the bomb and Putin’s full tilt return to the Cold War..
Forty years ago today . . . four years before the fall of the Berlin wall and six years before the fall of the Soviet Union, Antenna Theater performed RUSSIA at the Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, NY.
The performance, directed by Chris Hardman, was a collaboration featuring masked performers, image projection, and sound. Ronald M. Davis created a nine-projector slide show synchronized to a soundtrack of interviews, actuality, and music composed and performed by myself, Jim McKee, and Barney Jones. Costume design was by Sherry Charles, and the stage performers included Jess Curtis, Annie Hallatt, Ed Holmes, and Brenda Munnell.
The play followed Jim, a father and WWII veteran, and his witnessing of his daughter Lilly coming of age. The soundtrack used a collage of Cold War metaphors to express his anxiety about his daughter entering the real world. The story was largely told through interviews and second-hand accounts, exploring folklore and myths about Russia, communism, nuclear catastrophe, and the psychological effects of the era.
Much of the original mythology about Russia and Cold War rhetoric stems from Red Scare McCarthyism. However, the themes of nuclear threat and the propagation of political propaganda, now exponentially amplified by social media, remain relevant today, especially given the current situation with Putin’s ongoing assault on Ukraine.
Here’s the opening 17 minutes of the piece. I’m working on getting a video that was taken at a performance at Project Artaud to syncronize with picture. Tape labeled 3/4/85 Monday Final Performance / 2/14/85 3/4″ Shoot copy