The Wooster Group
Get Your Ass In The Water and Swim Like Me
novembernov 6 – 10
© Bruce Jackson ©
© Bruce Jackson ©
© Bruce Jackson ©
Friday november 6
22h
Saturday november 7
21h
Sunday november 8
18h
Monday november 9
22h
Tuesday november 10
22h
Concept and creation The Wooster Group and Eric Berryman. Direction Kate Valk. With Eric Berryman and Jharis Yokley (drums). Set design Elizabeth LeCompte. Sound design Eric Sluyter. Video Irfan Brkovic, Andrew Maillet and Yudam Hyung Seok Jeon. Lighting design Marika Kent. Sound and video technician Matthias Neckermann. Lighting operation David Sexton. Assistant director Michaela Murphy. Technical direction Tavish Miller. Production management Aaron Amodt. Production Monika Wunderer.
Production The Wooster Group
A co-commission developed in part during a residency at Texas Performing Arts at the University of Texas, Austin. The development of this piece is supported by Antonia & David Belt; Tom Shapiro; John C. Depp II & Bruce Jackson, in memory of Slim Wilson.
Performances at La Commune, centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers, as part of the Festival d’Automne à Paris, are supported by the AJT Fund, Cécile Winckler and The Frankie Shop.
La Commune, Centre Dramatique National d’Aubervilliers and the Festival d’Automne à Paris present this performance in corealisation.
With the support of
Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me, by The Wooster Group, with Eric Berryman, directed by Kate Valk, is a celebration of the Black-American tradition of toasts.
Toasts have always historically been narrative poems of a raw kind—lively, arresting, full of biting humour and plays on words. First coming into existence on the fringes of North-American society, they mainly travelled back and forth black males living in downtrodden neighbourhoods, passed on via word of mouth, from one generation to the next. Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me takes its inspiration from one of the rare recordings of this rich, distinctive genre, in the form of an LP recorded by folklorist Bruce Jackson in the 1960’s. Eric Berryman, accompanied by drummer Jharis Yokley and a soundtrack, perform these classic toasts. In a re-working of a night-time radio station, they draw upon all of its bawdy energy and inviting rhythmic form. Like any good storyteller, Eric Berryman brings a healthy dose of himself to the stories he passes on.
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