If it was a movie, The Battle Hymn would be full of lap dissolves, moments when two things can be seen in one frame, one thing slowly becoming the other, one moment in time leading to another. I came to explore the wreck.Īdrienne Rich, “Diving into the Wreck,” 1973 We were not prepared, semiotically speaking, to read what was happening. A declaration of cruelty’s open season, signaled with a wink at the camera. Entertainment or real time disaster? Both? Neither? Things were as yet more heavily coded, merely implied. At the beginning, though, lest we forget, it was hard to know exactly what it was a moment of. And the moment turned into an era, as we know too well. The army general on stage, inciting the crowd, the crowd chanting back, do you see that? Yes, yes, I see it. These antagonisms, broadened to relay across national and historical scales, are the essence of The Battle Hymn.Īre you seeing what I’m seeing? A golden escalator ride, June 15, 2015. The Battle Hymn explores the current surge of authoritarian style in the United States of America. It is written and produced in the Pacific Northwest (Seattle and Portland), where hip urban green quickly runs to rural white populism, where Antifa and Patriot Prayer both thrive and incite one another, and where the meaning of the West is in perpetual, agonistic negotiation.
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