ON STAGE 2024
7NMS | Marjani Forté-Saunders and Everett Saunders, Prophet: The Order of the Lyricist
May 09, 20247:30 pm
May 10, 20247:30 pm
May 11, 20247:30 pm
The May 11 performance includes a conversation and Q&A with the artists post-performance, and Audio Description and CART captioning.
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About the Performance
A multi-genre storytelling project about the life journey of a lyricist, Prophet: The Order of the Lyricist illuminates the distinctive practices, systems, philosophies, and political ideologies that have shaped hip-hop’s emcees and lyricists. Combining craft, prose, oration, and exposé, the work presents the coming-of-age story of an emcee, immersing audiences in a world of courage, self-determination, and devotion. Using text, sound, film, and performance, Prophet stands as a critical and embodied offering to the scholarly, civic, and ancient bodies of radical Black expression.
The MCA’s presentation of Prophet, represents the culmination of a year of relationship-building with organizations, artists, and archives. It features audio clips from the Sun Ra Archive within the Experimental Sound Studio.
This performance is part of On Stage: Resonance, organized by Tara Aisha Willis, former Curator in Performance, with Laura Paige Kyber, Assistant Curator of Performance.
Run time: 60 min.
Stay after the May 11 performance for a conversation and Q&A with the artists, moderated by Tara Aisha Willis, Former MCA Curator of Performance.
Content Warning
This performance includes the use of theatrical haze and moving images projected throughout the space.
Ear plugs are available upon request for all performances. If you need wheelchair seating or have limited mobility, staff members are available to assist you.
Access Information
The Saturday, May 11, performance features Audio Description and CART captioning.
About the Artists
Operating in California and New York, 7NMS is the public emergence of Marjani Forté-Saunders and Everett Saunders’s work as a collaborative team, radically engaging art as a medium of elevation, healing, and futurity. With seven award-winning projects in the last 10 years, 7NMS totes a revolutionary commitment to Black radical imagination. Prophet is an awardee of the 2020 MAP Fund, the 2020 New Music USA Award, and the 2022[GS7] National Dance Project Production and Touring grant.
Marjani is a 2019 FCA Fellowship awardee, a three-time Bessie award winner, and an inaugural recipient of the Jerome Hill, Dance USA, and UBW Choreographic Center Fellowships. Everett is the composer and thought-partner behind the award-winning and internationally touring production Memoirs of a … Unicorn and a two-time New Music USA Awardee. His recent work can be found as composer/sound designer on Jaamil Kosoko’s Chameleon, Mayfield Brooks’s Whale Fall, and Urban Bush Women’s Hair & Other Stories (2018).
While 7NMS incubated Prophet during Fall 2020 and Winter 2021 residencies in newly erected home studios, 7NMS also worked in close collaboration with co-visionaries d. Sabela grimes (movement composer and sound archivist), Meena Murugesan (filmmaker and media designer), and Marc Winston (photographer), to produce Prophet’s latest filmic iteration, commissioned by dance center Jacob’s Pillow.
Content advisory: this program contains loud sounds and moving images.
Program Notes
Related Content
Hear from Laura Paige Kyber, Assistant Curator of Performance, about the 7NMS performance Prophet: The Order of the Lyricist.
Subscribe to MCA NOW for more podcasts from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Funding
Lead support for the 2023–24 season of MCA Performance and Public Programs is provided by Elizabeth A. Liebman.
Generous support is provided by Ginger Farley and Bob Shapiro, Martha Struthers Farley and Donald C. Farley, Jr. Family Foundation, N.A., Trustee; Susan Manning and Doug Doetsch; Carol Prins and John Hart/The Jessica Fund; and an anonymous donor.
Additional generous support is provided by Diane Kahan and Anne L. Kaplan.
The MCA is a proud member of the Museums in the Park and receives major support from the Chicago Park District.