The series of scenes, monologues, songs, and dance performances were filmed on campus this fall and will stream at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9, and Saturday, Oct. 10, on the performing arts department's Facebook and Vimeo accounts.
An idea in gestation for years but given urgency in the renewed national movement for racial justice this summer has become “The Moment,” the first all-Black cabaret from Elon’s Department of Performing Arts.
The show’s 13 pieces include singing, dancing, scenes and monologues, centering Blackness in a traditionally white realm and reclaiming some artistic forms, says Kamal Lado, a senior BFA music theatre major and the show’s artistic director.
“It’s a love letter to Blackness from Black folks,” Lado said.
“The Moment” emerges as a collection of filmed performances that will stream at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9, and Saturday, Oct. 10, through the Department of Performing Arts’ Facebook and Vimeo accounts. Visit elonperformingarts.com for links.
Lado, students Hannah Hubbard ’22, Kevin Lacey ’21, Zion Middleton ’22 and Jaelyn Alexander ’21, and another 25 members of the cast and crew — including students in the Master of Arts in Interactive Media program — created the show to “deconstruct, rebuild and transform performing arts.” They hope it will prompt questions about the nature of artforms that have excluded or tokenized actors who are Black or of color.
“It’s centered on the idea that (Black performers) can do it all and that we contain multitudes. We are not bound by this box that the performing arts puts us in,” Lado said. “We still have so few fully developed and realized characters that encompass the holistic nature of the Black community, that allow us to sit with the truth of being Black in America. There’s grief and pain that comes with that, but there’s also so much joy and life and beauty in the Black community.”
Since at least Lado’s first year at Elon, students in the performing arts department had contemplated an all-Black production. The killing of George Floyd this spring and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement led to momentum around the idea. Music Theatre Director Julio Matos Jr. encouraged the performance and blocked time in the department’s production schedule.
“As artists, we felt we had to say something about this,” Lado said.
Lado and student directors spent the summer choosing pieces and forming a vision. J McMerty, Elon in Los Angeles director and assistant professor of cinema and television arts, served as a faculty advisor and enlisted volunteers from Elon’s iMedia program to film and edit “The Moment.” McMerty praised Lado’s and students’ dedication to the project. “Their talent is over-the-top,” McMerty said. “Kamal really has just directed their first feature film.”
“There’s the feeling that this is the right thing to be doing at the right time,” McMerty said. “It’s a remarkable thing they’ve done during a global pandemic, during social upheaval on our campus, in our country and in our community.”
Lado wants the campus community and people of color to find resonance in the performances.
“There was a moment when we finished filming and I was watching the dailies with my friend. I have always seen them authentically, but I’ve also seen them as other people see them, as this idea of them. In the context of “The Moment,” this is one of the few times they and everyone else involved can fully be themselves authentically and creatively without a white gaze on them.
“I want my community to get catharsis in this.”
Updates, bonus features and more information are available on the production’s Instagram account – @elonthemoment.