Terence Blanchard, Rennie Harris and Andrew F. Scott seek to remount and potentially rework their original collaboration that premiered in April 2019 at Dallas Symphony’s SOLUNA Festival, and also was presented at UT Austin, Arsht Center & Ordway Center. Instead of a project built in modules— Harris adapting movement from recordings of Blanchard and his band, as Andrew F. Scott did the same separately with imagery— the intention for the remount would be to bring together the band, the dance company and the video artists to create a jointly created work.

The original project, CARAVAN, brought together live musical performances by Blanchard and his band, The E-Collective, which is now comprised of Charles Altura on guitar, Julian Pollack on piano and synthesizers, Oscar Seaton on drums, and David “DJ” Ginyard on bass— choreography by Harris performed by his company Rennie Harris Puremovement, and Scott’s visual projections and projection mapping. The original project expanded upon the theme that Terence Blanchard began exploring a decade or more ago:

Responding to real life events stemming from racial tension and injustice, Blanchard and the E-Collective recorded an album, Live, in 2017. They recorded performances across America, visiting cities most affected by racial conflict by police and against police, including Cleveland, Dallas, Harlem and the Twin Cities. Feeling empowered by the strong emotional reaction from the audiences and recognizing the healing impact of his music on people, Blanchard decided to continue the conversation and engage more artists.

Terence Blanchard, Rennie Harris, and Andrew F. Scott teamed up to add a new dimension to the work Blanchard has done, to intensify and broaden out the artistic impact of Blanchard’s own music. Blanchard’s singular sound that simultaneously captures both the history of music and the cultural zeitgeist in every moment, synergistically interweaves with Harris’ approach to movement, which represents a kind of archaeology of the human spirit through the vernacular of African American dance styles. Scott’s conceptually based visual projections and installations, which are rooted in African and African American art and culture, seamlessly integrate into the overall artistic narrative.

The skeleton of the original work examined these larger societal issues— domestic violence, mass incarceration and gun control while the individual nuances of the stories reflect the life experiences of each artist and their thoughts and feelings about black lives in the 21st century.

In collaboration with RHPM, EFP seeks partners to remount this work for future performances.