Slave Moth by Thylias Moss

December 2nd, 2009 § 2

http://www.vimeo.com/7797154

A unique interpretation by video installation artist Cynthia Pachikara of a section from Moss’s book-length poem.

Named by Black Issues as the best poetry book of 2004, this is the astonishing story of a slave girl in the antebellum South. This critically acclaimed verse-novel follows the unforgettable Varl, a slave on a plantation in Tennessee, on her path to freedom. Wise beyond her years and wildly creative, Varl must choose between the only life she’s known—her Mamalee, her friends (especially her beloved Dob), the farmland she’s explored since childhood—and her growing need for self-determination. Standing in her path, waiting to quash her spirit, is her master, the cunning Peter Perry, “a collector of rare things” who aims to add Varl herself to his perverse assortment of oddities. With Slave Moth, Thylias Moss shows herself yet again to be “a visionary storyteller” (Charles Simic). Written in gorgeous verse, it is an explosion of life in the face of servitude.

This adaptation is titled “My Master is a Collector.” Basically, a professional actor got to do what kids are always told not to do at the movies: stand in front of the projector and make shadows on the screen.

This project was an “extruded cinematic event” for the Ann Arbor International Film Festival. With the frontally oriented architecture in mind, the work attempted to make the audience attentive of not only the projected image before them but also the projection event initiated behind them. [...] As an actor’s gestures were thrown over the viewer’s shoulder and onto the screen (as shadows), the poet read live from the balcony. Collaborators included Marianetta Porter, Terri Sarris, Frank Pahl, and Anstead Moss.

§ 2 Responses to “Slave Moth by Thylias Moss”