Reviewed by:

• Watch Night by Marc Bamuthi Joseph
• Sonja Arsham Kuftinec

Where are we? A marbled cube of cultural life in lower Manhattan, Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) rises luminous and opaque across from the 9/11 Memorial site. There, in the footprints of the Twin Towers, two voids sink into concrete through layers of trade history. That memorial, Reflecting Absence, is designed to stop business-as-usual, to prompt meditation on collective loss. Yet the memorial, alongside the genre-defying performance of Watch Night that took place in November 2023, prompts difficult questions. Whose violent deaths do we choose to remember and how? For PAC NYC’s inaugural season, Artistic Director Bill Rauch commissioned choreographer Bill T. Jones and spoken-word artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph to create a piece that reckoned with racialized violence. Rooted in multiple perspectives and genres, Watch Night wrestled with conundrums that refuse easy resolutions.

In its very title, Watch Night pays homage to a dialectic of enslavement and liberation. The historical Watch Night, New Year’s Eve 1862, anticipated emancipation, marking both prophetic release and weighty reflection. Jones and Joseph’s composition draws on these energies while inquiring still further into the nature of forgiveness and redemption amid Super/Natural energies and a shifting Echo Chamber Chorus. In this way, Watch Night resists easy categorization. In part, the piece reflects on the dual tragedies of racially motivated slaughter in sacred spaces: the 2015 murder of congregants at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston and the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Yet Watch Night is not a documentary account. The congregations are fictionalized, and we are led through the events of the piece by a flawed Black Jewish journalist as well as a lone white Wolf. The dramaturgy moves forward in time while also being pulled into memory. Scenes split, echo, repeat. There are beats of story as well as percussive pulses of energy. Ostinatos and choreographic returns. Jones defines himself as a postmodern artist, concerned less with narrative cohesion than with the rigorous play of ideas in a form that embraces classical opera, everyday movement, and displays of hip-hop-inspired virtuosity. Joseph is a spoken-word artist who self-identifies as a “code surfer” rather than a code-switcher. In his libretto, references to the “Parable of the Sower” point to the Book of Matthew as well as to Black futurist author Octavia Butler. When these artists dance together, perspectives multiply. Locations keep shifting.

Where are we?

I was disoriented before even encountering the stage. The Perelman spaces are designed to be redesigned in over sixty possible configurations with no clear center. Guided by cheerful docents, I moved up a string of narrow stairs into the Zuccotti Theater, stepping over torn fragments of newspapers and flyers for rallies. The ripped headlines foretold not just an event, but the act of storytelling itself: What makes the news? How is it arranged and reconfigured? The stage setting (designed by Adam Rigg) felt congregational yet nonspecific: sacred space sketched in outlines of red neon windows backing an audience divided by a bare wooden stage. The space felt open yet looming. Custodians entered, sweeping up the newspaper and flyers. The lights dimmed, and the Custodians opened into song—a haunting lament that ripped through the space. It was now I who was swept away. In the program notes, composer Tamar-kali refers to the body as a vessel for sacred sound. But the voice of Ken Alston, Jr. moved in a soprano range that didn’t seem to fit his towering physique. I was again disoriented. Awed. Where am I? In a grief that seemed at once to riff on the Bible and Coltrane: “a hate supreme.”

Watch Night incorporated a variety of storytelling modes: spoken-word riffs, scenic dialogues, arias, dance movements—often juxtaposed. Characters were introduced in ways that are direct (Josh the journalist) as well as social and poetic: a pastor (Winters), a teacher (Ms...

 审阅者：

• 
  观看马克·巴穆蒂·约瑟夫 (Marc Bamuthi Joseph) 的《夜晚》
•  索尼娅·阿尔沙姆·库夫蒂内克

我们在哪里？佩雷尔曼表演艺术中心 (PAC NYC) 是曼哈顿下城文化生活的大理石立方体，明亮而不透明地矗立在 9/11 纪念馆对面。在那里，在双子塔的足迹中，两个空隙通过层层贸易历史沉入混凝土中。这座名为“反思缺席”的纪念碑旨在停止一切照旧，促使人们对集体损失进行思考。然而，这座纪念馆与 2023 年 11 月举行的反流派表演《守望之夜》一起，引发了一些棘手的问题。我们选择记住谁的暴力死亡以及如何记住？在 PAC NYC 的首个演出季中，艺术总监 Bill Rauch 委托编舞 Bill T. Jones 和口语艺术家 Marc Bamuthi Joseph 创作一部涉及种族暴力的作品。 《Watch Night》植根于多种视角和流派，致力于解决难以简单解决的难题。

《守望之夜》的标题就向奴役与解放的辩证法致敬。历史性的守夜之夜，即 1862 年除夕夜，预示着解放，既标志着预言的释放，也标志着重大的反思。琼斯和约瑟夫的作品利用了这些能量，同时进一步探究了超级/自然能量和不断变化的回声室合唱团中宽恕和救赎的本质。通过这种方式，《守望之夜》无法被轻易分类。在某种程度上，该作品反映了神圣空间中出于种族动机的屠杀的双重悲剧：2015 年查尔斯顿伊曼纽尔非洲卫理公会教堂的会众被谋杀，以及 2018 年匹兹堡生命之树犹太教堂的屠杀。然而《守望之夜》并不是一部纪录片。集会是虚构的，我们在一位有缺陷的黑人犹太记者和一只孤独的白狼的带领下经历了这篇文章的事件。戏剧在时间上向前推进，同时也被拉入记忆。场景分裂、回响、重复。有故事的节拍，也有冲击力的能量脉冲。固定音型和编舞回归。琼斯将自己定义为一名后现代艺术家，他不太关心叙事的凝聚力，而是以一种包含古典歌剧、日常动作和嘻哈风格精湛技艺的形式对思想进行严格的发挥。约瑟夫是一位口语艺术家，他自认为是“代码冲浪者”，而不是代码转换者。在他的剧本中，对“播种者的寓言”的提及指向《马太福音》以及黑人未来主义作家奥克塔维亚·巴特勒。当这些艺术家一起跳舞时，观点会倍增。地点不断转移。

 我们在哪里？

还没上舞台我就迷失了方向。佩雷尔曼空间旨在以六十多种可能的配置进行重新设计，没有明确的中心。在兴高采烈的讲解员的引导下，我爬上一串狭窄的楼梯进入祖科蒂剧院，踩过撕碎的报纸碎片和集会传单。撕碎的头条新闻不仅预示着一个事件，而且预示着讲故事的行为本身：新闻是由什么组成的？它是如何安排和重新配置的？舞台布景（由 Adam Rigg 设计）给人一种集体但不具体的感觉：红色霓虹灯窗户勾画出神圣的空间，后面的观众被光秃秃的木制舞台隔开。这个空间感觉开放又隐约可见。管理员进来，清理报纸和传单。灯光暗下来，守护者们开始唱起歌来——一首令人难以忘怀的哀歌，撕裂了整个空间。现在是我被卷走了。在节目说明中，作曲家塔玛卡利将身体称为神圣声音的容器。但小肯·奥尔斯顿的女高音音域似乎不适合他高大的体格。我再次迷失了方向。敬畏。我在哪里？悲伤的情绪似乎立即重复了《圣经》和科尔特兰的说法：“一种至高无上的仇恨。”

《观看之夜》融合了多种讲故事的模式：口语连复段、情景对话、咏叹调、舞蹈动作——通常是并置的。人物的介绍方式既直接（记者乔什），又社交和诗意：牧师（温特斯），老师（女士……）