Some Restless Circus On “Sonny’s Blues” (by James Baldwin) by John Cage

Poster for Some Reckless Circus on James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues

Recent Event:
Duderstadt Center Video Studio
Digital Music Ensemble, University of Michigan

Performance given in 17 parts all determined textually, sonically, and visually by the score “Circus On” by John Cage (©1979 Peters Edition).  The text chosen for this performance is “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, a short story Baldwin wrote in 1956.  
 
The score indicates ways of extracting text, sounds and actions from a pre-existent text (poetry or story or book).  This approach was adapted theatrically by Stephen Rush for the first known theatrical performance of Circus On – although John Cage was known to do previous “Circus On”s as live radio plays. 

Stephen Rush, Director
James Benjey, Assistant Director
Jacques Mersereau, Technical Director
Maddie Vassolo, Stage Manager

Seating is very limited, but overflow seating will be provided in Design Lab 2, where the performance will be live streamed.