The Fire Seminar (recordings from the black and blue library)
Brandon LaBelle

Saturday, July 15 / 21:00 – 24:00

Mamuta Art and Media Center, Hansen House
Gedaliahu Alon 14
Jerusalem, Israel
http://mamuta.org/

Staged as a collective listening session, The Fire Seminar takes place in the back garden of the Hansen House and is centered on the building of a fire. Utilizing a modified oil drum along with prepared and found materials, The Seminar is a performative situation aimed at reflecting upon states of dispossession and creative survival.

Guiding The Fire Seminar will be the playback of a collection of audio recordings and documents culled from the Black and Blue Library and amplified through a sound system. From Blind Willie McTell and Ella Fitzgerald to Memphis Slim and Louis Armstrong, the project of the Blues can be heard as an audible catalogue of the beaten, the forlorn, the libidinal and the resilient, forming a rich and complex narrative of lyrical redemption and threadbare celebration. As Fred Moten suggests, the black poetic tradition is one of deep resourcefulness and creative improvisation, which mobilizes the logic of loss toward new states of self-possession and collective determination. By punctuating the night with a blaze of fire, The Seminar draws out the Blues as a particular audibility, one flushed with traditions of oral culture, musical soul and sonic intensity, and that may compel a passionate listening.