UPDATE: The Black (W)hole Film
The Black (W)hole is a healing, celebratory experience which mourns and honors the lives of six young people who died in and around Oakland before the age of 32. In lieu of the ten public performances and six site-specific installations originally planned to share this work with the Oakland community, The Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company and collaborating artists have remapped the course of The Black (W)hole project and are making a feature film, adapting to the exceptional circumstances of this time while staying grounded in the work’s original vision. The collaborators will use their art forms in this work of public ritual to respond to the past/ongoing loss of Black Lives in Oakland, set against a backdrop of gentrification displacing families and culture. They ask: “How do we remember the ghosts of the gone-too-soon… the young souls of a town in transition?”
Production took place summer 2020 under the direction of Sarah Crowell, Rashidi Omari, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Yoram Savion of YAKfilms, as well as Risa Jaroslow of the Elders Project. This work of healing, public ritual, and multidisciplinary art dedicated to the six Young Ghosts is guided by collaboration and conversation with their family members, and is supported by the talents of many visionary collaborators, including celebrated Oakland-based artist Brett Cook, choreographers from the vertical dance company BANDALOOP, lighting design by Jenny B of Shady Lady Lighting, and costume design by Angie Wilson. Follow @yoram.savion, @destinyartscenter, and #theblackwholefilm on Instagram to follow this process in real time.
The Black (W)hole is created with funding from a Hewlett Foundation 50 Arts Commission. Major funding also comes from Kenneth Rainin Foundation; Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation; The MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Dance/USA Fellowships to Artists, made possible with generous funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; The Betsy Gordon Foundation; and the National Endowment for the Arts. This activity is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov.