The Sun Ra Repatriation Project (excerpt): Kapwani Kiwanga

Kapwani Kiwanga

Kapwani Kiwanga is an artist and filmmaker. Her documentary, video, installation and sound works explore the intimacies of the human condition in relation to historical, social and political forces.

With a varied background in the audiovisual fields Kapwani Kiwanga has produced work for radio, television and the Internet. Kapwani Kiwanga’s work has been shown internationally on television, at film festivals, in galleries and art centres.

In previous works Kapwani Kiwanga has used documentary to explore the interiority of individuals and communities situated on society’s periphery. Bon Voyage (Colour Video, sound, 3', 2004) is a portrait of one woman in her workplace: the toilets of Paris’ Montparnasse train station. Rooted (Colour Video, sound, 24’, 2004) is a documentary that explores identity in contemporary Scotland through the patrons of black hair salons and their clients.

Kiwanga’s interest in social-political issues guides her current exploration of a formal dialogue between; documentary and fiction cinema, performance and installation.

The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was initiated in 2008 and fashions a system of interplanetary communication to ensure Sun Ra’s return home. This video documents the project’s activities. Kapwani travels to the United States and France to meet experts and scientist to help in the endevour. France’s national police create a composite portrait from video testimonies of those who knew Sun Ra. The composite sketch is then sent into deep space on May 16 2009. A radiotelescope in California observes Saturn for any possible extraterrestrial radio transmissions from Sun Ra. Meetings with experts at the Observatoire de Paris and the NASA-associated: Jet Propulsion Lab, articulate the astronomical aspects of the project.

Sun Ra was an American musician, composer, and poet who affirmed his extraterrestrial origin. On May 16, 2009 The Sun Ra Repatriation Project sent a composite portrait of Sun Ra into deep space.

The installation acts as an observation centre in which one awaits a cosmic sign from Sun Ra. The sounds heard in the installation are a mix of three VLF (very low frequency) sources obtained from space in realtime.

A dot matrix printer continuously records the incoming signals while a video in an adjoining room relates the project’s previous activities.

via

Sun Ra and Henry Dumas - The Ark and the Ankh (rec. 1966)

Writer Henry Dumas and Sun Ra forged a close bond in the mid-1960s when they were residing in New York. This collaborative effort centers on commentary by Sun Ra on a number of social, political and historical issues.

Fascinating, lyrical, poetic and dramatic, the outlooks and opinions of Sun Ra remain timely and urgent. The meeting of the educator and the writer yielded an important project that allows the rays from the genius of Sun Ra to glow upon those who listen to the lectures. 

Amazon review

 

Henry Dumas - The Metagenesis of Sunra
(click below to read the story.  Watch it full screen!)

The Dual Change - Everything is Space - Sun Ra Poem

Sun Ra often incorporated his philosophy musings into the Arkestra's live performances; sometimes this presentation took the form of 'traditional' song lyrics, other times he spoke at length over the band's vamp, creating spontaneous sermons that we like to call 'declamations.'  Below are the words to Ra's poem, The Dual Change.  I invite you to read them as you stream three very different recitations of the verse recorded several years apart from each other.

First is the 1974 version released as There Is Change In The Air on Sun Ra's LP, The Antique Blacks.  In this performance, the poem is initially recited in its entirety; afterward, portions are spoken between musical passages.

The second performance of the poem, The Dual Change, is culled from the 1989 release, Somewhere Else, and is entitled Everything Is Space.  In this recording,  the poem is recited over a decidedly different arrangement.

 

Finally, a concert performance from New Years 1980/81 during the Detroit Residency.  In this reading, Arkestra members recite the poem without musical accompaniment.  This particular performance of the poem comes between 'Saturn Rings' and 'Fate in a Pleasant Mood.'

The Dual Change

Things change . . .
There is always change in the air . . . . . .
But the change is different now
 From any ever felt before . . . . . .
 The music is listening and waiting
  While sounding sounds of terrible silence . .
     Didn't you hear the silence lately?
Music is silence too . . . . . . .
They cannot stop the silence;
  They cannot compel the silence to cease . . . . .
They do not know yet
How loud the silence can become!
  There is always change in the air . . .
   But there is a different spirit in the wind . .
    A bold and daring soul from somewhere there:
      Somewhere out and yon!
It is even beyond the time . . . . .
Time is:
. . . . . . . Never-no-more . . . . . . . .
Everything is space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .It is the space of the dual change.
The street is no longer a street . . . . . . . . . . .
 It is the highway of the world.
              There is change in the air!
 Do you not hear the heavy silence there?
It is the double space of dual change . . . . . . .
The spirit wind is in the air:
It hovers above the street no longer there . .
   The street: A highway widened fare . . . . . . .
The emergency decreed it thus . . . . .
 All at once, it was seen:

       The road . . . the people  . . . . .
The wrong direction there . . .
    It is the right road . . . .
They are going the wrong direction there!
Some of the must turn and go the other way:
The arrow points to pointlessness . . pointlessness.
              A two-way street affair . . . . .
        An alter never-[no-]* more-again . . . . . . . . .
  The people and the leaders walk hand in hand . . .
   They were on the right road all the time . . .
   But now there is no time . . . . . . .
     That is why they have to turn
        And walk the opposite-alter-way.
             They must go
          To the place of space
       For the celebration of the dual change.

                      . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sun Ra - The Immeasurable Equation
The Collected Poetry and Prose compiled and edited by James L. Wolf and Hartmut Geerken
Waitawhile (2005)
pp 142, 143