Strange Fruit Mention of the Day: Tomorrow (Jan 19th), PEAK Performances has announced a slate of five films to be released capturing live stage productions, with footage edited and directed by Alla Kovgan. Among them will be Donald Byrd and Spectrum Dance Theater's "Strange Fruit" performance, named for the anti-lynching song, which responds to racial terrorism in America.
"From Tony-nominated and Bessie-winning choreographer Donald Byrd and his Seattle-based company Spectrum Dance Theater, 'Strange Fruit' draws its title from the 1937 poem and song of the same name by Abel Meeropol and made famous by the great jazz singer Billie Holiday-which metaphorically address lynching as a tool of racial terrorism during the Jim Crow Era. For this dance/theater work, Byrd transforms these brutal facts into abstract, expressionist vignettes set to a score that samples music ranging from Negro spirituals to Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto's haunting Attack/Transition."
Read more here: https://www.broadwayworld.com/new-jersey/article/PEAK-Performances-to-R…