What began as a one-man present — The Battle Shirt, starring actor-dancer Michael Downey and directed by artist Rod Lathim — has advanced a step additional into a brand new documentary.
The Battle Shirt: A Dialogue with the Ancestors, a regionally created and nurtured challenge that embraces and explores Native American and African American cultural traditions and historical past, can have its world premiere on Tuesday, September 19, at 7:30 p.m. on the Marjorie Luke Theatre. The screening of the 45-minute documentary might be free to the general public and open-captioned, with the dwell post-film parts of the night together with signal language interpretation.
An achieved neon sculpture artist who has had artwork displays in Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, Nashville, and New York Metropolis, Santa Barbara–born Lathim based Entry Theatre in 1979. He met Downey in 1981, when Lathim employed him to choreograph Stage Struck, an unique musical he was co-creating and directing on the time.
The play The Battle Shirt, which Downey carried out final yr and is presently streaming as part of the Marjorie Luke Digital Live performance Sequence, is the story of Downey’s life journey centering on his relationship along with his late father. Downey and his father skilled a profound and fantastic closure to their relationship on the final evening of his father’s life. After he died, Downey realized that he wanted to share his expertise with others, therefore the creation of The Battle Shirt.
Downey’s father was an African American man who strongly embraced and recognized with the Native American influences which can be in his household. “Michael Downey and I have been compelled to inform the story of how the play was developed, and the way his ancestors performed a task within the play and the event of this movie,” mentioned Lathim.
Downey mentioned he felt just like the manufacturing of the play, in addition to the documentary, was being guided by invisible fingers that cleared a pathway, as if he have been being propelled ahead by one thing a lot bigger than he was. Regardless that Downey was advised by Lathim that the movie would possible take a unique path from what they envisioned, it picks up from the place the play ended and continues Downey’s private journey into self-discovery.
Within the play, there’s a line that claims, “I need to dwell in a world the place current actuality communes with historical past and generates an enlightened future.” Because the movie focuses on Native American and African American cultural custom and historical past, Downey desires folks to remove that custom and historical past reside influences that have an effect on our circumstances within the current.
“I feel that the downfall of humanity is that we are inclined to act on our current conditions with out fastidiously acknowledging the previous influences which have created these circumstances,” mentioned Downey. “This type of shortsightedness tends to scale back our consciousness of who we actually are and the way we’re related to others.”
Lathim would really like the movie to encourage folks to embrace their ancestors and the function that they play in shaping life within the bodily world. “In as we speak’s world, I consider it’s critically necessary to be taught from historical past and never repeat previous errors,” mentioned Lathim.
