![]() ![]() When asked during the Q&A about what he has lost as a diasporic person, he only could say, “So much.” The vastness and weight of those two words loomed over every other word he spoke that evening. He talked about a sense of dislocation from his Nigerian culture and the way in which he still lives in a state of flux. Ellams had already shared about his departure from Nigeria when he was 12, his time in boarding school, and racism he has experienced. ![]() That’s because of the context of the whole evening. But it was his Q&A with the audience (which is part of the show) that hit me hardest. ![]() He gave a little background for each piece, and it allowed him to play both charming raconteur as well as performance poet. When I saw the show, he read from a poem documenting 2020, a story set in a Nigerian college school, and an essay on Tupac Shakur. Ellams pulled out his iPad with all his writing in it, and, based on suggested words from the audience (the night I attended, the words were explosions, rice, train, investigation), would search and read something he’d written based on the prompt. But I was surprised how much I enjoyed Inua Ellams’s casual, suggestion-based show, Search Party (UTR). Stories of immigration and identity are not uncommon. Inua Ellams in “Search Party.” (Photo by Lawrence Sumulong) Let’s hope they live to see another year. These are the reasons these festivals exist. In 2024, I experienced audience interaction from the gentle to the abrasive, viewed works in multiple languages, and got a window into lives I have never seen onstage before. When the January weather gets bad, I often think, “My kingdom for a venue closer to my living room!” This year Prototype and Exponential did one better: They offered online show options, so that I was able to take in six additional shows in my living room. With shows all over town, I raced from Queens to Manhattan to Brooklyn to see 11 shows in person. (COIL and American Realness are still missed.) So it is with great relief that I can report: There was a festival season to talk about this year, even if this ecosystem seems more precarious every year. Meanwhile, Prototype and the Exponential Festival were already set to present opera and underground work, respectively. In June, it was announced that the Public Theater was putting the Under the Radar (UTR) festival on “hiatus.” As the largest in scale, UTR is often seen as the centerpiece of New York’s annual January festival season (which coincides with the Association of Performing Arts Professionals presenters conference), with the Public as its hub.īut UTR, and its artistic director Mark Russell, snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and made the festival happen in a decentralized way with the help of several arts organizations around town offering partnerships with UTR. For a moment, it felt like the 2024 January festival season might not happen at all. ![]()
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