From
the Marrow collects
nine ritual/jazz performance texts by Sharon Bridgforth, including lovve/rituals
& rage, no mo blues, dyke/warrior-prayers, blood pudding, con flama, love
conjure/blues, delta dandi, River See, and dat Black Mermaid
Man Lady/The Show. Rooted in blues and bristling with the voices of
ancestors, lovers, neighbors, aunties, mermaids, and friends, these texts
document a thirty-year practice of deep listening, collaboration, and
care.
Shapeshifting,
polyvocal, multi-gendered, genre-bending, nonlinear, Bridgforth’s writing
innovates form the way the ocean carves the coast: with sensuality, salty
humor, aching grief and rage, and with vast, various, and invariable
love. The volume, a historic gathering of Bridgforth’s texts, is also a
gathering of longtime collaborators, with witnessings by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Sonja Parks, Stacey Karen Robinson, Sonja Perryman, Omi Osun Joni L.
Jones, Nia Witherspoon, Stephanie L. Batiste, and Robbie McCauley.
- Sharon Bridgforth's dat Black Mermaid Man Lady/The Show is streaming on the Twin Cities’ PBS platform
- bull-jean/we wake will premiere in June 2023 at Pillsbury House + Theatre in Minneapolis as a performance installation directed by Daniel Alexander Jones.
