As Billie Holiday sings: The same ole story, but it’s new to me.... Using music, text, projection, and video, Past Tense is a performance/lecture that takes audiences on a deep dive into the enduring significance of Sophocles’ iconic Antigone and her profound relevance to our contemporary moment. Featuring singers Eisa Davis, Alicia Hall Moran, and Imani Uzuri, and musicians Hamiet Bluiett, Graham Haynes, Yayoi Ikawa, and Juliette Jones, Past Tense’s origins lie in Weems’ powerful work Grace Notes. Weems says, “While working on Grace Notes for months it occurred to me that I was telling the story of Antigone, wherein an innocent man dies by unjustified means and his sister fights for the right to bury him honorably. But the wider community refuses her; her right to justice, and to peace, is denied.” Past Tense premiered on the opening night of the Onassis Festival NY 2016 at the Onassis Cultural Center New York.
Using photography, video, installation, and performance, Carrie Mae Weems has built an expansive and layered body of work that explores themes of family dynamics, gender identity, race, class, and politics. While her practice engages with a broad range of social and cultural issues, Weems remains deeply focused on helping viewers understand the present by confronting the narratives of our shared past.
Past Tense has a modernist aesthetic of clean, spare staging with singers representing a Greek chorus on a small, raised platform and Weems at a clear, Lucite lectern with startling imagery projected on a screen behind them conveying the risk of an encounter between authority figures and citizens who are fervent in their sense of morality. This powerful piece explores themes of social justice, escalating violence, gender relations, politics, and personal identity within the context of contemporary history—recurrent subjects in Weems’ practice.
2019
UMS, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI) | Center for the Art of Performance, UCLA (Los Angeles, CA) | Grace Farms (New Canaan, CT)
2018
Miami Dade College (Miami, FL)
2016
Onassis Festival (NYC)
Writer and Director: Carrie Mae Weems
Music Director: Craig Harris
Costume Designer: Abby Lutz
Video Artists: Carrie Mae Weems, James Wang
Production Manager and Lighting Designer: Brendon Boyd
Produced by: THE OFFICE performing arts + film
Artist: Carrie Mae Weems
Vocalists: Francesca Harper, Alicia Moran Hall, Imani Uzuri
Poet: Carl Hancock Rux
Dancer: David Parker
Musicians: Eddie Allen (Bass), Calvin Jones (Trumpet), Adam Klipple (Keyboards), James Brandon Lewis (Saxophone), Tony Lewis (Drums)
