Asad Raza: 'Delegation' Performance

Cleveland Public Square to Old Stone Church

Following a procession from Cleveland Public Square to Old Stone Church led by Da Land Brass Band and Blakk Jakk Dance Collective to conclude our FRONT Opening Block Party, artist Asad Raza and various collaborators will perform a new musical composition that references indigenous oral traditions and culture

To create this new work, Asad Raza will lead a boat journey that will sail from Buffalo (his hometown) to Cleveland. On this journey, he and his collaborators will compose a piece of music for the Triennial. The composition will be provoked by the group's rhythmic journey over the waves, and inspired by the long-term custodians of this land and waterscape, the Seneca people--the westernmost tribe of Iroquois tribes, the Seneca's territory spans the area between Buffalo and Cleveland.

On arrival in Cleveland, the delegates will perform this song at the Old Stone Church and teach it to Clevelanders, including Triennial curators and staff. This song will become a musical leitmotif visitors encounter in different places, and learn to sing themselves.

While they are disparate in form, all the components of the project (boat trip, song, architecture, and video) relate to rhythmic journeys through space and time, journeys that bring certain moments from the past and present together, creating a resonance we hope will continue beyond the end of the exhibition. Musicians include LaToya Kent, Rafay Rashid, Shasti O'Leary Soudant, RA Washington, and more.

Asad Raza
Delegation, 2022
Boats, humans, musical instruments, celestial bodies
Duration varies

Musicians: RA Washington, LaToya Kent, Rafay Rashid, Andrea Mancuso, Olivier Delrieu-Schulze, Shasti O'Leary Soudant
Project coordinator: Marissa Leitman
Boat captains: Pierre Wallinder, Kurt Allen, Daniel C. Britt
Vessel: Flotante Baldado
Music producer: Anna von Raison