August 10 – 13

ROOT
Written & Performed by
Vanessa German
Directed by Heather Arnet

Back by popular demand after being featured as a Monday Night Special last summer. With just a few props and tens of thousands of words, spoken word poet/artist Vanessa German transports her audience from 1980s LA,  to MLK’s Memphis, to present day drug ravaged Juarez, before storming back to Katrina battered New Orleans. Driven by the musicality and rhythm of poetry and jazz, and using the Mississippi River as a guide, ROOT explores the different ways that we use art, words, dance, and music to stay alive. Director Heather Arnet, working with a talented team of video and sound designers, layers light and sound to create a visual landscape for German’s words.

Vanessa German is a multidisciplinary artist based in Pittsburgh, Pa. Sculptor, performance artist, actress, playwright and designer, vanessa has performed and exhibited throughout the country. she has written and performed several evening length productions including,“root”, a spoken word opera which has been performed at the August Wilson Center’s First Voice Festival, The African American Music & Theatre Festival at the Vineyard Playhouse, and the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater.  vanessa’s next spoken word operetta, “love poem 4 water”,  will be performed at the Pittsburgh branch of  the American Jewish Museum, as part of the exhibition, “Too Shallow For Diving.”  vanessa’s sculptural work is in galleries, museums and collections nationwide, including the David C. Driskell Center, and IP Stanback Museum, and The Progressive Collection, one of the Nation’s preeminent corporate contemporary art collections. vanessa’s work will be touring with African American Art 1950-Present, produced by The Smithsonian Institution and The University of Maryland, opening in the fall of 2012.