Cost of admission to incredible event: $10-20 sliding scale
Jazz Funeral procession: FREE
Supporting local arts and community: PRICELESS
Kaosmosis & Voodoo Doughnut Present:
HUEVOS DIABLOS
Rubber Chicken Voodoo Masquerade
"An Evening of White Sugar & Black Magic"
A FIRST FRIDAY BENEFIT FOR THE PORTLAND ART CENTER
Costumes welcomed or come as you are.
Kaosmosis is proud to collaborate with the newly hatched Portland Art Center and Voodoo Doughnut to bring you an evening of WHITE SUGAR and BLACK MAGIC, boiled in the Bayou and served on an open casket of... donuts! Beginning with a jazz funeral procession from Voodoo Doughnut (accompanied by Portland's Finest), the party continues on to the Bossa Nova with swampy big-brass musical performances, Brazilian acrobatics, soul-singing, dancing, after-hours live electronic wizardry, and a ceremony featuring Haitian drumming, opera, and tap-dance! As a celebration of the divine absurdity of life, death, and renewal, HUEVOS DIABLOS will take you deep into the chicken heart of the supernatural for an evening of magic, mischief, and mystery. The party is a fundraiser ($10-20 sliding scale admission), and the procession is free.
Friday, February 4th, 2005
Bossa Nova Ballroom
722 East Burnside
8pm - 4:30am $10-$20 sliding scale
ADVANCE TIX AVAILABLE AT:
La Rouge Boutique (3418 SE Hawthorne Blvd)
Phone# 503-230-8119
Metro (3525 SE Hawthorne Blvd)
Phone# 503-234-9667
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FEATURING:
JAZZ FUNERAL PROCESSION from Voodoo Doughnut (FREE). In light of the recent wave that has claimed thousands of lives (among them people we knew), we are kicking off Huevos Diablos with a "Port Orleans-style jazz funeral" to celebrate the lives of the deceased by singing and dancing in the street. While respecting the spirit of voodoo, we are attempting to create an uplifting experience that has at it's heart both humor and reverence. Attendees are encouraged to wear black & white attire, thematic costumes (characters, etc). We will be meeting at Voodoo Doughnut (22 SW 3rd) @ 8:30pm to amass. We will leave with police escort at 9pm SHARP, and proceed east across Burnside to Bossa Nova. The procession should take 20-30 minutes.
CREATURES from the BLACK LAGOON
(featuring members of MarchFourth Marching Band, The Dahoo Chorus, Soriah, Aaron Wheeler-Kay, & very special guests). A must-see musical jambalaya of gospel, soul, and Cajun funk, performing material by Professor Longhair, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Screaming' Jay Hawkins, and a few secret surprises! You won't want to miss the Rubber Chicken Voodoo ceremony half-way through the set.
CAPOEIRA REGIONAL DO BRASIL
An exciting combination of pulsating rhythms, soaring harmonies, hypnotic choreography, and acrobatic flourishes featuring the Puxada de Rede (the "fisherman's pulling of the net"), Maculele (a dance developed by the slaves in the sugar cane fields of Brazil) and the captivating art of Capoeira Regional. A unique celebration of Brazilian arts and culture!
SOLOVOX & AUDITORY SCULPTURE
Late-night live electronic wizardry from two of Portland's premier one-man bands, performing alone and together:
SOLOVOX
Portland's one-man electronica meltdown will provide a sonic marvel for the ears and body. Merging huge techno-meets-breakbeat sound with the melody, musicality and funk of classic rock and soul music... this performer gives it to you all live and with plenty of surprises. Bonus: Solovox will be premiering several new tracks for this evening!
AUDITORY SCULPTURE
The programming and production wizard behind DAHLIA and new hip-hop sensation SUCKAPUNCH, Auditory Sculpture (Keith Schreiner) will amaze with deft skill and mind-bending musical vision. Always searching for strangeness... and always with a unique sound, Auditory Sculpture's live performance will make the crowd move...and think!
TWO-WAY SMACKDOWN!
SOLOVOX and AUDITORY SCULPTURE will combine for an ALL-LIVE improvised set!
HENPECKER FASHION WALK-OFF
Immediately following the Creatures From The Black Lagoon, we will be having a fine-feathered fashion walk-off to give participants an opportunity to express their inner Voodoo persona and show off their costume finery. Come strut your stuff, and remember: the one who's most chicken wins!
CLOSING DJ: BRAD VACCHAL
for more information and important updates go to www.kaosmosis.org
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HUEVOS DIABLOS' BACKGROUND INSPIRATION:
Voodoo - the practice of worshiping fetishes believed to have supernatural powers - originated in the West African nations of Benin and Togo, but along with its unlucky adherents it was dragged across the Atlantic by the slave trade in the 18th century. Prominent on Haiti, Voodoo also has a chicken-foot-hold in New Orleans in the USA, where women from the Fon and Yoruba tribes introduced the practice. While not the evil, cannibalistic death cult of popular imagination and cheesy movies, Voodoo is all about spirits and the afterlife. Voodoo ceremonies fire up with plenty of chanting and frenzied dancing, before the houngan (priest) or mambo (priestess) becomes possessed by the spirit they have been summoning.
A NOTE ABOUT "VOODOO" FROM KAOSMOSIS:
Since the planning of this event, we have received feedback from a couple of people asking "is this a scary event?" Our answer is: "of course not!" While respecting the spirit of voodoo, we are attempting to once again create an uplifting experience that has at it's heart both humor and reverence. The "evening of white sugar and black magic" line used in our promotion was simply a very catchy phrase. If anything, our "black magic" comes only in the form of music and culture that we will be celebrating at the event; meaning that much of the music and performance featured at Huevos Diablos was written and originally performed by Afro-American, Haitian, and Brazilian artists.
The following excerpt is from a book "Vodou Visions" by Sallie Ann Glassman (apparently, "vodou" is an original spelling of the word "voodoo" as we call it today). While the following may come across as a little "new-agey" to some, we feel that it captures more of the essence of the event that we want, as opposed to the "evil" aspects often associated with voodoo. However, on a side note, there is nothing wrong with a little darkness, and usually our fear of it is actually where the power of transformation lies. Here's that excerpt:
"There is nothing that isn't vodou. Vodou encompasses the principle and rhythm of life itself. Spirit is a present reality. It flows in and around every act and expression of the universe. It fills all things: informs all life: is the spark of the Divine within all people. Anyone can approach Spirit, whoever, however , and whatever they are. You start with what you know, where you came from and then it grows. Voudo offers archetypal principles from which no one need be excluded. The truths that it offers are recognizable within the framework of human experience no matter where one is from, or what the color of one's skin is... Vodou is tolerant. It receives. It honors and respects us all as though we were gifts. It tell us that we are precious whoever we are...
Vodou is based on ancestor worship. We come into the Voudoun with a whole heritage in our DNA. Our bloodline and heritage are important. Where do you come from? What powers and strength were passed on to you though generations? It's also important to recognize whatever distorted baggage or crippling viewpoints were handed down. By accepting our heritage, it is realigned, balanced and made whole so that we can pass radiant power to subsequent generations. The seeds of future evolution are in us now . In the process of remembering, honoring and reinstating our ancestors, we find our place in our own heritage. A fine web radiates from us, back into mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and beyond memory of time, will the seeds of the future extend forward. As we approach the Voudoun as multi-dimensional beings with the legacy of the past in our bodies and with the seeds of the future in our intentions. As our place is found in history, the doors of time open and dissolve..."
A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO JAZZ FUNERALS:
Jelly Roll Morton's playing in and participation in jazz funerals marks not only their significance in New Orleans as a popular form of musical expression and culture, but also how these funerals played an integral part in the creation and development of jazz music. Jazz funerals follow a tradition of both white and black culture in New Orleans, Louisiana that focuses on the afterlife and accordingly celebrates the passing of the deceased. Both cultures have claims to the roots of the practice, and both continue the traditions that fostered jazz funerals. Through the course of a jazz funeral, the casket is first taken from a church or funeral parlor and then ushered to the gravesite. During this a band leads the procession slowly (Marsalis, 2) through the neighborhood on the way to the gravesite. Here the mood expressed by the band is somber, it performs hymns commonly sung in black Protestant churches (Marsalis, 2). The focus of the attention for everyone involved is on the family and mourners of the deceased. At the exit of the cemetery, after a little distance is established, the band begins to play the second line beat (Marsalis, 3) and also take part in forms of improvised jazz as the mourners dance with umbrellas back to lodges or homes. This started by the drummers acts a backbeat for the rest of the band, and also establishes a beat for the second line. This second line is a group of "family, friends and other celebrants" (Marsalis, ) who carry umbrellas and begin to celebrate the life of the deceased by dancing and partying through the streets with the band.
The importance of the second line for jazz funerals is obvious in terms of their integral part of the creation and acting out of the celebration, but their importance in jazz must also be recognized. Many of the participants in the second line at a jazz funeral are apart of one of the many social clubs in New Orleans. These clubs formed specifically around the bands and parades, and then became an arena that socialized young followers into the ways of both the musician and urban life (Peretti, 33). Each club had its own definitive group membership and band, and when a member passed away, these clubs would help form the second line of that member's funeral, thereby helping distinguish funerals from one another according to clubs. The second line and these clubs provided a subculture atmosphere where musicians were elevated in prominence, and were not seen there as the popular conception of a musician: a tramp, trying to duck work (Lomax, 6). New Orleans became a place where clubs would compete not only with each other for social status, but also for the best musicians, thereby laying the foundation for jazz cutting contests: the atmosphere of violence [between clubs] inspired the barely restrained form of competition between bands called cutting contests (Peretti, 27).
The bands in these clubs also focused their musical attention on brass instruments, and therefore helped shape the jazz tradition of a focus on this instrumentation. The polyphonic structure of the early jazz ensemble-trumpet playing lead, clarinet elaborating an obbligato above, trombone providing a rhythmic foundation and occasional countermelodies-is taken from the marching band (Youngren, 24). Individuals like Buddy Bolden dominated the musical culture in New Orleans as musicians coming from this tradition, and who were also beginning to create new types and styles of sound. Jelly Roll Morton was in a club that was called the Broadway Swells, and describes in Alan Lomaxs Mister Jelly Roll, the jazz funerals that occurred when anybody died a big band turned out (Lomax, 16). Mortons inclusion in this history of clubs is interesting, particularly when jazz brass came to lead the children, prostitutes, gamblers, and novice musicians (Peretti, 33) in the second line.
Jazz brass and the second line therefore helped create the early mainstream conceptions of jazz as a form of music associated with prostitution and other forms of non-socially acceptable behavior. Many saw the individuals in the second line who were not socially accepted and conflated jazz with these individuals. Though over-inflated, these conceptions of jazz are important for how jazz and jazz musicians were viewed by the American public in jazzs early period. Jelly Roll Morton claiming to be the inventor of jazz not only helped perpetuate these stereotypes, but also allowed him to claim the title more easily when much of the public looked for an individual with a past like his to represent jazz. His gambling, pimping, playing in Storyville, and participation in a club helped the public associate these activities with jazz music.