A historical musical that examines black identity in the 1901 World's Fair | Amma Y. Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2019

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this lively talk and performance, artist and TED Fellow Amma Y. Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin offers a sneak peek of her forthcoming musical "At Buffalo." Drawing on archival material from the 1901 Pan-American Exhibition, a world's fair held in Buffalo, New York, the show examines conflicting representations of black identity exhibited at the fair -- highlighting unsettlingly familiar parallels between American society at the turn of the century and today, and asking: Are we all still part of the show?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This TED Talk and performance features scholar and artist Amma Y, Garty Taggo-Kooten, recorded live at TED 2019.
0:10.5	The performance is highly visual. Check out the video on TED.com.
0:17.0	The archive. One may envision rooms and shelves stacked with boxes and cartons of old stuff.
0:25.8	And yet for those who are patient enough to dig through it,
0:29.5	the archive provides the precious opportunity to touch the past,
0:34.0	to feel and learn from the experiences of once-living people
0:37.8	who now seem dead and buried deeply in the archive.
0:42.1	But what if there was a way to bring the archive to life?
0:46.5	The world is thinking wrong about race.
0:49.2	This country insists upon judging the Negro.
0:52.6	Because it does not know.
0:54.0	What if one could make it breeze?
0:55.6	By his lowest and most vicious representatives, speak.
0:58.9	An honest, straightforward exhibit.
1:01.3	And even sing to us so that the archive becomes accessible to everyone.
1:05.3	What would performing the archive look like?
1:08.5	A performance that is not simply based on a true story, but one
1:13.0	that allows us to come face to face with things we thought were once dead and buried.
1:18.9	This is what at Buffalo, a new musical we're developing is all about.
1:23.5	Using collections from over 30 archival institutions at Buffalo performs the massive archive
1:29.6	of the 1901 Pan American Exposition, the first world's fair of the 20th century held in Buffalo,
1:35.4	New York. Now, if you've heard of this fair, it might be because this is where then U.S. President
	...

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