DJ Spooky offers up a new spin on D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation in Rebirth of a Nation
NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 La Guardia Pl. between Third & Fourth Sts.
Saturday, November 4, $35, 7:30
212-945-2600
nyuskirball.org
www.rebirthofanation.com
DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid’s Rebirth of a Nation is a unique multimedia deconstruction and live remix of D. W. Griffith’s controversial 1915 silent film, Birth of a Nation, interweaving music, film, and art to create a wholly new work that the multidisciplinary artist keeps on tweaking. First performed in New York at the 2004 Lincoln Center Festival,
the show has toured around the world; we caught it back in 2007 at the Tribeca Film Festival, during the Bush administration, so it should be fascinating to see the state of the piece now when Spooky brings it to the Skirball Center on November 4, with America in the midst of a crisis over immigration, racism, white supremacy, historical statues, and other sociopolitical issues and the presidency has shifted from Barack Obama to Donald J. Trump. Spooky mixes both the Kronos Quartet’s trip-hop score and the visuals live, beginning with an overview of racism and an interview in which film pioneer Griffith discusses the importance of his so-called masterpiece. He then intercuts different scenes of the film, following the narrative, with Griffith’s original interstitial titles along with new ones credited to Paul D. Miller, DJ Spooky’s real name. He avoids being overly didactic and does not hit the audience over the head with Griffith’s unrelenting racism and support of the KKK, instead letting the film speak for itself. And it has a whole lot to say, as, of course, does DJ Spooky.