Salakastar + A Host of People: A Reflection
Top Right: Salakastar, Teaching Artist; Bottom left: Brent Smith, In School Activities Program Manager
Now more than ever it is essential to stay connected with our teaching artists. Last month, I had the pleasure of chatting with Salakastar for our Power of He(art) Campaign! Salakastar, is an actor, singer-songwriter, poet, and teaching artist working in theatre, television, film, and music.
We talked about so much: teaching artistry, local music, and theater, and that one time she took a photo with White Stripes, Jack White. During our talk, what stood out to me the most was Salakastar’s excitement around her new upcoming art projects. This past year, she’s launched her own music label Salakastudios because she wants to control how her music is released. Her most recent release, December 22 (for Jean-Michel), is a beautiful ode to Basquiat, the artist. On the SUBJECT MATTERS podcast, Salakastar says she writes from a “blue space” and she’s not always able to understand or decode her songs until long after they are written. As an independent artist and label owner, Salakastar is now able to release her music on her own timeline.
When Salakastar’s not building up her music label, she’s collaborating with A Host of People. In the spirit of togetherness, A Host of People is a Detroit-based theater company that runs a little different than traditional theater companies. They create “devised theater” where the process starts with a theme. From that theme the words, movement, story, design, costume, and set are created over nine months to a year. Devised Theater, or collaborative creation, is the process of making plays in which everyone is involved from the actors to the designers. A Host of People offers a curriculum for high school theater and colleges & universities. These introductory classes provide an overview of the intricate national and international landscape of companies that work in this way, as well as creating some short devised pieces.
I recall my introduction to the Host of People...
Flashback to 2016, I was collaborating with a theater company in Hamtramck, THE HINTERLANDS. It was the first time I had been introduced to devised theater for a performance art piece called The Radicalization Process. My assignment was to create an editorial in a fictional newspaper called the People's Press existing in 1984. I ended up writing a piece called Get Hampton. I wrote from the perspective of Fred Hampton who was killed by police in 1969. I asked myself what if Black Panther Fred Hampton had survived his own assassination in 1969? How would an assassination on his life transform him as a revolutionary? What words would he have written in the year 1984 and what would he say about the next chapter in black progress at the age of 36? Fred Hampton was murdered when he was only 21-years-old.
The article went to print and I attended the show. I stayed connected to The Hinterlands and attended their “utopian dinners” where I met other theater creatives from A Host of People who use theater to disrupt and reimagine how people view the world. The experience taught me about the power of storytelling and how theater is more than just “performing.” Theater is a tool to bring people together and create choreography and dialogue that’s long-lasting. As Salakastar mentions in our He(art) Talk, the slow cooking process in devised theater enhances her artistic life because she feels more woven in the DNA of the piece. I couldn’t agree more.
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Performance: Cleopatra Boy Photo Credit: Baraa Ktiri
Salakastar is currently working with A Host of People on a performance called Fire in the Theater, which is about free speech. To stay up-to-date and informed about all performances, including how you can see Fire in the Theater in the future, follow A Host Of People on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and visit their website here.
