About This Performance
Beware of the Dandelions is a mobile art installation that functions as a performance, workshop space, and visual arts exhibition. The piece intersects disciplines including: community organizing, design, hip-hop and electronic music, architecture, and theater. This groundbreaking Detroit collective is changing our understanding of the relationship between art and progress in the 21st century. Complex Movements is a group of forward-thinking, technologically savvy, sci-fi hip hop, artist/activist geeks who believe social change occurs by creating spaces for connection.
Small performances for audiences of 35 take place in an interactive “pod” assembled in-house on stage. Once in the pod, the audience becomes a community of post-apocalyptic survivors working together in an immersive environment rich in visual imagery, performance, and a soundscape based on the modern musical influences of Detroit. Interactive elements allow audience members to unlock and shape their experience.
The goal: to create an artistically exciting space where participants encounter and practice the tools for change and co-create ways to use these tools in their own communities.
Complex Movements engages communities to expand their strategies for organizing around local and trans-local social justice issues. Beware of the Dandelions premiered through a three city tour to Seattle (2015), Dallas (2015), and Detroit (2016). Original music from Beware of the Dandelions will be released digitally and on vinyl in 2016.
SCI-FI + HIP HOP + SOCIAL ACTIVISM. CHANGE THE WAY YOU WORK FOR CHANGE
Cast & Credits
| Role | Name |
|---|---|
| COMPLEX MOVEMENTS IS | , |
| graphic designer/fine artist | Wesley Taylor, |
| music producer/sound designer/filmmaker | Waajeed |
| lyricist/organizer | Invincible (ill Weaver), |
| multimedia artist/performance systems architect | L05 (Carlos Garcia), |
| WITH | , |
| producer/cultural strategist | Sage Crump , |
| architect | Aaron Joness |
| music and sound design consultant | Tim Kvasnosky, |
Related Links
About The Artist
Complex Movements
Complex Movements is a Detroit-based artist collective supporting the transformation of communities by exploring the connections of complex science and social justice movements through multimedia interactive performance work. Lead artists are comprised of graphic designer/fine artist Wesley Taylor, music producer/filmmaker Waajeed, hip-hop lyricist/activist Invincible, and creative technologist/performance artist Carlos (L05) Garcia. Complex Movement's work is inspired by the writings, philosophy and experience of Detroit based activist Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015), as well as grassroots networks in Detroit.
Complex Movements has presented work at the Detroit Science Center, the Network of Ensemble Theater’s Microfest, Cranbrook Art Museum, Freedom Dreams/Freedom Now conference (Chicago), Allied Media Conference, SiTE:LAB, Charles H. Wright Museum for African American History, Under The Radar (NYC), One Mic Hip Hop Culture Worldwide Festival (DC), Facing Race conference, On the Boards (Seattle), and at Dallas' Fair Park in conjunction with Ignite/Arts Dallas.
