PERFORMANCE ART REVIEW : A Paean to Black Culture at Highways

Brisk good humor, kinetic energy and deep conviction revved up “Star Spangled Nigger,” a performance piece at Highways Monday night. The bent spoke in the wheel was an excess of full-throttle emoting that came across as exaggerated and ultimately unbelievable staginess.

The creation of Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, a poet born in Ghana, with contributions by fellow performers Halima Williams and Ezra Knight, the work is a paean to black physicality, tenaciousness and spirituality in a frequently hostile American culture.

Performed in front of an American flag, with ironic refrains quoting the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem, the piece incorporates snippets from two African dances (choreographed by Yao Tamakloe) as a way of reaffirming the power of cultural roots.

These segments--in which the performers were joined by dancers Carolyn “Kemi” McPherson and Mark Lawson and drummer Murshid Husam-Iddin--were more about exuberant spirits than the niceties of replicating indigenous styles.

Williams, whose body moved in luscious parallel to her lyric monologue about sexual pleasure, later overplayed her note of anguish and rage until it lost its punch. But Knight’s feisty, funny rap about his first name and his portrayal of a wild-eyed street kid who died of a gunshot and still found himself roaming the streets was right on.

Danquah, shifting from wooden passivity to grim stridency, found her best mode as a serenely authoritative witness to memory.