Deity of the Circle Performance

Join us for a one-of-a-kind experience in The Driskell Center gallery. The performance of Deity of the Circle invites audience members to participate in simple choreography, call-and-response, clapping, and responding to questions from the performers over the course of the musical storytelling. The artists encourage and welcome listeners to participate based on your needs and what feels good in your body. Please arrive before the 4 p.m. start time.

More about Deity of the Circle:

Deity of the Circle is an installation and performance for three voices, clarinet, and electronics co-created by Armond Dorsey, Bonita Oliver, and Eli Berman.

Worship practices from African and Jewish diasporas inform the design of unique visual and musical storytelling objects made of metal, wood, fabric, microphones, speakers, and electrical circuits. A composite sound sculpture made of PVC and EMT pipes serves as an installation piece for the exhibit. In April 2025, the artists will assemble this composite sculpture live during a 40-minute performance. They will attach handheld and wearable components of the sculpture to its base, placed at the center of the gallery, before playing the sculpture as a communal instrument. According to the trio, “Through our exhibition and performance, we hybridize new worship rituals for collectively grieving our historical traumas while illuminating the multidimensionality and timelessness of our human desire to connect with the past and future through cyclical time.”

Dorsey, Oliver, and Berman are the winners of the 2024–2025 David C. and Thelma G. Driskell Award for Creative Excellence. This award allows emerging artists or scholars to work with The Driskell Center’s collections and archives in self-directed research leading to the creation of new artistic work or scholarship. Now in its third cycle, the award this year called for a collaborative team to conduct a low-residency/remote fellowship culminating in a gallery installation and public program.

This project is made possible, in part, by The Thompson Award for Artistic Excellence in the Visual Arts Fund and Arts for All.

Host or Publisher David C Driskell Center