WAR and the BODY

a performance by karen g. williams and david boykin

Presented by Insight Arts  $10 Donation

The theme of war and the theme of the body have found themselves in every imaginable discourse, from anthropology to community activism to current politics. When analyzing these ideas, they are often inundated with ideas of morality, ethics, and aesthetics. In this performance, I will bring these two themes together to examine the varied ways they converge as well as examine them separately. Realizing that there is more than one way to examine the concept of "the war and the body", this performance will diverge from the obvious, namely the "War in Iraq" and the "War in Afghanistan", to consider the body in relation to the "war on drugs"; the warehousing of bodies in prisons; and war as a metaphor used in discussions of health.

karen g. williams is a multi-media performance artist and anthropologist.  Her interests include race, gender, the criminal justice system and medical anthropology. Throughout the years, karen has used performance to illuminate the physical and psychological pain of incarceration. karen has performed in St. Petersburg, Russia; New York; Portland, Oregon; Chicago; and San Francisco to name a few. Additionally, karen is currently completing her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at the City University of New York, Graduate Center.  Her academic work examines the "war on drugs" and the conceptualizations of rehabilitation and prisoner reentry.  karen received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MA from New York University in Performance Studies.

Composer and instrumentalist David Boykin is one of Chicago’s premier artists. Since emerging on the city’s jazz and improvised music scene in 1997 he has established himself as one of its most original, expressive, and creative improvisers and composers.  He has released several (9) album length recordings as a bandleader; collaborated with many artists of high acclaim from different disciplines locally and internationally; and received numerous awards and grants for the artistic merit of his work.

His sound on woodwinds and drum set is very distinguished.  It is simultaneously multiphonic and polyphonic. He usually sounds like more than one musician playing, singularly creating music of orchestral magnitude.

His music effectively brings together the old and the new.  While the rhythmic and emotional feelings of his music seem to be rooted in the tradition of all trance inducing ritual music; he also utilizes experimental techniques to reach beyond the sounds, rhythms, and textures previously produced by his instruments.