A VIRTUAL HIP HOP THEATRE EXPERIENCE THAT EXPLORES WHAT BRIDGES AND DIVIDES US THE MOST: WORDS
The museum of dead words
A virtual hip hop theatre experience that explores what bridges and divides us the most: Words
The Online Series: Week of September 7 – Week of November 16
These are historic days, and artists are the curators of history. These times require that we amplify and share challenging stories and experiences in order to find a way forward together. The Museum of Dead Words has always sought to inspire action and empathy as we encounter injustice and apathy in the mercurial age of the Internet.
The impacts of Covid-19 and global resistance against systemic oppression have reinstated our thinking of this show as a space for collaborative dialogue as we navigate together ever-evolving challenges to community and conversation. In an online series of panel discussions, interviews, community conversations, live art happenings, and excerpts from the live show, we will unpack one of the museum’s eleven words per week between September 7th and November 22nd.
Virtual Museum and The Online Series:
Because we can't be in a physical "museum" together, we’ve asking creators to bring the museum to us. In a series of 11 conversations on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook, we have collaborated with artists to bring these dead words to life:
HYPOCRITE
RACIST/SM
MISCEGENATION
NORMAL
SEXIST/SM
SLUT
EVIL
DESERVE
OBVIOUS/LY
TRUTH
CLICKBAIT
Dyalekt spent 2016 reading online article comments and began screenshotting and archiving words that were repeatedly used (and misused) to shut down conversation. He narrowed down to 11 words based on the ways in which they died, eliminating multiple examples of the same death. Inspired by George C. Wolfe’s “The Colored Museum”, these words hang on display in each space and create the one-man show and album, The Museum of Dead Words.
photo by @raemaxwell
The Museum of Dead Words
with your tour guide, Dyalekt
Directed by Andrew J Scoville | Curated by Kristen Crouch
If you've ever found yourself in an unexpectedly heated argument on the internet and don't know how you ended up in a dithering pile of semantics over days of your life you'll never get back, you are not alone.
MC/Playwright/Educator Dyalekt has spent a year researching internet comments to find out what words turned conversations into fights and ultimately died on the internet.
He has turned this research into a one man show/museum tour/art installation/rap album (happening all at once!) that explores how communication through the typed word is changing language rapidly, how words can lose their meaning and become weaponized, and how to find empathy and true connection with each other.
If something can live on the internet forever and simultaneously never be discovered, how do you find ways to remember your humanity and connectivity?
Join Dyalekt for a guided museum tour where we exhibit 11 words that died on the internet, mourn their passing, move forward together with more empathy and understanding.
Patrons will enter and exit through the gift shop where local artists and entrepreneurs will be sharing their art and wares and hopefully we will fund the revolution together.
