Wilderness Series: Reconfiguring God

Wilderness Series: Reconfiguring God is a 60-minute sonic experimental live performance installation in the historic Old North Church. The performance examines the connection between faith and the continued struggle for justice and civil rights. Historically, the voices of African American women are often ignored and excluded in religious and social justice spaces. Dzidzor explores African American women’s voices and reconsiders how we conceive of God by centering African American women’s religious experiences and reflections. Using images, videos, live sampling of sound, and speeches within a sound collage, the performance observes Dzidzor interacting and molding a God to love herself — Black, woman, and living. The performance features a sonic collage that explores conversations between African American women across time, with an A.I. “god’” This god was birthed from a resistance to the colonial erasure of faith-based practice that included the liberation of Black people. These voices are displayed and magnified as an act of self-preservation and determination. Her presentation invites the audience to participate through call and response by speaking, chanting, singing, and yelling. She ponders on the question, “What does it look like to reconfigure God to love myself?”

Wilderness Series welcomes the audience on a journey through multiple realms, times, and spaces. It explores the work of healing, rest, and living as expressed through the words of African American woman religionists, including Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, and so many others. Join Dzidzor as she journeys through the voices of African American women from across history to shepherd us through the wilderness.