kNoname Artist: When will A world deprived of BIPOC voices, creativity finally care?

Roderick George/kNoname Artist performed “The Missing Fruit” on Friday at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park. The show will be repeated on Saturday night inside the park's theater.

​What happens when a life is cut short? What happens to the fruits of their labor, the fruits of their creativity, the fruits of their love? No one knows because they will always be unrealized. But one thing is certain, lost potentials leave traces of pain in their wake.
 
And sadly, if those lives are Black, Indigenous or People of Color, most just doesn’t seem to care.
 
That is the stark message from Roderick George/kNoname Artist’s “The Missing Fruit.” As seen on Friday night at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park’s outdoor Mountain Stage, the work is among a growing number of protest pieces of art that are demanding attention for their directness and honesty. In “The Missing Fruit,” kNonameArtist presents a shooting death of a young BIPCO person, and then questions who, except the devastated family and those around them, is troubled.
 
Set to electronic music by slowdanger as performed by pvkvsv, the work feels like both a treacherous day-in-the-life and a life sentence. Still, it is instantly clear that this ensemble is extraordinary. The eight are technically beautiful for their fluidity and luscious, balletic movement that ripples through to the tips of the fingers.
 
But the audience quickly sees that their beauty is overshadowed by agony. George shows that in a contorted, standout solo that references “Strange Fruit,” an anti-lynching song that speaks of “blood on leaves” with a voiceover saying that everything disappears in Black.
 
The work shifts to one in which the dancers unite. As they coalesce as one, their hand gestures grow prominent. With palms extended, they shield their face, raise their arms in surrender or seek the mercy of a god and then they lower them to beg forgiveness or an act of kindness. Their hands and arms also block their view, as the peek cautiously into an unwelcoming world.
 
As dancers disassemble, they pair off and hold each other up in, based on the music, an ominous landscape. Then the audience collectively jumps with the crack of a gun and a man falling dead.
 
At this point, kNoname Artist seems to have had some technical difficulties. Pvkvsv, positioned upstage in the corner, leaves his computer and the place goes silent. As the “dead” body lays still, alone, all that can be heard are crickets, which inadvertently, says a lot. After what seemed like an eternity, pvkvsv returned and so did the sound.
 
The dance moves onto the suffering of losing a promising loved one to violence. It was a plea for the world at large to care.
 
With states banning the teaching of histories of BIPOC people, “The Missing Fruit” is indeed timely. But as Bob Dylan asked in his song "Blowin' In the Wind," “How many times can a man turn his head/And pretend that he just doesn't see?”

Apparently, the answer is an infinite number of times. Roderick George/kNonameArtist is bravely shouting to change that. It's beyond art, it's a calling.

"The Missing Fruit" will be repeated at 6 p.m. tonight, Sept. 23, in the park's indoor theater. Tickets can be purchased here.