WILD AMERICAN DOGS REAL BIG TENT REVIVAL (CHICAGO)
2018 (5.30)
DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL
Until the mid-20th century, traveling tent revivals functioned throughout rural America as opportunities for local public assembly and interaction with fellow residents and "familiar outsiders," thereby enhancing community solidarity and at the same time arguably exploiting this solidarity. In this performance the Wild American Dogs (Beverly Fresh and The Crooner) joined by Payton, The Whisper and The Dancer, have revived, adapted, secularized and problematized the tent revival concept as a framework for a critique of western colonialist institutions and a study of the production of contemporary public culture within the under-examined rural Midwest. Delivered through the traditional form of an "old time tent revival," the performance unfolds via song, exaggerated movement, fiery oratory, hyperbolic rhetoric, and increasingly vigorous call-and-response couplets.
Recent WAD Tent Revivals:
- Grinnell, Iowa
- Colon, Michigan
- Black Oak, Indiana
- Algonac, Michigan
- Bad Axe, Michigan
- Detroit, Michgian
- San Luis Obispo, California
*Photos by Lyndon French
*Disposable camera photos by various audience members