Also this issue:

Positive Charge
For all the controversy, Steve Earle's Jerusalem ends on a profoundly optimistic note.
-Sam Adams

Joe Kim
-Patrick Rapa

The Capital City Dusters
-Paul Burress

Engine Down
-John Vettese

GZA
-Paul Burress

Pleasure Club
-A.D. Amorosi

Smog
-Paul Burress

DJ Garth
-Sean O’Neal

November 21-27, 2002

music

Star Power

Sabela Grimes

Homer Jackson's Dogon PM finds art and science under the same sky.

by Patrick Rapa

It’s more than a little fitting that in the middle of discussing his new astronomy-minded performance project, Philly artist Homer Jackson looks out the window and takes note of a big, bright full moon. “Wow,” he says into the phone, “if you have a chance, you should check it out.”

Jackson will have everyone looking up when Dogon PM debuts at the Bride this weekend. Melding ancient and contemporary stories, mythologies and music from myriad aspects of the African diaspora, the multimedia event is also a rare meeting of left- and right-brain instincts. "Science people can be scared of art," says Jackson, only half-kidding. "Art people, people dealing with myths, can be scared of science." Dogon PM intertwines the two as seamlessly as it mixes hip-hop, jazz and R&B with digital media and spoken word.

Inspired by the controversial idea of the Dogon people of West Mali -- who, according to legend, possessed complex astronomical knowledge long before modern science could prove it -- Jackson set about investigating the way African people, particularly the ancients, viewed the heavens. Then, to help breathe life into the stories he created from his research, he recruited the creative input of composer/multi-instrumentalist Douglas Ewart, musician/poet Mogauwane Mahloele, spoken-word artist Sabela Grimes and others. Helping to keep the science up to snuff is Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at the Fels Planetarium at the Franklin Institute.

As to what the end result of this collaboration will look and sound like, Jackson remains excited and mysterious, and declares Dogon PM has the potential to tour planetariums around the country. "It should be pretty crazy," he says. "Be prepared to sit in the dark and be wooed by the spirit."

Dogon PM, Thu.-Sat., Nov. 21-23, 8 p.m., $15-$20, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St., 215-925-9914.