On Friday night, the Ford Theater will transform into a living, breathing tribute to the city in which it resides for Get Lit’s multimedia production If I Awaken In Los Angeles.
The intention behind the show, which will blend spoken word, live music, dance and immersive video, is to serve as a “love letter to our city from all of the different cultures and communities,” Get Lit founder Diane Luby Lane tells Deadline.
“The diversity, the richness, the family, the joy, the culture, the music, it’s like we have so much here that we want to showcase,” she continued. “So we thought, what if we do that?”
In partnership with the LA Phil, the show will take center stage at the Ford on Friday night, bringing the audience on a journey through the neighborhoods and communities that shape Los Angeles from South Central to Boyle Heights to Chinatown, Koreatown and everything in between, honoring the city’s Indigenous roots and evolving through its complex mosaic of cultures.
If I Awaken in Los Angeles, which is also a tribute to the iconic artist Betye Saar, will feature vignettes that serve as both “a celebration and a reckoning,” the organization says.
As for what that will ultimately look like? “It’s still in process,” director Gina Belafonte told Deadline ahead of the show, explaining that many of those details were being fleshed out directly with the artists.
“To be able to work with the poets that are representing these different neighborhoods and cultures is a gift and is so exciting,” she said, adding that while the team was “building the show with beautiful images and essences of those communities…it’s really all rooted in the words.”
The show will also feature the musical direction of Derrick Hodge with a love performance from his Color of Noize orchestra, as well as a lineup of guest artists including Dante Basco, Sekou Andrews, former L.A. Poet Laureate Luis Rodriguez, Jason Chu and more.
The beauty of L.A. music and sound is “so vast,” that audiences can expect to feel transported several times over throughout the course of the show, Hodge says.
Since it’s founding in 2006, Get Lit has inspired student engagement with literacy and spoken word across the world. The organization’s award-winning performance troupe of youth poets have performed at the United Nations, Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, and White House.
So, audiences are in for a special treat Friday as the organization returns to its Los Angeles roots to uplift local artistry and, hopefully, foster community within the city after several years of ongoing strife from fires and labor strikes to social unrest and economic hardship.
No matter one’s current connection to Los Angeles, the hope is the audience will walk away with an even richer appreciation for the city’s diversity.
Adds Belafonte: “I’m hopeful that the audience will not only learn about some of these spaces and places that maybe they’ve never even been, no matter how long they’ve been here, but will actually, after the show, go to some of those places and see some of the spectacular things that we’re talking about.
