KCAC's #AllLivesDontMatter returns for another virtual encore

Back by popular demand, the Kaleidoscope Cultural Arts Collective will serve the third run of their performance #AllLivesDontMatter to end Black History Month after their encore of the performance following the deaths of Ahmed Aubrey, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. In partnership with the Quaker City Alumnae of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc, the play is a cynical, love offering to the Black community that stays necessary four years later.

The right time

The play is based on the historical theatrical form known as the Living Newspaper, where issues and ideas in the news are dramatized and poetically explored, bringing an immediate and healing emotional exchange between the audience and the actors. Three new monologues were added to the original for the show’s virtual resurrection last year. Since the play made its virtual debut in September, fatal police shootings of Black people have continued to be prevalent, including the shooting of 27-year-old Walter Wallace Jr. in Cobbs Creek in October.

“It’s raw, cleansing, and unapologetic,” says Ardencie Hall Karambe, artistic director of #AllLivesDontMatter and all of KCAC’s projects. “It illustrates the unabashed anger that arises from senseless injustice and then offers Black love as the balm of healing.”

#AllLivesDontMatter premiered at the Church of the Advocate in 2017 in response to the political and social unrest, including the growing popularity of the All Lives Matter hashtag and movement. “The timing was appropriate,” Karambe said.

Amidst a global pandemic, Kaleidoscope Cultural Arts Collective plans to create more virtual performances in the future. Equally relevant today, #AllLivesDontMatter is a theatrical tapestry that uses poetry, song, narrative, and dance to weave together episodic movements of what it is like being Black in America.

What, When, Where, and Accessibility:

#AllLivesDontMatter will premiere online on February 27, 2021. Tickets can be purchased online. Proceeds will go to the Quaker City Alumnae, a collective dedicated to benefiting the Black community in Philadelphia, for community service and scholarship programs. KCAC will host a panel discussion following Saturday night’s performance.

Image Description: Six Black women stand straight-faced, their arms at their sides, in a courtyard of a stone building. Three of them are wearing orange-red dresses while three are wearing white. One is sitting in a chair, and one of the women stands behind them. There are red and blue flowers around the seated woman.