"1001 Black Inventions" performed in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.

COLCHESTER, Vt. (The Defender) - In the dimly lit Chapel of St. Michael the Archangel, usually a quiet spot for personal reflection, four actors bring light. Three performers dance in step to the beat they create with their mouths. Their bodies move mechanically to the rhythms they create, representing cogs in a machine.

Never missing a step, the machine metrically recites inventions made by the black community. Aspirin, automatic transmission, batteries, bicycle, boomerang, bow and arrow, the machine informs the audience. Abruptly the machine halts and breaks into a rendition of "My Girl." "I've got sunshine, on a cloudy day," they sing. "When it's cold outside, I've got the month of May. I guess you'll say what can make me feel this way, was a black person." On Jan. 22, St. Michael's housed the 15th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Convocation. Students, faculty and members of the community gathered to celebrate the event, anxious to see what Pin Points Theatre's "1001 Black Inventions" would convey. This production strayed from the usual course of the convocation, the main focus usually being a keynote speaker. Instead, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Society chose this play which explores black contributions to the world. The production takes the audience into a Twilight Zone where a family attempts to survive without inventions created by blacks. Through this creative depiction, audiences laugh themselves into the realization that black ingenuity is a fundamental part of everyday life, said Moise St. Louis, director of multicultural student affairs. Wanting to emphasize the importance of intellectual black contribution, the MLK Society chose a performance which exuded the same message, St. Louis said. People so often associate black accomplishment with sports and music, and the group wanted an event that would inform and show how daily life is impacted by blacks, St. Louis said. Pin Points Theatre, out of Washington D.C., radiated this message in a light and funny manner, making it easier for audiences to relate to, St. Louis said. "We can laugh in the house of God," he said. "It's all about expanding the mind." St. Louis wishes that the Chapel had been filled with more laughter, noting turnout was less than previous years, he said. The convocation was an entertaining and educational experience that many missed out on, and he hopes that students will be more active in the future, he said. "We are all in the process of learning here," St. Louis said. "I encourage students to push themselves, don't just sit in your room and watch a TV show. It is exciting to explore new things." Sophomore Michael Stefanowicz agrees with St. Louis in supporting the use of humor in the production, he said. Although the Twilight Zone simulation was humorous, it also conveyed a very important message, he said. "Humor is an effective medium and they utilized it to express the importance of the different inventions blacks have contributed," he said. "Blacks don't always get a lot of credit for the positive contributions they have made to our world. It is an implicit form of racism when we don't honor the accomplishments of people who aren't in the mainstream." Although required to attend the convocation for a class, Stefanowicz would have gone otherwise, believing the MLK Society to be an important presence on campus. "It contributes to the mission of the school--respecting the diversity of other people and hopefully making things better," he said. "This is what St. Michael's is all about. It makes evident the diversity we have on our own campus, which is a microcosm of the diversity that we would experience when we go out into the world." Brandon White, a Pin Points Theatre actor, hopes that students walked away from the performance with a new knowledge of the little known facts about unsung heroes, he said. Often times these stories are overshadowed by the big names, like Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King, Jr., he said. Our overall message is that our foremost contributions to the world are of the intellect, White said. It is important for people to understand that and apply this message to their everyday lives, he said. Pin Points Theatre actor Linda Evans hopes that new knowledge yields acceptance and respect for all things "different," she said. "I hope that what the youth get out of this is to learn to respect each other's lifestyle," she said. "It ain't gunna hurt at all, and it might actually be helpful." Deeply involved in the organization of the event, Jerome Allen, president of the MLK Society, felt the convocation succeeded in bringing awareness to the intellectual contributions made by blacks, he said. Education plays in important role in overcoming our differences, he said. "I think everything went very smoothly," Allen said. "I hope that people broke out of their imprisonment. We all dictate our lives by the color of our skin." - - - Sarah Coghlan is a writer for The Defender, the school newspaper at St. Michael's College in Colchester, VT. The email address for The Defender is defender@smcvt.edu.

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