Includes unlimited streaming of Barbara T. Smith: Performance Audio 1969-1988
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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$38USD
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of Barbara T. Smith: Performance Audio 1969-1988
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Barbara T. Smith
The Pageant of the Holy Squash, 1988
There was an initial performance in 1971 called Celebration of the Holy Squash. BTS created the Holy Squash religion coming from a communal meal, where the remains of a giant hubbard squash were cast in resin. The squash was baptized and surrounded with other rituals that took place in the art gallery at UC Irvine and around the
campus.
Over the 1988 winter solstice, Smith transported a cast replica of a Holy Squash to New York for a three part ceremony. Part one of the Pageant consisted of a play on a nativity scene: a "farmer" and a "cook" brought the Holy Squash to a "manger" in the storefront window of the Fashion Moda gallery. A group of "shepherds" (neighborhood
kids) and "three wise women" (feminist historian Arlene Raven, community activist Olene Far, and Seneca medicine woman Twylah Nitsch) visited the holy manger. A piñata full of squash seed packets was cracked open for the audience.
The following day, the squash was carried on a litter in a procession from the gallery in the Bronx to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, accompanied by the sound of drum cadences played on multiple boom boxes.
Upon entering the stone cutting yard of the cathedral, where the final ceremony took place, the crowd formed a large circle around a bonfire where Smith placed the Holy Squash on the fire. Participants added their own squashes and Twylah shared squash teachings from her Native American people. Following a plunge into symbolic darkness,
characterized by haunting vocals and eating of the Holy Squash, dancers performed with fabric covered hoola-hoops that acted as screens, catching projected sacred images. At the end, the entire group sang a Seneca song dedicated to the full moon.
Audio Sequence
Part 1
Farmer and Cook 1:02
Magi Drumming 1:28
Nursery Rhymes and Singing 2:59
Part 2
Drums Processional 3:41
Part 3
Entering Cathedral 1:08
I Give Thee To The Fire 3:37
Darkness 2:41
Dance with Hoops 5:04
Nissa, Nissa, Nissa 2:25
Audio: Bruce Rudolph, Jan Salerno, Barbara Hendison and others. Voice on Nissa, Nissa, Nissa, Twylah Nitsch.
