Darian Dauchan speaks with AFO’s Artistic Director, Michael Wolk, about The Brobot Johnson Experience
Show runs through March 17th at The Bushwick Starr
Get tix at thebushwickstarr.org
Michael Wolk: What is The Brobot Johnson Experience?
DD: A hundred years from now, there is a group of hip-hop androids that go by the name of BroBots. They’re from the planet Nubian, and there’s a unit that they’ve created called “A Tribe Called Space Quest,” which is the BroBot intergalactic outreach program. They spread their message of peace, love, and dopeness throughout the entire universe.
FloBot [the star of the show] is one of those ambassadors. He’s a direct descendent of the Original Brobot, Brobot Johnson.
This is the first time that BroBots have ever really messed around with time travel and FloBot is the pioneer. But when you mess with time, things can go very wrong. And he only has a certain amount of time to be here with us before he can get back home. That’s where the stakes get really high. People can be brought out of existence or erased. But there’s also the possibility for things to get better, right? The possibility to reshape history. That’s what’s exciting about it.
Darian Dauchan: Were you influenced by any works of “Afrofuturism”?
DD: Not initially. I had just wanted to combine my love of science fiction with hip-hop. And then once I was already developing it, I saw, “Okay, this is not necessarily a new thing that I’m doing here.” Artists like Sun Ra, Parliament Funkadelic and more recently artists like Janelle Monáe (were) already messing with this interstellar groove genre. It is good to have a way to define your work. Although I like calling the genre “Sci-Fi Hip-Hop.” For me, that works.
MW: The show delivers a very compassionate, life and love-affirming message. It seems a lot more optimistic than your previous shows.
DD: Some of my previous work has been overtly political, whereas this is more subversive. It’s there, you can find things, but I wanted to create a fun, imaginative, uplifting show for my own sanity. Having written a lot of tragedies already, it’s funny how as I get older I find it imperative to create work that really uplifts me. And I think there’s a way to talk about politics and still be uplifting. We can do all that dark stuff, but at the end we need a silver lining. As artists, we all kind of want to say, “I told the truth, the world is terrible, good night!” and drop the mic.
MW: We’ve seen that show a lot.
DD: Yes, a lot! And then those artists say, “Hey, I did my part, now you guys figure out how to clean up this mess.” That’s like political theater 101: It’s very basic, you can do something more advanced than that. Otherwise, you’re leaving the audience in a very paralyzed state. You’re not giving them a call to action or anything like that.
So, for this show in particular, it’s about FloBot and myself trying to uplift people in a way that feels genuine and organic. It’s not necessarily a “kumbaya” kind of thing, even though there is a bit of that in there. But when you add hip-hop into it, it gives it a little more pop.
And this piece has the most audience participation of any thing I’ve ever done. That part, as a performer, is a little nerve-wracking. But it really helps that I’ve spent over a decade as a teaching artist, knowing how to work with young people, because a lot of the show is instructional.
MW: What kind of discussion do you hope this show will launch?
DD: I hope it opens up discussions about feeling that we have some degree of agency. That we have an opportunity to kind of reboot the way that our future is going. The larger question of the show is: How can we as a species better appreciate the miracles of the human experience? That question reflects where I’m at spiritually. I meditate every day. It’s about being as present as possible and really connecting with the people in front of you. And if people have an hour and 20 minutes of that, then maybe that has some value as we go forward.
In this piece, I’m trying to talk about being the best version of yourself in order to connect with everyone. FloBot is a rookie ambassador, so he’s still got some things to learn. The audience sees him as he strives to improve himself.
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