Black Fighting Formations (BFF)

Creative Music percussionist, archivist and self-styled Music Research Strategist Marshall Trammell presents Black Fighting Formations (BFF) featuring Palestinian experimental musician Dirar Kalash, based in Berlin, in a first-ever meeting of a performing political education duo.

BFF is a new fighting formation iteration as a cultural weaponry intervention referencing analyses put forth by former Black Panther member and Black Liberation Army soldier Russell ‘Maroon’ Shoatz (1943–2021). The duo of Music Research Strategies and Dirar Kalash promises to offer a high velocity, libidinal expression of an emergent and responsive dynamical system of differential movement (Chela Sandovala) and 1960’s Fire Music – politically motivated Free Jazz. The work investigates narratives of fugitivity and the underground railroad – the escape route for enslaved African Americans. The legacy of the secret passageway to freedom reverberates in technologies utilised by oppressed peoples, from the historical use of embroidered quilt codes to contemporary auditory culture, including creative improvised music. Past iterations of BFF have included Guggenheim recipient Lisa E. Harris and Jawwaad Taylor, Ada Pinkston, Luke Stewart, Jamal Moore and Chinyere E. Oteh, Jemma DeCristo, Mogauwane Mohele and Shavon Moore and members of AfroVan Connect in Vancouver.

45’ (2022)