Empty Words is a nine-hour, participatory, multimedia event—equal parts poetry, dance, parade, and concert—constructed around a collective reading of “Empty Words” by John Cage. This elegant and powerful, yet poetic and playful text attempts to “demilitarize language,” awakening a form of poetic communion that resists being appropriated as a mechanism of control.
Empty Words includes spoken word, live musical performances of Vexations by Erik Satie, projections, art objects, and other actions. This dusk ’til dawn collective contemplation of surrender represents an opening up to a hopeful future–a spontaneous blend of community festival and theatrical performance tempered by an attitude of thoughtful expectation, transforming darkness into light and words into music. Empty Words aims to celebrate these ideas, “so that we can do our living…”