Henry "Box" Brown: Tales of a Magical Knee-Grow

Description:

Henry "Box" Brown: Tales of a Magical Knee-Grow was a performance installation by Angel Bat Dawid, with a guest ensemble. The work was inspired by the life of Henry "Box" Brown, who in 1849 subverted chattel slavery by mailing himself from Virginia to Philadelphia inside in a wooden crate that was three by two by two-and-a-half feet. Brown’s act of survival and self-determination launched him into a remarkable public life as a magician, illusionist, preacher, and performing artist. Dawid’s work sought to reclaim his legacy and drew on the tradition of the hush harbor—secluded gathering spaces where enslaved people practiced liberatory spiritual worship and political resistance. In the work, live ritual, projection, sculpture, and original composition formed what Dawid described as a “contemporary sanctuary of emancipation.”

Dawid (clarinet, piano, vocals, electronics) was joined by the Professor H. "Box" Brown Cosmic Soul Arkestra—with musicians Feven Kidane (trumpet, bass), Camila Vick (vocals), and actor Audre Steph for two performances. In the first, they began as a musical procession on the street outside of Western Front. The musicians led audience members into the Grand Luxe Hall to gather around Dawid’s installation Magic Mythos Alter-Destiny Freedom Ark, fabricated by Vick. Built to the exact dimensions of Brown's shipping crate, the Ark was adorned with gold tassels, sound-responsive plasma globes, and an etching of Psalm 40, which inspired the song Brown sang when he emerged from his crate. 

Dawid continued by leading the audience in spoken affirmations, grounding the space into one of collective ritual. The musicians performed Song-Hymn in Five Movements, a new composition by Dawid that combined live instrumentation, samples, and improvisation. The score aimed to create a sonic passage between physical and cosmic modalities, channeling Brown’s journey toward freedom and ancient diasporic memory. A series of projected AI-generated illustrations cycled behind the performers. Inspired by Brown's panoramic painting Mirror of Slavery (1850) and referencing 1 Corinthians 13:12, the visuals imagined Brown as both spectral and embodied in the present day, drawing on Afrofuturist speculation and historical research. 

As a punctuating conclusion to the work, Dawid performed Hermeneutic of the Portal: An Afro-Asiatic Eschatological Synthesis of a MAGIcal Knee-Grow—a sermonic reframing of Brown's escape from slavery as an act of coded, spiritual mastery. Following the performance, audience members were invited to engage with an altar in the library prepared with offerings in Brown’s honour. Root vegetables, legumes, molasses, and other food that Brown may have travelled with decorated a long table. In taking from the altar, audience members participated in a final act of communion, connecting themselves to Brown’s legacy and Dawid’s blueprint for a sonic-technological framework of deliverance.

Curated by Aki Onda.

Commissioned in partnership with Ars Nova Workshop.