Rammellzee mini-me’s put on opera inspired by the artist

Last Friday (17 August), the Abrons Arts Center’s Playhouse Theater in New York was injected with the energy of the late Gothic futurist hip-hop pioneer and graffiti artist, Rammellzee, in Glowing Creation: a Rammellzee-Inspired Opera, conceived and staged by a group of 11 to 13-year-olds who performed tracks they had written and break-danced. The young stars were part of a programme co-hosted by the Abrons Arts Center and Red Bull Arts New York, on the occasion of the latter’s exhibition RAMM:ELL:ZEE: Racing for Thunder, which closes Sunday (26 August). “Artists and thinkers like Ramm, who challenge the status quo and produce art on their own terms, are exemplars of the power of making worlds out of what's available to you, and the magic of that boundless possibility,” says the artist Tau Lewis, who led workshops where the young performers made their own Tyvek suits and masks for the opera, based on Rammellzee’s Garbage Gods works. “Kids don't yet have the filters and blinders we develop as adults, and so their power and honesty can be shocking.”