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This site is a living/changing/growing site for the clients, partners and friends of Duffy & Shanley. Duffy & Shanley is an advertising, public relations and marketing firm based in Providence, Rhode Island. Providence, Rhode Island, is located 50 minutes south of Boston and is New England’s second largest city. Cities are incorporated municipal centers with high concentrations of residents. The Residents are a seminal performance-art band from San Francisco who made waves with their parody of the Beatles.

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Providence Sound Session ’08 and The Divine Promise of Divine Providence

by Donald King. Artistic Director of The Providence Black Repertory Company.

Produced by the Providence Black Repertory Company in partnership with the Department of Art, Culture & Tourism, Providence Sound Session is a genre-defying music festival that takes place over seven days in July, in music venues, theatres, bars, streets, parks and neighborhoods throughout the city.

Sound Session is largely inspired by traditional carnival and mardi gras celebrations and curated in the spirit of a unifying public ritual. It’s a time when all residents, regardless of class, education, race or culture have an opportunity to collectively participate in coming closer to fulfilling a kind of ‘Divine Promise’ for the residents of Providence.

Cities are said to be urban areas with a certain degree of social, cultural, intellectual and political autonomy. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states: “Individual autonomy is an idea that is generally understood to refer to the capacity to be one’s own person, to live one’s life….”

Divine Providence speaks to the sovereignty or agency of God over events in people’s lives. In that spirit and in the spirit of traditional European & African carnivals and rites, Sound Session, by design, is a celebration, a festival, and a rite with a certain degree of social, cultural and sovereign autonomy for the residents and visitors of our divine city.

Much like Mardi Gras, Carnival and other international traditions and rites, there is much beneath the surface of the apparent and excessive bacchanal and revelry. It’s both a sacred time and a time to celebrate with friends, family and loved ones. It’s as much a time for a renewal of the spirit as for irreverence. A time to free-up and re-invent one’s self thru masquerade and street theatre. A time to rejoice and reclaim our existence. A time to take to streets and declare one’s self as relevant, powerful, essential and alive! And it’s an important time of annual rights and rituals, recognized by ancient civilizations and their rulers, the sacred and the profane being both a necessary and significant part of our human existence.

Fortunately for us, we have some leaders and citizens who also understand, appreciate and support the need for an annual public ritual and celebration that can bring us closer to realizing the Divine Promise of sovereignty and autonomy, a kind of popular sovereignty where the state is created by the will of its people, the source of all political power.

On the eve of its 5th year, Providence Sound Session once again provides us with the opportunity to spiritually uplift, transform & ultimately unite our divine city through music, dance, food, revelry and ritual. It allows each of us to experience a diverse array and display of culture and music, as well as play mas’ (Trinidadian slang for masquerading throughout streets of the city).

From its start with a gospel brunch to its conclusion, for some, in the realm of the profane,
Sound Session is a magical time here in Providence, a divine time when the will of the people affirms that we are all so much greater than we appear, or are allowed to be, in our daily lives.

On its final night (somewhere in that processional led by me, our Mayor and elder statesmen like Michael Van Leesten and Lynn McCormack, the Director of Art, Culture & Tourism, local businessmen and school teachers, youth and stragglers alike) the residents of this city affirm their sovereign rights as citizens. And as we collectively masquerade, dance, chip, stumble and eventually converge on Westminster Street, we collectively emerge transformed and, for a very brief and very personal moment, realize that this divine promise I’m speaking of is in fact quite real and actually possible.

As our unique ritual grows and matures, more and more of us will realize its true significance. And as we begin to see the potential of Sound Session becoming a local draw (our Super Bowl or Mardi Gras of sorts), my hope is that we may also begin to feel a greater civic pride throughout the year.

Donald W. King
Artistic Director
The Providence Black Repertory Company

For more information about Providence Sound Session ‘08, which takes place July 6-12, visit www.ProvidenceSoundSession.Com