Presented through Free Street’s In/House Series, and created and directed by Jerrell L. Henderson, AmericanMYTH: Crossroads was a visually stunning take on the mythologies that have shaped North American culture. Using shadow puppets, live music, and highly physical performance, AmericanMYTH asks audiences to consider what stories have shaped our sense of who belongs in America. What’s a myth? What’s a folktale? And where do our histories fall on the spectrum of true, false, or something altogether different?
“So much of who we are and how we see ourselves as Americans (and ALL of what that can mean), often resurface in the stories we tell of ourselves. Themes of idealism, resilience, hope, dignity, and perseverance saturate our sense of national identity and yet, so do themes of injustice, selfishness, indifference, and cruelty,” says Henderson, who both wrote and directed AmericanMYTH. “This performance creates a moment in time for collective investigation in order to determine if there’s a smarter, more humane way to define ourselves so that we can move forward together. United.”