RUMPUT

Rumput is an 11 member Richmond-based music and theatre group that frequently collaborates with artists from Southeast Asia. We play traditional and experimental stringband music and create collaborative shadow plays. Since the COVID pandemic we have continued to be active by creating work digitally from home. During this time we have been exploring new forms of live shadow theatre using old-school overhead projectors. For one of our first experiments in this form we set a children's rhyme handed down in McGraw's family. (We've only changed two words. . . guess which ones!). The work is a reflection on ongoing injustices and changes in Richmond. If you had a category for "middle class white parents trying to teach their kid about systemic racism," then this would be on point! The music is a collaboration between Rumput and a participant in the Richmond city jail music program that McGraw has facilitated since 2013. (Music is fully licensed and the artist has been compensated; the artist wishes to remain anonymous).