|
|
 |
|
1plus1 Productions
|
|
"Them Women Got The Spirit"
|
 |
|
| "Spiritual Awakening" |
|
|
| Visual Art by Edwin Lester |
"Deep river, my home is over Jordan. Deep river Lord, I want cross over into Cainan land..."
1 + 1 PRODUCTIONS and THE WOMEN OF SEASON present, "Them Women Got The Spirit"! A
revival, in song and word that breaks the new day with oomph. Shouting, praise dancing, hymns, spirituals, call
and response, and more. Welcome to the First Non-Denominational Praise Christian Church where there is great celebration.
Four women band together to keep the services at the FNDPC Church alive in a world that seems
to have abandoned God. This animated production will leave you laughing, crying, and wanting more. Clara is the
eldest member of the group of friends that hold the task of planning the church revival. In the opening scene she has
called the ladies together to discuss the details of the upcoming event. Their plans are fanciful, quick-witted,
whimsical, and somewhat outrageous but in the end, well worth their efforts. You've got to attend the revival to
see for yourself.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
All persuasions
Everywhere
Got SPIRIT!
That's right,
"Got Spirit"!
You got it
I got it
We got it...
And if you don't got it by now...
You will when we're done with ya!
MY LORD WHAT A MOURNING
"My Lord what a morning!
My Lord what a morning!
My Lord what a morning!
When the sun begins to shine.
When the sun begins to shine..."
| "Thanks and Praise" |
|
| Visual Art by Bernard Stanley Hoyes |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ALL GOD'S CHILLUN
GOT WINGS
I got a robe, you got a robe
All o' God's
chillun got a robe
When I get to heab'n I'm goin' to put on my robe
I'm goin' to shout all ovah God's Heab'n
Heab'n,
Heab'n
Ev'rybody talkin' 'bout heab'n ain't goin' dere
Heab'n, Heab'n
I'm goin' to shout all ovah God's Heab'n
A LITTLE TALK WITH
JESUS
O a little talk with Jesus make
it right, all right
Little talk with Jesus make it right, all right
Troubles of ev’ry kind
Hank God I’ll always find
That little talk with Jesus make it right.
My brother, I remember
when I was a sinner lost
I
cried, “Have mercy, Jesus”
But
still my soul was tossed
Till
I heard King Jesus say,
“Come
here, I’m on the way”
And little talk with Jesus make it right.
| Coming Together |
|
|
| Visual Art by - "Alaagy" |
The spiritual revivals of today's era infuse the music of this breed. There
are jazzy spirituals, rock spirituals, and yes, hip hop. Each brings to this generation the praise and worship of these
ardious times. You see, God's Word never changes, It is everlasting. People and times change.
Therefore, it is in the best interest of the church, to stay in tune with the masses. Today's services add a great musical
deminsion to the ministry. There is dancing in the isles, foot stomping, hand clapping, and lots of shouting.
Prepare yourself for much of the same with this production.
CALL AND RESPONSE
The particular feature of this kind of singing
was its surging, melismatic melody, punctuated after each praise by the leader’s intoning of the next line of the hymn.
The male voices doubled the female voices an octave below and with the thirds and the fifths occurring when individuals left
the melody to sing in a more comfortable range. The quality of the singing was distinctive for its hard, full-throated and/or
nasal tones with frequent exploitation of falsetto, growling, and moaning.
The beats of Dr Watt’s
songs were slow, while there are other types of spirituals. These beats are usually classed in three groups:
- the “call and response chant”,
- the slow, sustained, long-phrase
melody,
- and the syncopated, segmented
melody.
- “Call and response”
For a “call and response chant”,
the preacher (leader) sings one verse and the congregation (chorus) answers him with another verse.
An example of such songs is “Swing
Low, Sweet Chariot”:
Research information obtained from:
http://www.negrospirituals.com/song.htm
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
SHOUTS
After a regular worship service, congregations used to stay for a
“ring shout”. It was a survival of primitive African dance. So, educated ministers and members placed a ban on
it. The men and women arranged themselves in a ring. The music started, perhaps with a Spiritual, and the ring began to move,
at first slowly, then with quickening pace. The same musical phrase was repeated over and over for hours. This produced an
ecstatic state. Women screamed and fell. Men, exhausted, dropped out of the ring
Dr WATTS
Dr Isaac WATTS was an English minister who published several books: « Hymns and Spiritual Songs »,
in 1707, “The Psalms of David” in 1717. The various Protestant denominations adopted his hymns, which were included
in several hymnals, at that time.
Missionaries reported on the “ecstatic delight” slaves took in singing the psalms and hymns
of Dr Watts.
In his book “The Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States” (1842), the White
minister Charles Colock Jones recommended highly some hymns of Dr Watts (“When I Can read My Title Clear”, etc.).
He wrote: “One great advantage in teaching them (slaves) good psalms and hymns, is that they are thereby induced to
lay aside the extravagant and nonsensical chants, and catches and hallelujah songs of their own composing”.
However, in the early 1800s, Black ministers took seriously the admonition of Dr Isaac Watts: “Ministers
are to cultivate gifts of preaching and prayer through study and diligence; they ought also to cultivate the capacity of composing
spiritual songs and exercise it along with the other parts of the worship, preaching and prayer”. So, homiletic spirituals
were created by preachers and taught to the congregation by them or by deacons.
During the post-Civil War period and later, some congregation conducted services without hymnbooks.
A deacon (or precentor) set the pitch and reminded the words in half-singing half-chanting stentorian tones. The people called
their songs “long-meter hymns (because the tempo was very low) or “Dr Watts”, even if they have not been
written by this gentleman.
| Preach On Preacher |
|
| Visual Art by - Frank Morrison |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
