Eric Berryman

Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me

Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me

The Wooster Group’s 2017 celebrated production of The B-Side: “Negro Folklore From Texas State Prisons” was promoted as a “record album interpretation.” Conceived by Eric Berryman, the multimedia performance gave thrilling urgency and pulsing vitality to a recording from 1965 that featured African American work songs, spirituals, and personal anecdotes from prison. Berryman and The Wooster Group’s current piece is an exploration of Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me: Narrative Poetry from Black Oral Tradition, an LP that was released by Rounder Records in 1976. While the performance has its share of exhilarating moments, Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me is not as stirring as the previous work. It has, regrettably, several of the hallmarks of what is described in the recording industry as “difficult second album syndrome.”

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