Coming up on State of the Arts, a Baroque cantata on dementia, the experimental sounds of pop cello, and a profound theatrical production.

State of the Arts has these stories and more, next.

Hello and welcome.

I'm Mary Paul.

This week, we transport you from the small screen to the stage to explore a very personal side of performance.

When a parent starts losing memories, it can be a challenge for children to become their caregivers.

Cleveland's Baroque ensemble, "Les Delis," tackles this journey through music, performing a new work that mirrors the reality of dementia care by looking to an ancient myth from halfway around the world.

(Debra) The memory myth begins with a son expressing frustration and sadness with the condition that his father has sunk into.

(Dave) A man in his middle years, well-respected with a household wife, son, servants, who loses his memory entirely.

(Debra) And the family led by the son decides to seek any and all ways to heal their father or cure him of this illness.

(Dave) They go to doctors, soothsayers, religious figures.

Nobody can help.

And then finally, they come across a scholar who says, I can cure your father.

Let us remember how this all began.

Your father, whom you know to be.

A man of sovereign love and steady soul.

The temper has lost himself unable to remember.

The mythology project is a multi-year initiative from "Les Delis" to expand the repertoire of cantatas.

And a cantata is a special Baroque musical form.

And the way that we are understanding it for the mythology project is a secular piece, often on a subject of mythology, almost like a miniature drama.

(Nicholas) I'm half Greek and half Chinese.

And when I get to do some of these cantatas, it's not uncommon that I'm dealing with Greek mythology and, you know, the tales that I heard in my childhood of Greek mythology in that part of my culture.

But never ever have I had the opportunity to delve into the Chinese half of my heritage.

When we were talking about this, I actually happened to be spending a lot of time at home in my childhood bedroom because my parents' health was declining.

And, so I had all of my childhood mythology books.

And I found this very tattered book of Chinese myths that I used to read when I was a kid and a teenager.

And I came across this wonderful myth, "The Loss of Memory."

[ MUSIC - "THE LOVES OF SON" ] I think maybe this is also partly because of what I was going through in my own life in dealing with parents with declining and failing health.

And suddenly, being a child who now has to parent my parents in a way.

[ MUSIC - "THE LOVES OF SON" ] I thought, oh, wow, there's something here for a lot of people to resonate with and relate to.

We needed to translate this prose myth into something that could be sung.

[ MUSIC - "THE LOVES OF SON" ] Poets don't often get to collaborate.

And the idea that the end product here was not going to be just a poem, but something that was living and breathing and being performed, that was something that really appealed to me.

So you have come to me.

The first movement is an expository movement where, in the voice of the scholar, we're catching you up on what's happened to date.

It is wretched to forget.

[ MUSIC - "THE LOVES OF SON" ] In the second section, the son begins to speak.

[ MUSIC - "THE LOVES OF SON" ] And the son says, whatever you can do to help our father, from an emotional perspective, what it's like to have to father one's own father, to watch the wife become her husband's mother.

[ MUSIC - "THE FATHER WE RECOURSE" ] The third section is more narrative.

This is where the cure itself is taking place.

[ MUSIC - "THE FATHER WE RECOURSE" ] As in the original myth, I sort of have the cure happen off stage.

It happens really in between lines.

[ MUSIC - "THE FATHER WE RECOURSE" ] In the fourth section, we have the father figure come out.

And having been cured, having had his memory restored, the father figure is all of a sudden able to articulate that he was much happier when he couldn't remember anything.

[ MUSIC - "THE FATHER WE RECOURSE" ] (Debra) They are very surprised to hear from him that he is not only greatly disappointed by the new reality that he finds himself in, but deeply angry.

He didn't ask for this.

[MUSIC - "THE FATHER WE RECOURSE"] (Dave) His aria is a curse upon everybody who's brought him to this place, a curse upon the scholar, a curse upon his wife, his son, a curse upon life itself, because he was blissful in his ignorance.

He was blissful in that moment's oblivion.

[ MUSIC - "THE FATHER WE RECOURSE" ] We think everybody wants to be cured, but what if the person themselves has arrived at a peace or an understanding about their condition?

[ MUSIC - "THE FATHER WE RECOURSE" ] (Dave) In the fifth and final section, this is spoken in the voice of the scholar, but I'm thinking of it as well as something of a Greek chorus moment.

[ MUSIC - "THE FATHER WE RECOURSE" ] That's where we end with this plea, even though it's terrible to remember, we have to remember lest we forget.

(Debra) Something that I understand from health care professionals when they're working with families who have a family member who's experiencing dementia or Alzheimer's you know, is that they encourage you to meet them where they are in that moment.

And I think that is one of the lessons of this piece and of this myth.

[ MUSIC - "THE FATHER WE RECOURSE" ] It's a really special thing to be thinking about these people hundreds and hundreds of years ago on the other side of the planet, contemplating something that all of us contemplate now, in our present day.

[ MUSIC - "THE FATHER WE RECOURSE" ] Remember lest we forget.

Remember lest we forget.

[ APPLAUSE ] Now we meet a musician and composer whose repertoire is profound and unparalleled.

Aubrey Liston, who goes by Ziyoma, is a singer, songwriter, and arranger.

She describes her sound as cello punk and indie pop.

Xioma's recent work confronts the uncomfortable topics of broken trust, untruths, and manipulation, presented in a way to honor her own lived experience.

(Aubrey) I started playing cello was 12 years old at my mom's-- not request, but she was like, you should play cello.

So I did.

And then a couple of years later I started writing songs.

And I think I really started writing music as a way to cope with things that I didn't understand.

At the time, my dad was an alcoholic, and it was very much like, close, like, we can't talk about this.

So the songwriting was really the way I processed that.

So I think as I've continued writing music, it's always been about the kind of things that you're not supposed to talk about, because I don't know what to do with those.

Xioma, my singer-songwriter journey, has been all kind of indie pop music, with a lot of strings, very lyrically focused.

And I would say the lyrics are always trying to understand the world in some way.

[ MUSIC PLAYING ] I find inspiration from all kinds of different places.

I have a little notes app on my phone.

So whenever I hear a little phrase that I like, I'll write it down.

A lot of my inspiration comes from poetry.

I love all of Mary Oliver's work and how she sees things, I think.

And then when I'm writing the actual music, I've sourced a lot of inspiration from both classical music and pop music.

So I love Caroline Shaw's work, who's a violinist and composer, and just so smart with the way she uses strings.

And then Jack Antonoff is a producer who I love and love how he arranged.

So a lot of different places for inspiration.

[ MUSIC PLAYING ] You and everyone you love will someday die is a indie pop slash performance art show, really exploring religion, autonomy, and what kind of happens in the aftermath of leaving that.

[ MUSIC PLAYING ] There's choreography, there's strings, there's songs and spoken word.

[ MUSIC PLAYING ] A lot of what this piece is in the live setting is like, what would I want to see as an audience?

What would draw in my attention?

And also, I think something happens when you put movement on top of words.

I think it has kind of shifted the way that the words feel to sing or how the music feels.

(Savannah) What I think you can do is you can keep this hand and touch the chin.

(Aubrey) We did choreography for this piece.

And it was choreographed by my friend and collaborator, Savannah Dunn.

I guess the best way to maybe explain her style is like modern dance.

Everything she makes is just kind of like beautiful and interesting to watch.

And there's just so many layers underneath that I've always loved about what she's done.

The choreography that she did for me is very gestural because on the stage, I am blindfolded for most of the show.

So I can't move around a lot.

So it is mostly a lot of hands and showing the work.

- Put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

- In the same way, let your light shine before others-- (Aubrey) Savannah and I did collaborate on it a lot.

So she works a lot from text.

I gave Savannah lyrics for two of the songs and also a Bible verse.

So she took that text from the lyrics in the Bible verse and just put words on top of them.

So it's like every word kind of has a movement associated with it.

So all the movements are her ideas.

And if I didn't like one, I'd be like, I'm not-- it doesn't feel right.

[ MUSIC PLAYING ] The project itself is exploring-- I think if there are a question, it would be, why do the people that I love and who loved me choose to remain so strict with their religious ideals and kind of ignore the people they love and kind of treat them pretty horribly?

I'm like, I was asking, why?

And I think that it is what I came to, or my theory, my hypothesis is that there's this lingering fear of death that the people in my past have.

And they need this kind of religion to give them some comfort about what will happen when they die.

So it's the very last song will happen when they die.

They sugarcoat the heart truth, so I'll just say it now.

You and everyone you love will someday die.

I think this is how they got you.

You don't want it to be true.

And in that want is something beautiful.

[ MUSIC PLAYING ] I just think it is.

I think it starts from this beautiful thing, and it just kind of devolves.

[ MUSIC PLAYING ] In this final segment, we meet Chris Webb, a playwright, actor, and creator of The End of Black Excellence, a play that reflects on the meaning of success and explores survival and self-acceptance.

Poetry is the way I express.

It's the way I talk.

It's the way I carry on.

It's the way that I live.

I don't know who I'll be without poetry.

I mean, I do a little acting and everything, but poetry is my thing.

Poetry is what I'm going to do until they lay me down into the ground.

[ APPLAUSE ] ♪ UPBEAT JAZZ MUSIC ♪ I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, from the St.

Clair neighborhood.

Matter of fact, my mom still lives in the house that I grew up in.

And I'd say that I am a sponge of all things Cleveland.

I grew up in so many different arts functions and community programs that Cleveland offered.

Whenever there was something that said arts camp, theater camp, poetry camp, anything like that, I made my way down there because I just loved the form of expression that either getting on a stage or writing something that speaks about your community and the things that you're going through, I loved what that provided for myself.

And I loved the effect that it had on others.

There's been beauty in just kind of like following the passion, following the drive and the fire, and just kind of like forging through.

Whether it gets like the biggest response or whether it's like that was weird, but I see kind of where your mind's at.

And this play just kind of came out of the blue with everything that has been backed up inside of me for the past couple of years when it comes to the emotions that I feel, the things that I've seen around in the world.

It feels almost as if that young Chris who was writing poetry and doing plays took a break, came back as a man, and now is like speaking again.

I've never felt this much like myself.

And it's beautiful.

It's daring.

I used to write poems and be afraid to say them because it reveals so much about me.

I haven't had that feeling in a long time, but I have that feeling now.

[ LAUGHS ] I want to make the world pay attention one more time.

And regardless of the way that it might look to deal with whoever is in office right now, I cannot prove myself to be the end of Black excellence.

♪ PEACEFUL MUSIC ♪ So my one-person show is called “The End of Black Excellence.” And there was a thesis that I wanted to kind of investigate with that.

That thesis was this statement.

For a black man to be heard by America, he has to put on a show.

And that show could be an amazing display of intellect, artistic prowess, athleticism, all of these different things.

Or it could be the bad side.

It could be the in and out of courtrooms, wild stuff.

But either way, to get America's attention, a show needs to be held.

So the piece itself is my quote unquote "Black show" that I'm putting on for the audience.

But the problem is that my show keeps failing and messing up in all of these different ways.

And if that show is not excellent, then I will never get America's attention.

That's the end of Black excellence.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC ♪ (Jimmie) Chris was always a very focused young man.

I just knew that he had talent.

And I knew he had a passion for poetry.

And just watching him build the skillset to where it is now today.

And there's things that he teaches me that I'm inspired by as well.

(Raymond) And a lot of artists have this ability to share their own story.

But I feel like he has this ability to listen and appreciate.

And I'm going to say rare among artists.

And I think when he performs, you can get a sense of that.

That when he's performing, he's somehow sharing something that's more than just himself.

-It was the first moment where he felt like he saw a version of our country that had the potential to love him back.

The character that I inhabit wants nothing more than to get that American dream, get that kind of success that he feels that he was promised if he works hard enough.

So I'm working hard in this play.

You'll see me scream, laugh, cry, go crazy.

-Yes, yes, yes, yes, wait, wait, wait.

(Chris) There's music.

There's poetry.

There's a wild, wild storytelling.

There's video.

There's something for everybody.

And I think that the piece-- I think that it's resonant to whoever has felt the weight of pressure to excel.

And that's so many of us.

-And what I'm about to say next is not-- (Jimmie) To me, at the end of the day, whether you got a whole bunch of screens, a bunch of cameras, it's still the art of storytelling.

And so how do we infuse live performance with multimedia and make it clear for the audience to really be engaged, but also be left with "wow" I've just never seen a show quite done like that, where it infuses all those elements in that people can really get a message that Chris is trying to convey, but also leave it open-ended to where you can make your own conclusions.

(Raymond) At the beginning, you think this is just going to be some super cool thing.

And it is super cool.

There's a little preacher in it.

And you're just like, yeah, social justice.

And you're all excited.

And then it slowly turns and becomes so deeply personal.

-I failed at trying to be the person that America wants.

(Raymond) And that experience of great art when someone is so personal, it becomes universal because it suddenly becomes personal for me as an audience member right?

It feels like he is sharing something that I didn't know about myself or about the world.

(Chris) I had no idea that all of this was inside, that I was holding and carrying so much to the point where I was about to just burst.

And the way that it came out, once I found out that there was just a freedom to speak, it helped me to rediscover a voice that I thought was gone.

-I fell for her.

(Raymond) As producers, we have to be careful about using best or the greatest.

This is one of the best solo performances I have ever produced in my career.

And it's a long career.

-I just want to leave something real.

(Raymond) This is special.

Cleveland is lucky to have this performance here.

(Chris) Getting back into the driver's seat in the biggest show of my life, it's a scary thing, you know?

And I feel it.

I definitely feel it.

But I feel like, man, the iron is hot right now.

So I'm trying to leave it all on the stage.

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That wraps it up for this week's State of the Arts.

Thank you for watching.

I'm Mary Paul, and I'll be back again next week with more.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC ♪