Bruce Lee

Spaces: Bhairavi Beatbox in Blagden (feat. Christylez Bacon and Niṣṭha Raj)

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• published: 05 Aug 2013
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Christylez Bacon and Niṣṭha Raj performed Bhairavi Beatbox in the Blagden Alley located in NorthWest Washington DC. This is a ongoing sub-series within Spaces that will feature collaborative performances with Christylez and the many different artists he has performed with in the Washington Sound Museum project he has been working on for the last year. Blagden Alley--Naylor Court (From The National Park Service Web Site) Blagden Alley is a historic district defined by middle-class residences, churches and small apartment buildings which display a rich variety of Victorian architectural styles dating from the 1860s to the 1890s. In the interior of each block are extant examples of utilitarian alley dwellings, such as working class residences, stables and commercial buildings that are hidden behind the buildings facing the streets. The area illustrates how different classes, races and services were physically organized in the 19th-century city of Washington. The names Blagden Alley and Naylor Court were derived from two 19th-century property owners, Thomas Blagden and Dickerson Nailor. Blagden owned property in the area and ran a lumberyard in the city. Dickerson Nailor (now spelled Naylor) also owned property and was a grocer. After the Civil War, Washington's downtown became increasingly commercial and residential development grew north to the Blagden Alley area in the 1870s and attracted several prestigious, affluent residents. The elegant townhouse, the Blanche K. Bruce House (NHL) at 909 M Street was constructed in 1873. Bruce was the first African American to serve as a Senator in Congress (R-Miss, 1875-1881). To the south was a house built by Alexander "Boss" Shepard, the chief of the Board of Public Works during the 1870s. Streetcar lines connected 9th and 7th Streets with downtown in 1873, and these streets served as the main commercial corridors. After the Civil War, many African Americans migrated to Washington and came to live in the alley dwellings. They were small and poorly constructed buildings, mainly of wood and brick. The living conditions were overcrowded and unsanitary. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, there were concentrated efforts to have the alley dwellings demolished. Bladgen Alley and Naylor Court are two of only a handful of alleys which are extant. The Blagden Alley neighborhood continued to serve as a closely-knit, racially mixed middle and working class neighborhood into the 20th century. However, the widening of 9th Street with its subsequent loss of street trees and yards, the flight of the middle class to the suburbs, the increase of absentee landlords and the 1968 riots led to deterioration of the area. Today, there is interest in renovating and restoring the homes, and the area has an active community group interested in fighting crime. New residents have been attracted to the area by the charm of the buildings and the proximity to downtown. --- Christylez Bacon (pronounced: chris-styles) is a GRAMMY Nominated Progressive Hip-Hop artist and multi-instrumentalist from Southeast, Washington, DC. As a performer, Christylez multi-tasks between various instruments such as the West African djembe drum, acoustic guitar, and the human beat-box (oral percussion), all while continuing the oral tradition of storytelling through his lyrics. With a mission towards cultural acceptance and unification through music, Christylez is constantly pushing the envelope -- from performances at the National Cathedral, to becoming the first Hip-Hop artist to be featured at theSmithsonian Folklife Festival, composing and orchestrating an entire concert for a 12-piece orchestra commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Smithsonian Institute, or recording a Folk/Hip-Hop children's album. http://www.christylez.com/ —-- Nistha Raj's initial training in music began with western classical violin at the age of nine, which she pursued seriously until graduation from college. She received a B.A. in music with honors from the University of Houston in 2003. Although born and raised in the U.S., because of her Indian heritage, she was exposed to the classical music of India from her childhood and had an intense desire to delve deeper into a study of the music. http://nistharaj.com/