Inspired by Brathwaite’s own history, TRY/STEP/TRIP is a rite of passage orchestrated to save one of the justice system’s newest inductees from the ultimate plight of criminalization. Try/Step/Trip is a high-powered theatrical mixtape that fuses spoken word, hip-hop, step and ritual to tell the story of “Anonymous,” a young Black man navigating a court-mandated drug rehabilitation program and the larger systems shaping his identity. Guided and provoked by “The Conductor” and a chorus of fellow participants, Anonymous is pushed through memories, music and mythologies that reveal the tension between who he is, who he’s told to be and who he wants to become. As the group’s movement and storytelling intensify, from confessional meetings to ecstatic club nights to reimagined church rituals, the piece unravels the cycles of punishment, performance and possibility embedded in America’s criminal justice and cultural narratives.
Try/Step/Trip becomes a live excavation of Blackness, transformation and the struggle to find freedom within and beyond the systems determined to define you.
