Ticket Stub for Carrie Mae Weems: Past Tense. Center for the Art of Performance UCLA. Fri, Mar 8, 2019, at 8PM. 

Past Tense has a modernist aesthetic of clean, spare staging with singers representing a Greek chorus on a small, raised platform and Weems at a clear, Lucite lectern, with startling imagery projected on a screen behind them conveying the risk of an encounter between authority figures and citizens who are fervent in their sense of morality. This powerful piece explores themes of social justice, escalating violence, gender relations, politics and personal identity within the context of contemporary history — recurrent subjects in Weems’ practice.

- A.C.