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Performance: Room to Swing an Ax

A Southern Gothic Song Cycle

Writer Alex Dawson is joined by folk singer Arlan Feiles for a haunting performance combining spoken word and ballads drawn from Dawson’s extraordinary life on a rural Alabama horse farm.

“There is no one like Alex Dawson. A riveting, one-of-a-kind storyteller.” — Joyce Carol Oates

Writer and performer Alex Dawson is joined by award-winning folk singer Arlan Feiles for "Room to Swing an Ax," a fever-dream Southern Gothic song cycle featuring 10 biographical ballads.

Like Waylon Jennings’s memoiristic "Man Called Hoss," Dawson and Feiles pull audiences through the mud and blood of Dawson’s harsh but magical childhood on a haunted horse farm in rural Alabama. The story begins with the morning Dawson’s stepfather, a rancher named Doc, hit him in the head with a five-pound Fireside Friend. It ends with Doc dead and buried by a bucket loader among his horses.

Along the way, there are witches in the woods, snakes in the lake, ghosts in the barn and, trapped in every bent tree, the soul of someone who died wrong.

Part memoiristic monodrama, part audio-biography and part Southern Gothic song cycle, "Room to Swing an Ax" is Big Fish meets Blaze Foley, a strange and compelling journey through memory, family, violence and the supernatural.

Dawson is the lyricist and Feiles provides the music. Dawson is a critically acclaimed writer and performer whose work includes "The Devil & Daisy Dirt" and "Welcome to White Hart." Feiles is an award-winning folk singer known for "Come Sunday Morning" and "Diaspora."

Runtime: 90 minutes.

Public Humanities programs are presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Community Room Accessibility

• Wheelchair accessible
• Assistive listening system compatible with personal T-coil-enabled devices (compatible headphones also available for use during programs)
• English-language subtitles for films (when available)
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