Recital Series: The Innocents

The Cal Poly Humboldt Department of Dance, Music and Theatre presents The Innocents, a collaboration of percussionists Allen Otte and John Lane. Their one-hour performance uses found-object and homemade instruments, electronic soundscapes and spoken texts to explore wrongful imprisonment and exoneration in the American criminal justice system — mistaken identity, incarceration, injustice, politics, psychology and resilience. The texts draw on historic prison diaries and poetry, interrogation transcripts, Google autocomplete, Thomas Jefferson, prisoner writings, Mark Godsey's Blind Injustice and captured Chicago police scan chatter. The work is the subject of an award-winning documentary and has been praised by the Woody Guthrie Center. John Lane is Professor of Percussion at Sam Houston State University; Allen Otte co-founded the Blackearth Percussion Group and Percussion Group Cincinnati and was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame in 2017. Saturday, Oct. 24, 7:30 p.m.; doors 7 p.m. Tickets at the door or online.