The Innocents

• Allen Otte, percussion
• John Lane, percussion

An exploration of wrongful imprisonment and exoneration in the American criminal justice system, The Innocents cuts to the emotional core of the human experience surrounding these issues. This work of performance art features a variety of found-object and home-made instruments, electronic soundscapes, and spoken texts in an hour-long dramatic performance. Co-composed by the performers, percussionists Allen Otte and John Lane, these seventeen individual tableaux delve into the concepts of mistaken identity, incarceration, injustice, politics, psychology, and resilience. Otte and Lane have embraced their roles as advocates by cutting directly to the emotional core of the human experience surrounding the gross injustice that is wrongful incarceration.

"In performance we have the opportunity to direct and focus not only attention, but more importantly, to engage on an emotional level where experience is more than simply processing facts and figures. Art provides a platform for advocacy and affords us an opportunity to raise our voices in the name of something other than ourselves in an eloquent and hopefully memorable way. For all of us, creativity catalyzes change faster than awareness alone. In the current socio-political landscape where we are confronted with the most egregious examples of the opposite, our offering wishes to prove the power of empathic engagement with issues that ultimately touch all of our lives." — John Lane and Allen Otte  

About Portland State University School of Music & Theater

https://www.pdx.edu/music-theater/

About Allen Otte, percussion

https://ccm.uc.edu/about/directory.html?eid=otteac&thecomp=uceprof

About John Lane, percussion

http://www.john-lane.com