NEW WEBSITE IS HERE!
www.the-innocents.com
The Innocents (2006/Rev. 2018)
by Allen Otte and John Lane
The Innocents was originally conceived in 2006 by Allen Otte and John Lane as a performance art piece in collaboration with Cincinnati director Michael Burnham and a group of actors from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Drama Program, which complemented an exhibition of photography by Taryn Simon, The Innocents, at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center.
Trailer for the new documentary film by Wojciech Lorenc.
“Language is a tremendous gift, but language does not deliver experience, it only describes experience. It mediates between us and reality. And while music and performance cannot be equated with the actual experience of prison or arrest, it avoids the symbolic. It creates experience. What they managed to do was create an experience that brought the listener directly to the horror of what they wanted us to know. From where I sat, this was absolutely ingenious.”
“The inspiration to start The Innocents had to come from a deep and profound love for mankind, which is so gratifying. I hope more young people can get to see them and are able to find a reason to fight for a worthy cause as both John Lane and Allen Otte are doing.”
Allen Otte, John Lane, and Clarence Harrison (first person exonerated by the Georgia Innocents Project)
University of Georgia Residency/Performance, 2017
“What a magnificent project. You managed to be a chronicler of injustice, a reporter and an ally. I never felt like you were a tourist of some else’s pain and suffering, but rather a celebrant of survival and freedom and the individual escape from tyranny. The hopeful triumph of the wrongly convicted is truly awe inspiring. ”
“I regularly listen to and am moved by stories of wrongful conviction, but it was not until The Innocents performance that I really felt what it must be like to be convicted of and imprisoned for a crime I did not commit. This gripping abstract performance takes you deep into the dark world of a wrongfully convicted prisoner and is one of the most moving performances I have ever witnessed — who knew banging rocks together and tearing up sheets of paper could be so powerful! I didn’t know what to expect ahead of the performance, and I certainly didn’t expect to be moved to tears. You will be spellbound.”
