The BMA’s new Black Box gallery for light, sound, and moving image works debuts with <em>A Man Screaming is Not a Dancing Bear</em>, a recently acquired 11-minute video (2008) set in New Orleans. Alternating footage of an abandoned house ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the seemingly calm wetlands ofthe lower Mississippi River Delta builds a quiet tension that is interrupted by images of a resident of the city’s 9th Ward transforming the blinds of the home into a percussive instrument. These haunting scenes evoke the musical traditions of New Orleans, the idea of artistic creation coming in the aftermath of destruction, and the visual metaphor of light breaking into the darkness of the abandoned house.</p> <p>Collaborators Jennifer Allora (American, born 1974) and Guillermo Calzadilla (Cuban, born 1971) have made perseverance and accomplishment in the midst of challenging circumstances the subject of videos, performances, and sculptural installations. They represented the U.S. in the 2011 Venice Biennale.