If the Greek Muses were reborn in the South Bronx, what artforms would they embody today?

PAW posed this question to 150 students at the Bronx Studio School for Writers and Artists. As artists-in-residence for a week, we collaborated with BSSWA faculty and visual art students to build and perform a pageant of Nine "Modern Muses". Each class took on a different aspect of the project, and gradually nine 12-foot tall figures emerged in the collaged manner of Surrealist exquisite corpse, incarnating the genres such as Gaming, Fashion, Video, and other contemporary arts. Many students stayed long hours after school to work, fueled by a commitment to processional art (and the perpetual promise of free pizza).

Setting off, unannounced and along a spontaneous route through the streets of the South Bronx, the ebullient procession (occasionally erupting into primal screams) took many by surprise, leaving them to wonder what occasion, what ethnic celebration, what protest ... had suddenly appeared in their midst. Imagined backstories and fertile musings fill the void left by concrete information. The Muses, no doubt, would have been pleased.