Anita Bush—stage/film actress and playwright.
Anita Bush also founded the Anita Bush All-Colored Dramatic Stock Company (later renamed The Lafayette Players) in 1915.
(via mariavontraphouse)
you ought to learn that dance
-
-
August Wilson’s Fences
is one of those texts that had a tremendous impact on my life. The first time I read it I was in graduate school, and I then spent the next week or so reading and re-reading it. It is that powerful.
And then when I finally had an opportunity to witness the Broadway production, I was even more moved. And a number of great African American actors—James Earl Jones, Laurence Fishburne, and Denzel Washington, to name a few—have played the role of Troy Maxson masterfully.
If you have not read the book and/or seen the Broadway production, you are missing something wonderful very wonderful. You need this in your life.
(via mariavontraphouse)
-
View high resolution
Black theater pioneers Bob Cole (l) and J. Rosamond Johnson (r), ca. 1890(?). The two men were part of a trio that included Rosamond’s brother James Weldon Johnson. Together they wrote over 200 songs and performed for audiences in the United States and Europe. The trio steered audiences away from the degrading “coon songs” that were popular during the mid 1880s to early 1900s by offering music that was sophisticated, refined and free of stereotypes. In 1900, Rosamond composed music for one of James Weldon’s poems. The piece was entitled Lift Every Voice and Sing.
Photographer, date unknown.
(via mariavontraphouse)
-
-
-
Just Opened:
“Love Me Till It Hurts”
Panni Malekzadeh
Freight + Volume, 530 W24th St., NYC
Panni Malekzadeh makes beautiful, complicated portraits of contemporary Persian women coming of age. What age, exactly, they are coming into is not entirely clear. The young women she depicts, mostly based on her close friends and family, are clothed in elaborate period-piece costumes, as though they suddenly woke up in a strange land and time, and are seeking clues and clarity to their sexual and cultural identity. They appear filled with an abundant mixture of embarrassment, sexual hunger, shame, confusion, delight and dread. In addition to the portraits, Panni presents a series of pink dollhouses in an antique-wallpapered “bedroom” setting in which to view the work. - thru Aug 11(via tits-on-a-tlacuache)
-
Roscoe Lee Browne
(May 2, 1925 – April 11, 2007)
With a strong sense of himself, Browne was determined not to accept stereotyped and demeaning roles that had routinely been offered to black actors, and he resisted emulating fellow actors. Browne also desired to do more than act and narrate, and in 1966 he wrote and made his directorial stage debut with A Hand is On the Gate: An Evening of Negro Poetry and Folk Music starring Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones, Moses Gunn, and other rising black talent.
His appearances on The Cosby Show, including a memorable episode in which he recited Shakespeare with fellow guest star Christopher Plummer, also drew acclaim as well winning an Emmy Award in 1986 for his guest role as Professor Foster.
(via searchingforknowledge)
-
Rain in a Dead Man’s Footprints is the sixth collaboration between Alfred Hinkel of Jazzart and Mark Fleishman of Magnet Theatre, a partnership that has produced some of South Africa’s most acclaimed productions such as Medea,Vlam, Cold Water/Thirsty Souls and community-based projects such as the Clanwilliam Arts Project.
Rain in a Dead Man’s Footprints developed out of research done and skills honed on collaborations like the 1995 production of The Sun, the Moon and the Knife and the 1999 outdoor production of Vlam. The Sun, the Moon and the Knife was based on Return of the Moon: versions of poems by the /Xam people of the Northern Cape that were translated by Stephen Watson. They were narrated by tribe members //Kabbo, /Han#kasso and Dia!kwain, who were interviewed and recorded by Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd in the late 19th century. These created the platform for the creative presentation of aspects of their stories with the help of Craig Leo’s skills in puppetry, aerial, circus and illusion work and the musical talents of Neo Muyanga, a founder member of blk sonshine.
Vlam was held on 16 December 1999 (Reconciliation Day) in a large vacant lot in District Six. It featured large sculptural objects, backpack puppets, musical instruments made from PVC plumbing pipes, fire performance techniques, lanterns, dance and music. Some of these elements have also been used in the Clanwilliam Arts Project, a collaboration among Professor John Parkington (Archeology Department, University of Cape Town), Professor Pippa Skotnes, (Michaelis School of Fine Arts), Jazzart Dance Theatre, Namjive and Magnet Theatre. It aims to return the heritage of the rock art of Clanwilliam to the community.
Rain in a Dead Man’s Footprints is the sixth collaboration between Alfred Hinkel of Jazzart and Mark Fleishman of Magnet Theatre, a partnership that has produced some of South Africa’s most acclaimed productions such as Medea,Vlam, Cold Water/Thirsty Souls and community-based projects such as the Clanwilliam Arts Project.
Rain in a Dead Man’s Footprints developed out of research done and skills honed on collaborations like the 1995 production of The Sun, the Moon and the Knife and the 1999 outdoor production of Vlam. The Sun, the Moon and the Knife was based on Return of the Moon: versions of poems by the /Xam people of the Northern Cape that were translated by Stephen Watson. They were narrated by tribe members //Kabbo, /Han#kasso and Dia!kwain, who were interviewed and recorded by Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd in the late 19th century. These created the platform for the creative presentation of aspects of their stories with the help of Craig Leo’s skills in puppetry, aerial, circus and illusion work and the musical talents of Neo Muyanga, a founder member of blk sonshine.
Vlam was held on 16 December 1999 (Reconciliation Day) in a large vacant lot in District Six. It featured large sculptural objects, backpack puppets, musical instruments made from PVC plumbing pipes, fire performance techniques, lanterns, dance and music. Some of these elements have also been used in the Clanwilliam Arts Project, a collaboration among Professor John Parkington (Archeology Department, University of Cape Town), Professor Pippa Skotnes, (Michaelis School of Fine Arts), Jazzart Dance Theatre, Namjive and Magnet Theatre. It aims to return the heritage of the rock art of Clanwilliam to the community.
The richness of imagery in /Xam storytelling and the sophisticated nature of their extensive non-verbal communication made Rain in a Dead Man’s Footprints the perfect vehicle for translation into performance. The work is a theatrical journey into the many legends and beliefs of the /Xam that through illusion, movement, words, song and imagery, invites the audience to contemplate what was lost and has been found; what once was and what now exists.(Source: dusttracksonaroad)
-
Cargo is the seventh in a series of inspired collaborations between two of South Africa’s most exciting movement theatre companies, Jazzart Dance Theatre and Magnet Theatre. It uses performance to re-imagine the archive of slavery in the Cape, bringing it to the attention of a wider audience while linking the past to our present reality.
(Source: dusttracksonaroad)
-
Behind the Veil of Lynching and Jim Crow on the December 12th Left of Black
Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype© by Koritha Mitchell, Professor of English at The Ohio State University and author of Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship 1890-1930 (University of Illinois Press). Neal and Mitchell discuss how black playwrights during the early 20th century used one-act plays to offer response to racial trauma and violence. Neal and Mitchell also contemplate why black artists are often misunderstood in their intent, where their art is often labeled “protest art” when it instead functions as a form of community expression. Lastly, Mitchell analyzes the first generation of black cross-over stars and distinguishes between Tyler Perry the stage performer and the filmmaker.
Later Neal is joined via Skype© by Leslie Brown, Associate Professor of History at Williams College and a researcher on the project Behind the Veil: Documenting the African-American Experience in the Jim Crow South which has been recently digitized at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies. Brown discusses the ethnographic research she did to prepare for the archive and the remaining accessibility gap to materials such as these. Brown also discusses the recent interest in the Jim Crow era.
***
Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on Duke’s Ustream channel: ustream.tv/dukeuniversity. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive.
Left of Black is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.
***
Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack
Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan
Follow Koritha Mitchell on Twitter: @ProfKori
###
Theme: Linear by Peter Vidani