A forum highlighting socio-political themes of Aurin Squire's new play.

Inside a sex-phobic U.S. society and within a sex-positive queer community, the individual who defines his or her own personal sexuality is a brave freedom fighter. Freedom Train Productions is proud to host this discussion around the socio-political themes within Aurin Squire's new work. MONDAY, MARCH 24TH @ 7PM

As is our custom, there will be an open and democratic discussion where experts and academics, sex-perts and sex-positives, and plain old folks who have something to say all will have a chance to do exactly that.

This is a part of Freedom Train Productions' Offstage Series. Aurin's new play will be featured at Fire! New Play Festival 2008 in August. We promote new political theatre written by up-and-coming Black playwrights.

All of our plays feature Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender (LGBT) hero and shero characters. Our playwrights have had work staged at Fresh Fruit Festival, BRIC Studio, Blue Heron Theatre, HERE Arts Center, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, WOW Cafe Theatre, and other NYC theaters.

For more info: visit: www.freedomtrainproductions.org.

The Audre Lorde Project
85 South Oxford Street
Fort Greene,
Brooklyn, NY

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Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a National Poetry Slam champion, Broadway veteran, featured artist on the past two seasons of Russell Simmons' Def Poetry on HBO and a recipient of 2002 and 2004 National Performance Network Creation commissions. He was also recently named a USA Rockefeller Fellow in Theater Arts.

Originally from New York City and currently living in Oakland, California, this acclaimed arts activist recently returned from Tokyo where he was presented during the 1st International Spoken Word Festival and Santiago de Cuba where he joined the legendary Katherine Dunham as a part of the CubaNola Collective.

Bamuthi entered the world of literary performance after crossing the sands of "traditional" theater, most notably on Broadway in the Tony Award winning "The Tap Dance Kid" and "Stand-Up Tragedy." His evening-length work "Word Becomes Flesh" represents the completion of his third play, having already staged "De/Cipher" (Theater Artaud and Yerba Buena Center, 2001) and "No Man's Land"(ODC, 2002). "Word Becomes Flesh" has found a home in the seasons of Seattle's On The Boards, Houston's Diverse Works, Washington, D.C.'s Dance Place and New York's Dance Theater Workshop among other national venues.

His work has been described as everything from "electrifying" (The Houston Chronicle), to "ever-elegant" (The Washington Post) and has compelled the Seattle Times to name him their "cutting edge performer of the year" for 2003. In their review of "Word Becomes Flesh," the New York Times declared his work to be "eloquent. . .seamless. . .and remarkable."

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Marc Bamuthi Joseph of The Living Word Project was at Iowa City's West High School presenting his unique blend of poetry, choreography, and story-telling last week.

 

 

By Judith Egerton

If jazz is the broom Africans jump over to become Americans, then what is hip-hop?

Playwright/poet, dancer/rapper and hip-hop historian Marc Bamuthi Joseph asks and answers that question in "the break/s," a dynamic display of facile wordplay, percussive music and phenomenal physical movement.

Joseph's new work, the fourth production to open in this year's Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville, is a journey of self-discovery that Joseph juxtaposes with the birth, growth and diversification of hip-hop.

The 90-minute show begins with Joseph twisting and twirling his entire body on the Bingham Theatre stage as if he were an LP revolving on a turntable. It's capped with a breathtaking, faster-than-the-eye flurry of dance and vocal agility called beatboxing.

In between, Joseph takes the audience on a trip with him to Haiti, Japan, Senegal, Paris, Bosnia and even Wisconsin, where he teaches and performs hip-hop. "the break/s" allows the audience to experience hip-hop afresh and see how cultures around the globe have adopted and adapted this quintessential American urban music to express their own views.

Joseph commands the stage with his autobiographical poetry slam and, in doing so, gives this year's Humana Festival a kick of excitement.

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By Entertainment Correspondent, John Frazier

I wonder how the gay white author, Tennessee Williams, would like his classic, "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" now done in real color?. The movie starred Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor and a few other stars, but it was the scenes with Mr. Newman and Ms. Taylor that I found electrifying. I can remember, I believe, a high school teacher told me that the reason Mr. Newman's, character, named Brick, didn't want to make her love to Maggie the cat, Elizabeth Taylor, was because he was gay and since it was done in the 1950's, in the south, all he could do is drink and became an alcoholic. Paul Newman in this movie is hotter than July! He was an extremely handsome, sexy man in his hay day and Elizabeth Taylor, need I say more, one of cinema's true beauty's.

As for Brick being gay, it was probably true, since Mr. Tennessee Williams always portrayed the women in his novels as weak and strange, just think about "A Streetcar Named Desire", Blanche was a bit weird. Anyway, the new star cast of "Cat" are Terrence Howard as Brick, Anika Noni Rose (Dreamsgirls) as Maggie, James Earl Jones as Big Daddy and Phylicia Rashad as Big Mama and younger sister to Phylicia is the director, Ms. Debbie Allen.

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Monday, March 3rd in Harlem

Invisible Life The Musical  is based on the NY Times Best selling novel by E. Lynn Harris.

Invisibale Life is an explosive story inspired by E. Lynn Harris'novel of the same title, showcasing the impact of family, love, friendship, sexual desire, religion and AIDS in the African-Americancommunity.

AUDITION DATE: Monday, March 3rd TIME: 11:30am – 4:00pm
SIGN UP BEGINS: 11 am
LOCATION: Nubian Heritage, 2037 5th Avenue, Harlem, NYC (between 125 and 126th Street)

Please Note: Singing is required. High quality voices that sing in a R&B/pop style of Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway and Whitney Houston.

Please bring a photo and resume and sheet music to sing. Accompanist provided.

Seeking:

• Raymond Jr: 20's African-American Male Lead. TENOR. Masculine, extremely handsome and athletic. An attorney from Alabama. He is a mixture of Southern charm, layered with an acquired NY edge. He's a true ladies' man, until a series of events causes him to deal with a latent desire. He experiences an emotional roller coaster when he discovers that life is not perfect. STRONG ACTOR/MUST SING

• Nicole: 20's African-American Female. Lead. Jazz sounding SOPRANO. A former Miss America runner-up, aspiring Broadway actress, singer and Raymond's love interest. She's sweet, vulnerable, vibrant and a breath of fresh air. MUST SING/DANCE. A triple threat.

• Kelvin: 20's African-American Male. Lead. BARITONE/BASS. A dashing, arrogant football player who uses his good looks and charm to get whoever he wants, whenever he wants. Kelvin is a ladies' man living a life on the "down low". He is in love with and engaged to Candance, but he also loves Raymond. Must have a great body and killer looks. Must Sing or Rap.
  

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HARRY Potter star Daniel Radcliffe was a little gobsmacked by a lingering man pash planted on him as he accepted a theatre award.

 

The good-humoured actor was accepting his Best Newcomer award at the Whatsonstage 2008 awards when the show's host, James Corden, ambushed him with a kiss.

Daniel doesn't even try to fight it and he just goes along with it, even putting his arm around the neck of the shameless host.

Harry Potter's Big Gay Kiss

 

 

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The world of classical ballet seems to be the last place you would find a young black man — but Andile Ndlovu is changing that.

From Johannesburg’s Ennerdale township, Ndlovu first came to national notice with his performance of Basilio in the South African Ballet Theatre’s production of Don Quixote.

He was the first black man to have played the role on a local stage.

“It is a physically demanding role — you have to be a real virtuoso dancer to do that,” says the ballet theatre’s Samantha Saevitzon, “but Andile brought the house down. ”

Ndlovu, 19, is among a fraction of black men performing in local ballet — but he is quickly becoming its fastest rising star.

This week, South African TV viewers will see him in a new Pop Idol-style TV show called Dance, Dance, Dance — while he is considering job offers from two of the US’s leading ballet companies: the Washington Ballet and the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Asked what he thinks has distinguished him from his mostly white fellow dancers, he says: “My background was very different. They didn’t have to compete in the townships — where you compete at everything.”

The incomprehension he has faced from his own community, over his chosen vacation, has drawn comparisons with Billy Elliot, the film about a boy from an English mining town who pursues ballet dancing to the amazement of family and friends.

But in South Africa there is the added dimension of race.

“Twenty years ago, someone like Ndlovu wouldn’t even have been allowed inside the theatre ,” says Saevitzon.

With the dismantling of apartheid, a few ballet outreach programmes were introduced in some townships and that was the only chance that Ndlovu needed.

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By Jessica Gould

ALICIA GRAF WAS eight or nine when she first encountered Alvin Ailey's "Revelations," the choreographer's soul-stirring tribute to his Texas-born "blood memories." Graf's friend had a videotape of the masterpiece, and together, they watched it over and over again, mimicking the dancers' graceful moves.

For Graf, who is biracial, the Ailey classic immediately struck a chord.

"I think it's really interesting the way you can identify with something even though you don't know anything about it," says the Columbia, Md., native. "I had rarely seen professional black dancers. ... Something about it was really close and special to me."

One day, her father took her to the Kennedy Center to see the company perform, and she was moved — by the performance and the theater itself.

"I think the Kennedy Center is one of the most beautiful opera houses in the world," she says. "I walk in and I feel like it's definitely a place that houses great dance, music and art."

From Feb. 19-24, Graf, 29, will perform on that theater's storied stage with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. On Thursday and Saturday she'll arc her arms heavenward in "Revelations'" prayerful duet "Fix Me, Jesus."

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By Celia McGee

NEW YORK: In 'Oroonoko,' Biyi Bandele recasts story of African slavery

Biyi Bandele comes bearing human cargo. Bandele, a playwright and novelist born in Nigeria, now a resident of England, for a long while wrote mainly about the lives he knew in both.

But when the Royal Shakespeare Company had the idea of involving him in a production of "Oroonoko," the play by the Restoration dramatist Thomas Southerne based on Aphra Behn's famous novel of the period, Bandele plunged deep into matters of history, responsibility, power, choices of the heart and the fickleness of freedom. He emerged in 1999 with a new work about Africa and slavery; about slave takers, who are African, and slave traders, who are white.

His "Oroonoko," which ran for a year and a half, sold out its performances at the Other Place, the Royal Shakespeare Company's alternative theater space at the time.

Now Theater for a New Audience is introducing the play in the United States. Starring Albert Jones as the not un-Shakespearean soldier prince, Oroonoko, and directed by Kate Whoriskey, it opened last Sunday at the Duke theater in New York.

Bandele, 40, often visits New York, where he has many friends in theater and among writers. But he said he was not entirely sure how "Oroonoko," which deliberately avoids taking sides along racial lines, would be received by an American audience.

"There were nights at the RSC when the audience was predominantly American because of tourist season," he said, "a mixture of black and white, and the response was always very emotional. At the end people would come out like this." Bandele touched a hand to his face in a gesture of crying. (Reviewers have not been as moved. Charles Isherwood, writing in The New York Times, called it "a strangely bland if superficially exotic work of theater.")

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Christopher Boatwright over came deafness to transform dance. Boatwright died of complications from AIDS in 1997

Dance Magazine, May, 1996 
by Valerie Gladstone

Christopher Boatwright may have lost most of his hearing, but his matchless musicality remains. In fact, having been forced to find tempos and rhythms within himself, he has made his dancing increasingly profound. He has developed new sensibilities in the process of learning sign language and lipreading. These new accomplishments, combined with the technique, line, and ballon that made him a classical ballet star in Europe, have made his performances in the contemporary repertoire of Alonzo King's Lines Contemporary Ballet Company an amazing thing to behold. Audiences saw Boatwright's achievement when Lines performed in San Francisco's Center for the Arts (April 19-28), and New York City audiences will see him at the Joyce Theater (June 4-9).

"Chris is a master musician," says King, who brought him to Lines three years ago, "and as his love for dancing continues to grow, so does his ability to transform himself so thoroughly that he seems to disappear into his roles. Most dancers exhibit themselves first, but he makes the works visible. He is one of the great artists of his generation."

For a young African American from Brooklyn who excelled in football, tennis, and swimming, becoming a dancer seemed quite unlikely. Boatwright changed direction while a scholarship student at Fieldston, a New York City private school. He would be doing warm-up exercises in the gym while the girl students were taking modern dance class. Gradually he was drawn into another world. He had considered becoming a lawyer to please his family, but once he started studying with Merce Cunningham after school, there wasn't much chance of his doing anything else but dance.

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By Robert Johnson

Evidence/A Dance Company. Where: Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave. at 19th Street, New York. When: 8 tonight through Saturday; 7:30 p.m. Sunday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. How much: $38; $25 Sunday evening. Call (212) 242-0800 or visit joyce.org.

NEW YORK -- Choreographer Ronald K. Brown takes his army of the faithful on a stroll through Pittsburgh in "One Shot," the evening-length premiere that his Evidence/A Dance Company unveiled yesterday at the Joyce Theater.

Rather sedately, like a group of day-trippers who have just emerged from the bus where they were dozing, the dancers tour the historic, African-American neighborhood studied by Pittsburgh's late photo-journalist Charles "Teenie" Harris. A selection of Harris' portraits of ordinary people and celebrities, opening a window onto African-American life roughly from the 1930s to the 1960s, is projected on the backdrop.

Brown was commissioned to choreograph "One Shot" (so named, because Harris famously snapped only one, perfect shot of his subjects) to accompany an exhibition at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture in Pittsburgh. Despite the glory of dancers like Arcell Cabuag, Shani Collins and the others, the photos remain the major attraction on stage, however. Dance lovers would do better to attend an alternating program of mixed works featuring the condensed and more intensely flavored dances "Come Ye," "Truth Don Die" and "Upside Down."

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HOUSTON, (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- The Ensemble Theatre recently held its "8th Annual Heart of the Theatre" celebration at the Wortham Center for their loyal subscribers. The Board of Directors and staff of The Ensemble hosted subscribers, along with students from Kashmere, Smiley and Forest Brook High Schools, to a wonderful evening with veteran actor, director and Emmy award winner Charles Dutton's performance of "From Jail to Yale". Dutton performed his energetic one-man show, a personal narrative combined with excerpts from prolific playwright August Wilson who impacted his life.

Dutton, The Ensemble's "2007 Director of the Year Honoree", performed two shows (5:30 & 8:15 p.m.) to over 1,700 subscribers who thoroughly enjoyed his unique commentary and performance. Subscribers were acknowledged and thanked, by Ensemble Board Chairperson Argentina James and President Hasting Stewart, for continued support in helping to maintain The Ensemble's 31 year legacy in the performing arts and commitment to training young performers.

An added treat for the evening was the sneak preview of Lifetime Original Movie premiere of "Racing for Time", directed by and starring Charles Dutton, and featuring The Ensemble's Young Performers Program alumnae and Broadway actress DeQuina Moore. "Racing for Time" will air on Lifetime Television on Feb. 16th.

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By Kenneth Jones

History gets made Feb. 12 when, for the first time on Broadway, an African-American cast bites into Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams' Southern-fried feast of family greed, lies and sexual tension.

The 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning Mississippi-set tale — no longer set in the 1950s, but hinting at the past 15 years or so — is directed by Debbie Allen, whose cast includes James Earl Jones as Big Daddy, the dying patriarch of the Pollitt family, whose cotton-crop fortune is up for grabs; film actor Terrence Howard, making his Broadway debut as Brick, the favored ex-jock son who is now a heap of booze and regret (and repressed homosexuality), unable to give his voracious wife, Maggie (Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose) a child; Phylicia Rashad as Big Mama, facing the loss of her man; Giancarlo Esposito as Gooper, the son whose greatest asset may be the children — also known as "no-neck monsters" — he and his wife, Mae (Lisa Arrindell-Anderson), have been able to produce.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is aiming for a March 6 opening at the Broadhurst Theatre. Tickets for the "strictly limited engagement" are on sale through April 13, but it's not hard to guess that an extension will be announced for this high-profile staging.

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By Felicia R. Lee

For Ronald K. Brown, the choreographer and dancer who formed Evidence Dance Company in 1985 at 19, evidence is a twin concept. Part of it is spiritual faith, evidence of things unseen, and part is physical movement used in telling stories from the African diaspora, evidence of endurance, suffering and triumph.

Outside the dance world Mr. Brown is hardly a household name. Yet his company has survived almost 23 years, and figures from Judith Jamison, artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, to Mark Russell, producer of Under the Radar festival at the Public Theater, say they see Mr. Brown’s distinctive style, which uses African, Caribbean and American dance club moves, as influential.

“He’s one of the more important choreographic voices we’ve got in the U.S.,” Mr. Russell said.

On Tuesday night Evidence opens its annual New York season at the Joyce Theater. One of this year’s two programs is the New York premiere of “One Shot,” an evening-length work that blends traditional African and modern dance and spoken word to tell the story of Charles Harris, a photographer who documented black life in Pittsburgh from 1936 to 1975. The other program features some of the company’s signature repertory work: “Come Ye,” inspired by the music and life of Nina Simone; “Upside Down,” an excerpt from “Destiny,” about burial and memorial; and “Truth Don Die,” about a Nigerian man’s life. The accompaniment includes live music by Omotayo Olaiya, a k a Wunmi, and recordings by Me’Shell Ndegeocello and Femi Kuti.

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The Riant Theatre is premiering a new musical LOVING YOU based on the novel by the same name by artistic director Van Dirk Fisher and choreographed by Joi Lynn.

LOVING YOU is about a love triangle between the beautiful Mariah Cosi, an advertising executive, who is set to marry the sexy and powerful Michael Cavaughn, a record producer and fashion designer. Mariah's love is put to the test at her bachelorette party at Chances Dance Club, when she runs into her ex Justin Holmes, a fast rising super model. Both men know how to tap her soul, but only one man can possess the key to her heart.

The musical features the music by various R&B, Hip Hop, Pop and Jazz artists including: Richard D. Applewhite, Christina, Darnerian, Lina Day, Decypher, Cielo Deville, B. East, Hassan Farrow, Van Dirk Fisher, Jay Notes, J-Smash and SnuggS.

The musical is choreographed by JoiLynn, who began her professional dance training at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., and continued with the Boston Conservatory and The Alvin Ailey Dance School. She has appeared as a model and dancer in shows with Tyrese, 112, and Parliament and has performed with Impulse Dance Company, Phoenix Rising Dance Company, Nommo Contemporary Dance Theatre, Balance Dance Theatre, Ase Dance Theatre Collective and with choreographer Trevor Pridee. She has also performed at Carnivale: The Choreographers Ball in NYC in 2007 and has danced in music videos for reggae artist CK and hip hop artist Loot.

LOVING YOU is at the American Theatre of Actors, 314 West 54th Street, NYC, between 8th & 9th Avenue, on Sunday, February 17th at 2pm & 5pm, and on Saturday, February 23rd at 6pm & 9pm. For tickets call 646-623-3488 or go to www.therianttheatre.com. Opening Night Tickets are $35 and includes a reception. Tickets on the 23rd are $35, $30 & $25.

By Fran Heller

“This is not the story you know, but somewhere in between,” says the soothsayer in the opening moments of “Julius X,” a curious coupling of the tragedy of Julius Caesar and the assassination of Malcolm X, created by poet and hip-hop playwright Al Letson Jr. It’s at Karamu Performing Arts Theatre through Feb. 24.

The mix works well, a tribute to the universal appeal of Shakespeare’s timeless themes of power, overarching ambition and jealousy. The play’s blend of drama, poetry, music and movement creates a total theatrical experience that keeps the viewer engaged and interested throughout.

The large cast is uneven in quality. But all is forgiven under the assured direction of Justin Emeka, a writer, actor, teacher and director, and currently a visiting professor of theater and African-American studies at Oberlin College. Director/choreographer Emeka keeps the ensemble moving like clockwork.

To better understand “Julius X,” a little background about Malcolm X is in order. Born Malcolm Little, Malcolm X started life as a thief, pimp and hustler, before he saw the light and converted to Islam while serving time in prison. (The X symbolizes the rejection of “slave names” given to the blacks by their white masters and the absence of an inherited African name to take its place.)

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By Robert Hurwitt

The patient, a college student, has debilitating panic attacks. Her new doctor, an expert in using hypnosis - or "trancing" - to recover repressed memories, learns things that lead him to break his oath of confidentiality. When her memories reveal the hushed-up massacre of a remote village in her African homeland, the doctor, an investigative reporter and a State Department official become entangled in a case of impending genocide related to a Central African nation's planned major hydroelectric project.

"Tranced," by clinical psychologist turned playwright Robert Clyman, is a psychological mystery centered on issues of international development, African politics, genocide in both its physical and cultural forms and the level of horror that has to be reached before Americans will pay attention to injustices in an African state. Those issues are compellingly presented in the local premiere that opened Friday in a brilliantly staged and performed San Jose Repertory Theatre production. The play, however, is less successful as either the thriller Clyman intends or even as a coherent drama.

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On Friday February 22, Perishable Theatre, will present Scratch & Burn, a hip-hop dance theatre performance about primal urges and the battle for supremacy and domination.

“Scratch & Burn is a combination of dance elements from ancient Zulu, Maori, and butoh rituals with movements from hip-hop and urban street combat to create a powerful, gripping and immensely entertaining dance theater work about our primal urge to battle for supremacy and domination. 

With live African drumming, a megaton soundtrack and dramatic effects with lighting, props, costumes and video projection, five male dancers assume various roles and rarely leave the stage, concluding the show with a display of break dancing that leaves the audience gasping. Scratch & Burn is fast and furious, forceful and athletic, delivering a searing critique of war, violence, racial stereotypes, the Bush administration and U.S. imperialism.", explain press notes.

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By Elizabeth Pandolfi

Some African-American women have such gorgeous dignity that it's quite difficult not to notice your own posture leaves something to be desired, and that your outfit, which you didn't so much care about at home, could be a lot more put together.

The Footlight Players' Crowns is a celebration of African-American identity using hats — church hats, that is, the feathery, flowery, wide-brimmed kind — as its major vehicle. But I have to say what struck me most of all at this performance was the incredible grace and, yes, dignity of its six actresses and single actor.

Whether they were dressed in traditional African garb or contemporary, colorful church-going wear, singing gospel songs or listening as others sang, I have rarely seen quiet pride conveyed so subtly yet powerfully as it is within the walls — and hats — of Footlight's tiny Queen Street theater.

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By Verashni Pillay

Johannesburg - An HIV-positive dancer for the celebrated African Footprint show was sent back home from America for having a "communicable disease," the show's producer told News24.

The dancer was on his way back to SA, after the American/Canadian promoters of the show consulted a top New York lawyer, who advised he be sent back immediately.

The young man, whom African Footprint producer Richard Loring declined to name, was prevented from performing in South Africa's longest running show because of a US law that prevents people with a communicable disease from obtaining entry into the country.

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