Why I live for the dance

Sun Moon Child

A video altar piece, a celebration and tribute to Black dance, 

created in 2007 by pierre bennu

music by Imani Uzuri

All you sinners and saints, come to a staged reading of INDIGO

SINNERS AND SAINTS FESTIVAL

curated by

Imani Uzuri

presents a special musical staged reading of

INDIGO, A BLUES OPERA 

by Karma Mayet Johnson

at Jack

Thursday, February 27, 7:30pm

At the intersection of ancestral conjure, herstorical fact, and raw ritual, INDIGO, A BLUES OPERA investigates the lesbian roots of the Blues through the lens of two lovers who refused to remain enslaved. Take the journey back to 1853 and remember...ONE NIGHT ONLY!!!

Followed by artist talk with playwright, composer and performer Karma Mayet Johnson moderated by composer, vocalist, cultural worker Toshi Reagon

Advance purchase strongly recommended. For ticket information, click here.

Jack
505 1/2 Waverly Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
(map/directions)

Uzuri's Sinners and Saints Festival (February 26-March 1) celebrates "Black American vernacular culture (Ring Shouts, Spirituals, Blues, early Gospel, Line Singing, Praise Houses, Jazz) and their contemporary counterparts" and "improv as an ecstatic tradition and the ways in the ways in which secular and sacred often intertwine in these cultural systems."

For complete information about the Sinners and Saints Festival, click here.

Time to get "Writeous"

Writeous! 

Friday, January 11 

(7:30pm; doors open at 6:30pm)

at the Brecht Forum

An evening of readings, performances, and music celebrating Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice's Lesbian Writer's Fund and supporting its Global LGBT Arts Fund.

Featuring the words of Urvashi Vaid, Lenelle Moise, Staceyann Chin, Jacqueline Woodson; the music of Imani Uzuri; and beats by DJ Tikka Masala

$20 (No one turned away for lack of funds)
Food and WitchesBrew drinks available for purchase

Venue is wheelchair accessible through ramp in rear courtyard. If you need any further information about accessibility, please email development@astraeafoundation.org

For tickets, click here.

Brecht Forum
451 West Street (between Bank and Bethune Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Body and Soul: Listen.: Imani Uzuri

Imani Uzuri (photo by Petra Richterova)

Click here to subscribe to Body and Soul podcast in iTunes and listen to vocalist/composer Imani Uzuri talk about deep listening to the ocean and her own need, as an artist and a woman, for meditative time alone.

Innovative vocalist and composer Imani Uzuri is an eclectic artist who travels internationally from Morocco to Moscow creating and performing across various genres including concerts, recordings, experimental theater, performance art and sound installations. Uzuri’s work has been called “stunning” by New York Magazine and incorporates her interests in world culture, experimentation and sacred music. She has earned critical acclaim for her debut album, Her Holy Water: A Black Girl’s Rock Opera as well as for her collaborations with diverse artists such as Herbie Hancock, John Legend, Wangechi Mutu, Sandford Biggers and Vijay Iyer. Her new album The Gypsy Diaries which also features sitar, acoustic guitar, cello, violin, Japanese shinobue flute and world percussion, is a vibrant lyrical and spiritual sound scape and was named #2 on Rhapsody's World Top 10 List Summer 2012. She is currently composing a new musical GIRL Shakes Lose Her Skin that she is developing with playwright Zakiyyah Alexander inspired by the works of Philadelphia Poet Laureate Sonia Sanchez.

Click here to visit with Imani Uzuri and hear tracks from The Gypsy Diaries.

To subscribe to Body and Soul podcast, click here.

Your donation will help keep Body and Soul together. Please get in touch, and I'll happily send instructions. Thanks!

(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com)

Into the mystic with Imani Uzuri

IMANI UZURI'S MOSAIC Sacred Music Extravaganza

presented by Harlem Stage
at The Gatehouse

This much-anticipated event highlights sacred music by women artists from around the globe, lead by Imani Uzuri and her Mosaic Sacred Orchestra.

Saturday, December 10, 7:30pm

"...an array of healing music from Ragas to Rock. MOSAIC is every bit as revolutionary as it is spiritual."

Featuring Special Guests DJ Rekha, vocalists Morley, Haale, Soni Morena, Ata Papa, M. Nahadr, Arooj Aftab and pianist Courtney Bryan, accompanied by the Mosaic Sacred Orchestra.

Get tickets here.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue (at 135th Street, across from Aaron Davis Hall), Manhattan
(directions)

Imagining Seneca Village

Announced by iLAND (Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance)

From the iLAND community:

Imagining Seneca Village

September 25, 6-7:30pm 

Choreographer and 2007 iLAB Resident Lise Brenner has partnered with Tenement Museum Education and tour guide Emily Gallagher and composer/performer Imani Uzuri to create a tour of an imagined Seneca Village, a New York City semi-rural, woodland settlement that flourished in the early-mid 19th century. Populated by predominantly African-American and Irish landholders, Seneca Village was located on the West side of the Park, from approximately 83rd-88th Streets, and was torn down in 1858, when Central Park was created.

Location: Summit Rock, Central Park. 

All ages welcomed! Free, Rain or Shine! Hold the date!

Souls intact

To even attempt to invoke the complex genius of Nina Simone might require an entire stage filled with badass women, and that's exactly how things went down last night at Aaron Davis Hall. Presented by Harlem Stage, the renowned Black Rock Coalition Orchestra gave the final performance of its Nina Simone Tribute, featuring numerous female singers and a versatile musical ensemble covering nearly two dozen songs written or interpreted by the extraordinary musical diva and activist who left us in 2003.

Standouts included Angela Johnson's mellifluous piano work and vocal phrasing, where we could grasp every nuance of thought and feeling in Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair and Brown Baby; Joi's frisky I'm Gonna Leave You with its driving rhythm that sounds exactly like a strong woman getting the hell on outta there; anything that Imani Uzuri turned her fierce voice to, absolutely anything, from the romping Backlash Blues to the softly pitying Fodder to the raging anger of Peaches in Four Women; the bravado of Toli Nameless's triple-threat celebration of See-Line Woman in song, dance and trumpet-playing.

Tamar-kali sizzled--what confidence and clout!--in the torch song Tell Me More, a five-alarm I Put A Spell On You, and a slow-drag Feelin' Good. Her voice is dark smoke crossed with flutely sinuosity. Mazz Swift, besides her duties in the lovely string quartet, offered up Lilac Wine with mesmerizing sensitivity. LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs's Pirate Jenny glowed with toxic charm.

There was much, much more, and I wish there could be much, much more. Harlem Stage, bring each and every one of them back without delay!

Other great vocalists from this show are also online:

Lisala
Somi
Maya Azucena

That's it. Right there. That's my heart.

Do you ever wonder why I love dance so much?

A friend sent me a link to this video, described on YouTube as "a celebration & tribute to black dance," edited by Pierre Bennu with music by the awesome Imani Uzuri ("Sun Moon Child").