Days of Black Future Past: Black Rock Coalition at The Met

Above: Sandra St. Victor
Below: Shelley Nicole
Black Rock Coalition: The History of Our Future
Metropolitan Museum of Art
photos: Paula Lobo

"Black music has been the taproot of every significant movement in rock music. Sadly, the vast majority of Black artists in rock have been erased from the historical narrative or relegated to footnotes."

--Darrell M. McNeill

When you imagine venues to host one of the badbadbadass-iest rock concerts of all times, do you think of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art?

Mmmhmmm.

Well, think again, because you missed Black Rock Coalition: The History of Our Future, a MetLiveArts show designed to demonstrate that Black people not only did rock first but they did it best, do it now and have no intention of stopping. Under Darrell M. McNeill's creative and musical direction, the famed Black Rock Coalition Orchestra and featured guests rocked that house last night with a steady roll. All walls and pedestals should be checked for damage.

Named for BRC Orchestra's 1991 album, the two-hour show started off with the pumping Sly Stone hit "Dance to the Music." That funk functioned here like it did when it was new back in 1967--a sure-fire commercial success for David Geffen's CBS Records and, in 2019, an icebreaker like no other. Though the predominantly white Met Museum audience needed the initial permission to dance to the music, as the evening sped along, folks required little prompting to get up on their feet.

The stage of the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium was packed, side to side and front to back, with instruments and artists including a revolving cast of standout featured performers--among them, Nona Hendryx, Toshi Reagon, Stew, Carl Hancock Rux, Living Colour's Vernon Reid and Corey Glover and, led by a commanding Sandra St. Victor, The Family Stand reunited. Yoruba chants and drumming, spoken word, jazz vocals, traditional work songs, gospel tunes, rock and roll and straight-up rock presented a stream of Black genius, all telling a story of determination, improvisation, spiritual depth and lust for life in the face of a long, long stretch of rough times under white supremacy. Times are still rough; the music persists and continues to do its work.

"So what is rock and roll?" Hancock Rux asked, "We begin with juke joints, and women loving women...." He went on to say it's rooted in "trying to find our way home."

Each performance--like vocalist Everett Bradley's unquestionable authority on both "Dance to the Music" and Louis Jordan's "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie"--felt like a sturdy home and one connected, at the foundation, to every other home. Places of rest and reflection, generous nourishment, everyday miracles and jubilation. Hendryx, above all others, took all my heart with witchy renditions of the jazz classic "Afro Blue" and, later, an unexpectedly expanded and capacious "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." She enters a song at unusual angles, spies just the right, clear path, then guides you through as intensity builds. Reagon quietly took up and met the challenges of Curtis Mayfield's bleak "When Seasons Change" with agility of voice and soul. Stew, with David Barnes on harmonica, updated Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man," making a statement on toxic masculinity from the White House to the church house, from FOX News to NPR. And it was just pure fun to watch Glover rock out again to "Cult of Personality," the show's closer.

An historic one-night only event. So, if you didn't catch it, bummer! But if you love rock, you can still check out Play It Loud: The Instruments of Rock & Roll, at the Met through October 1. Plan your Met visit here.

*****

Featured Artists:

Nona Hendryx
Fantastic Negrito
Vernon Reid, Corey Glover (Living Colour)
Toshi Reagon
Stew (The Negro Problem)
The Family Stand
"Captain" Kirk Douglas (The Roots, Hundred Watt Heart)
Carl Hancock Rux
Ronny Drayton

Black Rock Coalition Orchestra:

Darrell M. McNeill (bass)
LaFrae Sci (drums)
Howie Robbins (keyboards)
Elenna Canlas (keyboards)
Marcus Machado (guitar)
Marvin Sewell (guitar)
Gordon "Nappy G" Clay (percussion)
V. Jeffrey Smith (saxophone, flute)
Don Byron (clarinet, saxophone)
Bruce Harris (trumpet)
JS Williams (trombone)
Sophia Ramos (vocals)
Shelley Nicole (vocals)
Bruce Mack (vocals)
Everett Bradley (vocals, percussion)
Kelsey Warren (vocals)
David Barnes (harmonica)
Mikal Amin (vocals)

******

DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

******

Subscribe in a reader

An urgent radiance: Rhiannon Giddens and "Sisters Present"

Musician, vocalist and actor
Rhiannon Giddens
(photo: David McClister)

I don't recall how and when I first learned that musician and vocalist Rhiannon Giddens would be hosted by Symphony Space for a full-on residency (November 8-17), but that day was a blessed one. Despite a busy schedule and frequent exhaustion, I set my mind to the task and made my way to Symphony Space last night for the final performance by Giddens and her collaborators. My guest and I will long remember this evening for its generosity and phenomenal powers of healing.

Fans of Giddens have admired her since she first stepped out as co-founder, with Dom Flemons, of beloved, Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops at the nexus of folk, blues, Celtic, bluegrass, gospel and other traditional genres. Her versatile voice and keen, beguiling musicianship on banjo and fiddle brought buoyancy and illumination to the band's signature Americana blend. Since then, pursuing a solo career appears to have sharply defined and deepened this artist, recipient of a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship.

The musical alliances she makes now--with long-revered Toshi Reagon and (new to me) Chicago's Allison Russell and Tennessee's Amythyst Kiah--signal a growing desire to join forces with Black women dedicated to both ancestral nourishment and the struggle for social justice. The Giddens who was present onstage with these sisters--as well as her blood sister and beautiful poet Lalenja Harrington, pianist/accordionist Francesco Turrisi, drummer Attis Clopton and bassist Jason Sypher--seems radically pared down to the essentials of being a direct conduit of spiritual energy and effort. By evidence of last night's show, Giddens has mastered the intuitive art of, as I often call it, "getting the right people in the room." But she also knows how to foster unparalleled focus and harmony among those talented allies.

In Giddens now, clearly there is an inward turning, a seeking out of, as she announced in her first lyric, the "ten-thousand stories, ten thousand songs" to chronicle, as well, the "ten-thousand wrongs." At her right hand was Russell, a sensitive, joyous woman with her mind on Black folks surviving and thriving, a Caribbean lilt in her own first song. (She has Grenadian roots.) Even "with feet in shackles," she trilled out, "we'll be dancing."

To Russell's right, Kiah stood, gruff and driving voice transforming the well-rehearsed tale of John Henry into a peppy tune spotlighting, instead, his gutsy wife Polly Ann. Polly can you lift that hammer? Yes, I can. Yes, I can.

Reagon, as she is often wont to do--whether onstage or on Facebook--reminded us what time it is, that we're the ones we've been waiting for, that "there is nobody else but you." I have never heard Reagon as seductively full of revolutionary fire as she was during this show, seated with her guitar on the far left end of Giddens's musical crew. She came with legacy and nothing to prove, and yet she proved so much in every moment, whether supporting her sisters or rocking out on her own.

I was sorry that I missed Thursday's residency show, the one devoted to Turrisi's artistry. His accordion-playing on Friday was a delectable surprise--every bit as fluid, as supple, as his piano work.

This coming February, look for Songs of Our Native Daughters, a Smithsonian Folkways album recorded by Giddens, Russell and Kiah, confronting slavery, racism, and misogyny in our nation's history and offering stories of Black struggle, resistance, and hope.

And here, from 2016, is Giddens's and Russell's a capella performance of Russell's "The Wind That Shakes The Barley."

******

DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

******

Subscribe in a reader

At National Black Theatre, a "peculiar patriot," loyal to her people

Liza Jessie Peterson performs her one-woman show,
The Peculiar Patriot, at National Black Theatre
(photos: above by Garlia C. Jones-Ly;
below by Jean Chambers)

Time and time again, Betsy LaQuanda Ross spends tedious hours riding a bus to and from upstate towns, visiting family and friends like her city homegirl, Jo Jo. She takes Jo Jo hand-quilted squares bearing precious symbols that represent the incarcerated mother (an orange moon) and each of the children she desperately misses (stars). She comes laden with personal stories of life on the outside, told with verve and spice, almost ceaselessly at a breathtaking clip. Together, the women--one we see and one invisible to us yet made palpable through Betsy's love and insight--help us understand the devastating impact of America's prison industry on communities of color, particularly women.

Liza Jessie Peterson
(photo: Ani Berberian)
Below: Director Talvin Wilks
(photo: Adam Nadel)

The Peculiar Patriot--directed by Talvin Wilks and starring its extraordinary writer, Liza Jessie Peterson at Harlem's National Black Theatre--could have been 90-minutes of pure didacticism about a social ill. But it is no such thing. From the moment the pointedly-named Betsy Ross enters the space--set up like a prison's visiting room, with neat, bleak rows of industrial tables and chairs--and calls out "Hey, Boo! Look at you!" you're in her firm grasp.

Peterson, who derived her material from years counseling prisoners at Riker's Island, goes full-on Anna Deavere Smith in adopted body language, facial expressions, vocal intonations, emotional range and expert timing. Not easy to do and sustain but, let me tell you, she's brilliantly on point at every turn.

Her Betsy is hilarious, a Wanda Sykes just waiting to be discovered. But she's there at the prison on a mission to keep her friend's spirits up--as well as her own. In the meantime, we learn much about what it's like to be shut away while your kids are so far, growing up without you; what it's like to have a pal you can't lean in and whisper to and hug and cry with any time you want; how easy it is to get caught up by stringent sentencing laws that disregard your humanity.

If--when--you see this show, you might have a hard time keeping up with the mostly black-and-white slide and video projections that play throughout Peterson's monologue. You'll mostly notice some of these images with your peripheral vision, when aware of them at all, but that's going to be enough. Pay attention to that experience. Peterson holds your attention. Peterson alone, the living, breathing, ebulliently colorful person at the center of this machine. That's as it should be.

Of the many unfortunate, outrageous things The Peculiar Patriot informs us about, as it entertains us, is a new initiative restricting prisoners and their visitors from conversing in person. Some prisons--encouraged by corporate profiteers--have begun instituting visits by video only. When Betsy learns that she and Jo Jo will never again meet face to face across a table, she's shocked and heartbroken, and we immediately get it. Removing the possibility of human touch and connection, like Betsy and Jo Jo have enjoyed, represents one last, inhumane way for the prison industrial complex to control and exploit people caught up in its system. Our only partial awareness of the flat, drab visual projections has been steadily leading us, in a subliminal way, to this moment. By coming to love Betsy--and, through her, Jo Jo--we know what matters and the cost of its loss.

Set and lighting: Maruti Evans
Projections: Katherine Freer
Sound: Luqman Brown

The Peculiar Patriot runs through October 1 with performances on Thursday, Friday and Monday at 7:30pm; Saturday at 2pm and 7:30pm; Sunday at 4pm. There is no late seating. Each performance is followed by a talkback with Peterson. For information and tickets, click here.

National Black Theatre
2031 5th Avenue (at 125th Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Subscribe in a reader

With Baldwin our witness at Harlem Stage

Meshell Ndegeocello (above)
Justin Hicks (below)
in Can I Get A Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin
(photos: Marc Millman)

There's church.

And then, there's church.

When a Black person says it, it's usually the latter and comes with a world of cultural meaning.

And that's where Meshell Ndegeocello is taking you this week--that is, if you paid the price of the ticket. And, if you did, good on you, because you can tell your grandkids you were there when Ndegeocello and her collaborators, inspired by James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time (1963), both tapped and radically remade the ritual of church to address this godawful, pivotal time in our American history.

A Harlem Stage Water Works commission, Can I Get A Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin encircles vocalist/bassist Ndegeocello and her musicians--Jake Sherman on organ, Jebin Bruni on keyboards and Abraham Rounds on drums--with rings of church pews and chairs for us "congregants." The intimate theater space is further ringed and centered by Abigail DeVille's installations. Before the show starts, the audience can walk around and check them out. I had time to look closely at only two of these assemblages which, despite a few recessed, come-and-go lights, remained cloaked in dark, forbidding mystery. Their mirror shards, especially those covering mannequins' faces, seem designed, like nail-studded n'kisi power figures, to neutralize and deflect evil.

As audience members found seats, Sherman worked the organ slow and mellow in the manner of church. The celebrants/performers began milling around, each cheerfully stopping, here and there, to greet a congregant. Their ritual garments featured reflective glitter, adornments of fake jewels, rich alignments of strips that mimicked fur and feathers. Church began to feel indigenous and Afro-Atlantic and festive and anything but colonized into blandness.

Directed by Charlotte Brathwaite, this warm, inviting, hot and inciting service featured not only funk and jazz and call-and-response and impromptu dance and a charming communion but also several "sermons."  Yes, several. I'd imagine no church Ndegeocello could ever dream up--or could stand--would have only a single mouthpiece for the divine.

Vocalist Justin Hicks, with a voice as sweet as it was passionate, held forth, and so did Staceyann Chin, incendiary spoken-word poet and lesbian activist. And so did Paul J. Thompson, musician turned high school principal who told us how his own difficulties with the America's school system led him to teach in a more nourishing way, armed with Baldwin's essays. And so did vocalist Toshi Reagon, who invoke the righteous power of the Civil Rights movement, exhorting her listeners to raise their voices for justice.

Above and below: Staceyann Chin
(photos: Marc Millman)

It was, as Chin told us, "a call to order--or a call to disorder, whatever you deem necessary."

We needed several sermons, yes, because there remains so much to grapple with--from the threat to healthy water sources to the accelerated rise of white nationalism to the dulling despair that can make good people pull away from one another and the useful work they could do.

Baldwin's uncompromising voice and his visage--in still portrait and in ghostly, out-of-sync film imagery--presides over the setting. The back page of the program features a photo of him sitting on a chair and gazing down at something in his hands. I cannot make out what it is, but I'm imagining it might be a pocket watch. It's that kind of gaze and that kind of holding. His slender body is folded in upon itself, the bent head half in shadow, the legs and feet close together, the arms foreshortened and locking a protected--and, to our prying eyes, unseeable--space in front of his solar plexus.

Silent, this man who had so much to say with his writing and speaking voice. The face might be interpreted as sad, but I see thoughtfulness. Full of thought. Taking time for it.

He sits alone in the photograph. Writers do their work alone, even if the necessity for their work springs from engagement with a troubled society and with the world beyond it, as did Baldwin's work. Like other writers, he needed his time for quiet, for thought, for processing, for conjuring. Without any of that, we would not have the writing we turn to now and again for clarity, for reminder, for courage, for direction. The writing we need always and now as never before.

He was also a man who used the technology of his day to do a good deal of his critically important work in the world. We know the man not only from his writing but from his numerous appearances on television. Yes. Moving out from quiet, moving into public space, he took every opportunity to go in front of as many people as possible and speak good sense to a country refusing to grow up and look at itself.

I have no doubt that Baldwin, in a similar way, would work the hell out of the new technology of our day. He'd make it work for him, and we'd be better off for it.

That's right. Baldwin would figure out how to turn all this mess into church.

Can I Get A Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin--running through Sunday with performances at 7:30pm and, on Saturday and Sunday, matinees at 2pm.

Sold out, but there is a waiting list. Go, go, go!

For more information, click here.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

If you like what you're reading,

subscribe to InfiniteBody!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Infinitebody

And the 2015 Bessies go to...!

With deep regret, I missed this year's Bessies celebration at the Apollo, as I'm struggling with the horrible cold that's going around. But I'm absolutely delighted to share this list of winners. Congratulations to everyone!

# # #

Hosts with the mostest, Carmelita Tropicana and Jock Soto
on The Apollo stage
(photo: Yi-Chun Wu)

The 2015 NY Dance and Performance Awards

Lifetime Achievement in Dance

Steve Paxton

For a relentless curiosity into the possibility of movement, from the redefinition of modern dance with the movers who gathered at Judson Church in the 1960s, to the development of contact improvisation now practiced around the world, and for his ongoing rigorous and surprising choreographic investigations.


Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance

Movement Research

For nearly four decades as a creative incubator for innovation, enquiry, and dialogue. For providing a range of platforms to disseminate ideas about dance, art, and civic life via its classes, publications and weekly performance gatherings. For championing the importance of artistic process.


Outstanding Production

Dorrance Dance with Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely for The Blues Project at The Joyce Theater

For a symphonic dialogue between a stellar company of tap artists and a groundbreaking blues band; a true fusion of dance and music, expanding the boundaries of two great American traditions.


Outstanding Production

David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group for I Understand Everything Better, Abrons Arts Center and The Chocolate Factory

For creating a mysterious and whimsical world in which to explore the dual devastations of personal loss and public destruction, taking the audience on a visceral journey through internal and external storms.


Outstanding Production

Justin Peck for ‘Rōdē,ō: Four Dance Episodes, New York City Ballet

For a bracing new interpretation of a well-known score, wiping it clean of prior associations and using it as the springboard for an entirely new ballet marked by wit, surprise, poignant intimacy, and robust ensemble energy.


Outstanding Production

Roger Guenveur Smith for Rodney King at BRIC Arts Media

For a powerful and timely performance using gesture, voice, and historical document to link the personal tragedy of Rodney King's life to our national tragedies of racism and police brutality.
For extending that conversation into the street in an improvised post-show town hall that evolved into a peaceful demonstration in reaction to the Eric Garner case unfolding in New York City.


Outstanding Revival

Alexei Ratmansky for The Sleeping Beauty, American Ballet Theatre

For recapturing the spirit and style of Petipa from 19th-century ballet notation starting with simple steps to reconstruct that world’s ideas about movement, musicality, aesthetics, and storytelling in dance.


Sustained Achievement in Performance (posthumous)

Lawrence Cassella for his work with Ivy Baldwin

For the ability to be smooth, strong, fast, fearless, dangerously sexy, and bizarrely hilarious. For more than a decade of creation in a richly intertwined collaboration with choreographer Ivy Baldwin.


Sustained Achievement in Performance

Lauren Grant for her work with the Mark Morris Dance Group

For nearly two decades’ work gracing Mark Morris’ choreography with invigorating spontaneity, expansive phrasing, and robust musicality. For bringing to life an extensive and varied repertory, embodying the essence and individual tone of each work.


Sustained Achievement in Performance

Amar Ramasar for his work with New York City Ballet

For his natural ease and contemporary presence on the classical stage. For his ongoing contributions to a wide range of new ballet work, and for his sensitivity and skill in the demanding and sometimes unseen art of partnering.


Outstanding Performance

Ryoji Sasamoto in OQ by Kota Yamazaki at Japan Society

For his mastery and presence in a dance palace filled with extraordinary movers. For a never-ending flow of movement merging an ingrained sense of lock and pop with a contemporary sense of fluid release.


Outstanding Performance

Melissa Toogood for her work in the 2014−15 season with Pam Tanowitz, Kimberly Bartosik, Merce Cunningham, Rashaun Mitchell, Stephen Petronio, and Sally Silvers

For dancing so precise and fluid, elegant and electric, it captivates the viewer in each work in which she appears. For committing herself so completely to enhancing and transforming the vision of an astounding number of unique choreographers.


Outstanding Sound Design

Tei Blow for I Understand Everything Better by David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group, Abrons Arts Center and The Chocolate Factory

For a virtuosic live audio performance mixing recorded sounds, percussive rhythms, a live mic, and spinning vinyl to transport the audience from the mountains of Japan to the hurricane-ravaged shores of New York.


Outstanding Visual Design

Geoff Sobelle, Steven Dufala, Christopher Kuhl, Nick Kourtides, Jamie Boyle, and Rachel McIntosh for The Object Lesson by Geoff Sobelle at BAM Fisher

For creating an immersive environment built from the material debris of an individual life. For sparking curiosity in the audience about the need, meaning, and weight of their own lives’ objects.


As previously announced, the 2015 Emerging Choreographer Award was given to Storyboard P for fusing various styles of hip-hop with elements of modern and jazz dance, creating a cinematic choreographic vision for new dance narratives and abstract movement-based works. The 2015 Juried Bessie Award was given to Pavel Zuštiak for his poetic layering of movement and visual imagery, and conceiving of the stage space as a decentralized world in which the corporeal body is the focus and canvas for a wide range of human expression.


The full list of nominees can be found at: http://bessies.org/2015-nominees-announced/.


2014−15 Bessie Committees

The Bessie Awards Steering Committee, responsible for setting policy and providing oversight of the Bessie Awards throughout the year, is comprised of Cora Cahan, Beverly D’Anne, Lane Harwell, Judy Hussie-Taylor, Stanford Makishi, Carla Peterson, Laurie Uprichard, and Martin Wechsler.

The Bessie Awards Selection Committee consists of Nolini Barretto, Diana Byer, Kim Chan, H.T. Chen, Blondell Cummings, Nancy Dalva, Andrew Dinwiddie, Maura Donohue, Simon Dove, Boo Froebel, Laurel George, Caleb Hammons, Zhenesse Heinemann, Iréne Hultman, Robert LaFosse, Matthew Lyons, Nicole Macotsis, Caridad Martinez, Harold Norris, Nicky Paraiso, Mathew Pokoik, Susan Reiter, Rokafella, Walter Rutledge, Sue Samuels, Philip Sandstrom, Gus Solomons Jr., Sally Sommer, Risa Steinberg, Carrie Stern, Kay Takeda, David Thomson, Muna Tseng, Kay Turner, Tony Waag, Edisa Weeks, Ryan Wenzel, Adrienne Westwood, and Elizabeth Zimmer.


#   #   #


ABOUT THE BESSIES

The NY Dance and Performance Awards have saluted outstanding and groundbreaking creative work in the dance field in New York City for 31 years. Known as “The Bessies” in honor of revered dance teacher Bessie Schönberg, the awards were established in 1984 by David White at Dance Theater Workshop. They recognize exceptional work in choreography, performance, music composition, and visual design. Nominees are chosen by a 39-member selection committee comprised of artists, presenters, producers, and writers. All those working in the dance field are invited to join the NY Dance and Performance League, as members participate in annual discussions on the direction of the awards and nominate members to serve on the selection committee. www.bessies.org

Artist activists talk on self-determination, funk and jazz, Saturday

Creative Time and Weeksville Heritage Center

in collaboration with

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

present

Conversations on Self Determination: 

Funk and Jazz

at Weeksville Heritage Center

Saturday, October 4, 3:30-5:30pm

Free 

with required RSVP

Explore music as a soundtrack for social justice. Leading contemporary Brooklyn artists reflect on their art while revisiting the anthems that fortified and consoled the African-American-led struggle for desegregation and equal rights.

Moderator: Una-Kariim A. Cross, artist, writer, and educator

Speakers: Willard Jenkins, jazz writer and radio/TV host; Toshi Reagon, activist, singer, songwriter, and musician working in genres from folk to blues and funk; and Carl Hancock Rux, interdisciplinary performative artist, writer, and playwright.

Performer: Martha Redbone, singer-songwriter and community activist

Click to RSVP

Weeksville Heritage Center
158 Buffalo Avenue (between Bergen Street and St. Marks Avenue), Brooklyn
(map/directions)

What is rock and roll? Asked and answered at Lincoln Center Out of Doors

Two fantabulous singers: Nona Hendryx (above)
and Corey Glover (below)
All photos (c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Clearly, that's a question best suited to a multiple choice quiz where the correct answer is "All of the above." And, most of all, it is Black. Race music--from blues to gospel and beyond--is the mother source of rock and roll. Or, to put it another way, as writer Carl Hancock Rux did, rock "is one big family with a whole lotta children running around, and some of them don't know who their daddy is."

To Toshi Reagon (music director of Deep Roots of Rock and Roll), the Black Rock Coalition and all of the artists involved in yesterday afternoon's sensational Lincoln Center Out of Doors show, I will quote Rux quoting gospel singer Sallie Martin (1895-1988) in his narration: "Sing what you need to sing. Just keep singing it 'til it takes you where you need to go."

We all want to go there with you!

Here are a few of my photos from the day. Click for more.

Above: Toshi Reagon
Below: Nona Hendryx
among numerous musical artists performing at Lincoln Center Out of Doors
in Deep Roots of Rock and Roll
All photos (c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Above: a dance by Adaku Utah
Below: Narrator Carl Hancock Rux
taking us deep into Black American music history
All photos (c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Lincoln Center Out of Doors continues through August 10. Click here for schedule of these free events.

Where the blues brings joy: Dorrance and Reagon at the Schomburg

Tap maverick Michelle Dorrance
in The Blues Project, a collaboration
with singer-composer Toshi Reagon (rear, right),
curator of the Schomburg's Women's Jazz Festival

The Women's Jazz Festival, now in its 21st annual presentation by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, got off to an exciting start with the New York premiere of The Blues Project in the sold-out Langston Hughes Auditorium. Given its world premiere last summer at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the production is the marriage of two top-notch artistic entities--Dorrance Dance, the tap ensemble led by Bessie-winning choreographer Michelle Dorrance, and Toshi Reagon's marvelous band, BIGLovely. And if that's not enough, how about Derick K. Grant and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards adding their choreography and star-power?

Dorrance Dance in action
Up front: Elizabeth Burke (l) and Nicholas Van Young
Far left: Derick K. Grant
Center: Christopher Broughton
(photo: Bob Gore)

L-r: Claudia Rahardjanoto, Michelle Dorrance,
Demi Remick, Elizabeth Burke
and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards
(photo: Bob Gore)

The Blues Project opens with the steady BOOM-THUMP, BOOM-THUMP of Allison Miller's drumming. Dancers--dressed as if for a summery country romp--first creep out from the wings then quickly unpack Dorrance's signature moves: loose-limbed, broad, pelting, the entire body activated and engaged in addressing space. They charge and skim and gobble the stage in just a few happy bites. It's a distinctly American, idealistically American look and feel--indomitable, optimistic, on the upswing and culturally integrated--and one that Reagon's BIGLovely supports throughout the hour-long show with its own buoyant eclecticism, from blues to bluegrass, from swing and rockabilly to hard rock. The tightly edited hour--each cleanly-arranged number following close upon its predecessor--never strains a viewer's interest.

Some dancemakers go astray in their effort to prove that tap is respectably choreographic, not just improvisatory. Dorrance, though, demonstrates that she can more than handle the challenge of fielding a big, purposeful group in space and making an ensemble look intricately sharp and never, never ever cornball. No matter what era of dance or music she drops into, she and her talented and disciplined dancers come up with a vitalizing response, as do Reagon and her musicians. I might wish for fewer ensemble moments in The Blues Project--that's just me, folks--but the thrilling solos eventually balance things out, and then some.

Grant's solo is a model of workmanship of the feet akin to fine brushstrokes in the painting of a master, strokes that make you lean forward to look and gasp. His technique is breathtaking. Sumbry-Edwards brings authority and, yet continuous surprise, concentrating hard as if dance is a most solemn duty, and that's because it is. She renders herself transparent so that history flows through her. Her solo is--I'll just say it this way--populated. Reagon's spiritual, soulful "There and Back Again" (2010) lays out the mesh that Dorrance's solo will embroider in her deep-listening, thoughtful way, one of the most inspired and inspiring pieces I've ever seen her dance. This youthful dancer and choreographer truly represents tap's historic and enduring through line and signals its potential.

Dorrance Dance: Megan Bartula, Christopher Broughton, Elizabeth Burke, Michelle Dorrance, Eboni Edwards, Derick K. Grant, Claudia Rahardjanoto, Demi Remick, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Caleb Teicher, Byron Tittle, Nicholas Van Young, Ali Dietz

BIGLovely: Toshi Reagon (vocals, acoustic guitar), Adam Widoff (electric guitar), Ganessa James (electric bass), Juliette Jones (violin), Allison Miller (drums and percussion)

For information on upcoming Women's Jazz Festival events, now through March 31 at the Schomburg, click here. Hurry! Tickets go fast!

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Blvd, Manhattan

(map/directions)

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.

Toshi Reagon reflects on "Naked Soul" at the Rubin

As a follow-up to my post on the Naked Soul concert by Toshi Reagon and Juliette Jones at The Rubin Museum (read it here), I got permission from Reagon to share her beautiful notes from Facebook on her image and music selections and her overall experience at the Rubin.

She writes:

I had a heart opening experience at the Rubin Museum of Art. It was a thrill to sing in the a beautiful rosewood room with excellent acoustics. I am so used to creating dynamics with my voice and a microphone- it was a work out to sing off mic a whole show. I loved it. I worked with violinist Juliette Jones who jumped into every song with a soulful and sensitive creativity. Fierce! I was deeply moved by the good folks who decided to spend the time and money to be at that show. There was no loud sound to cover fidgeting, drinks, or small conversation. We all had to be really present. It was something else. This audience felt like they knew each other well, and sang so beautifully together. I am always humbled to see really old things survive in the 21st century. I as myself what will we leave for our people hundreds of years from now. Looking back could help us move forward in a brighter light.

Durga Mahishasuramadini
10th century
Tan Sandstone

I used usually 2 or 3 songs to cover the energy I felt from the pictures. I picked "Mountain top" for Maya because she gave birth to Buddha- she has a connection to life- and makes trees. She gave birth standing up- and she gave birth to someones who mission was known. So he is born grown. "Mountain top" is a rebirth song and the idea of standing on the mountain and standing down on the mountain made me think of this idea of being bigger than a mountain or grand enough to be there. So it is the idea of releasing power into the world and being powerful yourself that connected them.

I picked "Terrify Me" and "I hate I love" for Durga because they are both about having to deal with and vanquish problems you did not cause. They are both about a manipulative power structure that would never empower you to to be an equal creating chaos that you have to win in order for all to survive.

I picked "dream" for Rahula because it is the song about an end of life and everlasting life on the other side of death - it ends then we die no more. A guide is moving along side the person that is moving towards death- does not push or pressure but walks along side. Eventually the person finds death and welcomes by crossing the jordan river. How ever they are not gone from the ever. Rahula could be guiding us to a death and another life.

In good voice: Black women speak up, sing out

Melissa Harris-Perry
(photo: MSNBC/Heidi Gutman)

Yesterday, the stars aligned. And how!

In mid-afternoon, scholar, author and MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry sat down at The New School for a provocative conversation with scholar and author bell hooks. In the evening, singer-musician Toshi Reagon took to the stage at the Rubin Museum of Art with violinist/fiddler Juliette Jones for an acoustic concert of songs organized around images from the Rubin's collection of Himalayan art. Without question, November 8, 2013 was a Power Day in New York City.

bell hooks

If you missed the (poorly announced) free ticket distribution for the New School event, you could watch via Livestream (complicated sign-up, especially at the last minute, but not impossible). Social media exploded right before, during and after with expressions of frustration (What??? I didn't know you needed TICKETS to get in!!!) and increasing awe as hooks and Harris-Perry addressed, all too briefly, numerous issues, each of which could have launched a thick dissertation. From divergent perspectives on recent Black-themed films (12 Years A Slave, Django, The Butler) to sexual violence against Black women to the relative privilege of having light skin when working in corporate media, hooks and Harris-Perry showed a willingness to take space, give voice and honestly grapple with difficult questions. And difficult people: Ironically, perhaps inevitably, one man chose to waste limited Q&A time by delivering a lecture then shouting over hooks' attempt at a reply. It's useful, though--isn't it?-- whenever a fool helps you prove your point about the arrogance of patriarchy.

Both women invoked the late congresswoman/presidential candidate Shirley Chisolm of Bajan heritage (her slogan: "Unbought and Unbossed") as a role model and, accordingly, spent the ninety-minute session breaking every possible code of silence. I was most amazed by--and even concerned for--Harris-Perry who displayed an outspokenness about her role at MSNBC and a degree of personal vulnerability that I would not have anticipated. I felt hooks--twenty years the broadcaster's senior, as she made sure to note at the beginning of their talk--prodding and then leading Harris-Perry into deep waters but making sure to surround her with loving support. Just breathtaking.

Watch the archived conversation

 on Livestream here.

Toshi Reagon
(photo: Erica Beckman)

Introducing Toshi Reagon at the Rubin, Tim McHenry (Director of Public Programs and Performance) wondered aloud what had taken him so long to invite her. So now that that oversight has been rectified, I'm sure it won't take long to bring her back. McHenry's sold-out audience was not only appreciative but clearly smitten.

The Rubin challenges singer-songwriters in their Naked Soul acoustic concert series to peruse the collection and select three images to build a set list around. Reagon--who looks much like a delighted Buddha herself--clearly enjoyed her opportunity to learn about the legends of Himalayan deities and demons and recognized, in them, a way to talk about her ongoing concerns around social and environmental justice. The connection of her specific song lyrics to the sacred themes wasn't always obvious, but the delicate interplay of her high-flying voice, her bluesy guitar and Juliette Jones's sinuous fiddle work made their own sense and had grounded, and grounding, spirituality--always welcome. Her ease with the audience and her sense of humor were winning. Someday ask Reagon to tell you the story of the warrior goddess, Durga--one of her image choices. The Rubin really ought to hire her as a docent.

******

Future Naked Soul evenings will include appearances by Mary Gauthier (January 3), Susan Werner (Febuary 14), David Wilcox (March 14) and Shelby Lynne (May 30). For information and ticketing, click here.

"Naked Soul" at the Rubin

Holly Near

Did you know that Chelsea's Rubin Museum of Art will feature a great acoustic singer/songwriter series, starting this month and presenting the likes of Kristin Hersh (July 26), Holly Near (September 27) and Toshi Reagon (November 8)?

Presented with Music without Borders, the Naked Soul series opens June 28 (Slaid Cleaves) and continues on select Fridays at 7pm.

Members may receive up to 25% off tickets.

Get the complete schedule and ticketing information here or call the box office at 212-620-5000 x344.

Checking out Allison Miller. (Thanks, Toshi!)

When I said I wasn't sure I knew who Allison Miller is, Toshi Reagon dropped this video into her Facebook Timeline. And that's what friends are for.

BTW, things get even better: Miller, Reagon and the incredible, Bessie-winning tap artist Michelle Dorrance are cooking up something together for this summer at Jacob's Pillow! See here.

Michelle Dorrance to be honored at the 2013 Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival

Michelle Dorrance (left) with Brenda Bufalino at Writing on Tap forum in 2012 (photo by Eva Yaa Asantewaa) 

New York's Michelle Dorrance--a Bessie Award winner, acclaimed for her fresh, innovative approach to tap dance choreography and performance--is the winner of the 2013 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award. The award--to be presented by Jacob's Pillow Executive and Artistic Director Ella Baff at the festival's opening gala on Saturday, June 15--comes with a $25,000 prize with no strings attached. She is the first tap artist to receive this award.

Baff comments, “With this year’s Award, we recognize a hugely talented young artist who is experimenting with new ideas and moving the art of tap forward.  We are also honoring the great American art form of tap, which has created some of the best dance and music-making ever.”

Dorrance will perform at the Gala with singer Aaron Marcellus. Her ensemble, Dorrance Dance, will perform at this summer’s festival, July 24-28, in the Doris Duke Theatre, accompanied by award-winning singer, musician and composer Toshi Reagon and band. Past recipients of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award include Crystal Pite, Merce Cunningham and Bill T. Jones.

Read more about the Jacob's Pillow Dance Award here.

For complete information about the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, click here.

"Zinnias": new Robert Wilson opera on Black artist Clementine Hunter

Zinnias - The Life of Clementine Hunter

World Premiere at Montclair State University

A Peak Production

January 26 and February 2 • 8pm
January 27 and February 3 • 3pm
January 31 and February 1 • 7:30pm

Concept, Direction, Set and Light Design by Robert Wilson
Libretto and Music Composition by
Bernice Johnson Reagon and Toshi Reagon
Book by Jacqueline Woodson

A new opera based on the life of renowned African-American artist Clementine Hunter, Zinnias is an intimate exploration of one of America’s greatest natural talents. Born on a plantation in Natchitoches, Louisiana, Hunter's experiences revealed an innate talent for depicting life in the early 20th century through her paintings. Now, using her artwork and stories, Clementine Hunter’s touching and unique journey is brought to the stage through the collaboration of Robert Wilson, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Toshi Reagon and Jacqueline Woodson. The title of the piece refers to the vibrantly colored flower of the same name which was one of Hunter's favorite subjects to paint throughout her career.

For detailed information on this production--including ticketing and roundtrip bus reservations for guests coming from Manhattan--click here.

Alexander Kasser Theater
Montclair State University
Montclair, NJ
(map/directions)

Celebrate with Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely!

TOSHI REAGON & BIGLovely

invite you to

 Toshi's Annual Birthday Celebration

January 18-20

at Joe's Pub

Musician Toshi Reagon

Friday, January 18 -- 9pm

Saturday, January 19 -- 9pm

Sunday, January 20 -- 7pm The Sacred Music Show featuring Bernice Johnson Reagon [SOLDOUT!]

Featuring Judith Casselberry, Stephanie McKay, Marcelle Davies Lashley, Adam Widoff, Robert Burke, Fred Cash, Jason Walker, Josette Newsam Marchak

Tickets can be purchased online at joespub.com, where customers are able to select their seat from an interactive seat map when purchasing, by phone at 212-967-7555, or in person at The Public Theater Box Office (1 PM to 6 PM) located at 425 Lafayette Street, NYC.

Directions to Joe's Pub

Meshell NdegeOcello's new tribute to Nina Simone

Me'shell NdegeOcello - Pour une âme souveraine - A Dedication to Nina Simone
by L. Michael Gipson, Soultracks.com, November 18, 2012

We hope to celebrate, but even if...

Toshi Reagon

Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely

invite you to a

Post Election Show 

No Matter What!

Friday, November 9 (9:30pm)

@Joes Pub

featuring Judith Casselberry, Marcelle Davies Lashley, Stephanie McKay, Fred Cash, Adam Widoff, Bobby Burke

Tickets and info here

About Toshi Reagon and BigLovely

Joe's Pub
425 Lafayette Street, near Astor Place (Manhattan)

Celebrate women at WORD*ROCK*&SWORD

Toshi Reagon presents

WORD*ROCK*&SWORD: A FESTIVAL CELEBRATION OF WOMEN'S LIVES 

Various New York City venues

September, 16-23

See full schedule below or check out Facebook.

Laura Flanders

September 16, 4pm: Why We Care! Opening Service: Laura Flanders, Sara Zaidi, Jacqueline Woodson, J. Bob Alotta

The Brecht Forum
451 West Street (between Banks and Bethune), Manhattan
FREE and open to the public

September 17, 8pm: My Name is My Own II: An Evening of Words by Formerly Incarcerated Women

Curated by: The Correctional Association of New York

Casa Frela Gallery
47 West 119 Street, Harlem
FREE and open to the public

September 20, 6pm: Rituals of Sound and Body led by Ola Ronke of So Hum Studios and vocalist/composer Imani Uzuri

Sacred Studio (http://www.sacredbrooklyn.com)

$10-$30 sliding scale. 30 spaces available (RSVP suggested). 5 scholarships available. yoga mats will be provided. please wear comfortable clothes, bring a journal and an open heart.

Filmmaker Shalini Kantayya

September 21, 7pm: Free screening of A Drop Of Life and discussion with filmmaker Shalini Kantayya

Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation
1360 Fulton Street, Brooklyn

RSVP http://www.restorationplaza.org/calendar/adropoflife

At last year's festival (l-r): Imani Uzuri, Alsarah, Sun Singleton, Invincible and Joan As Police Woman (Photo by Desdemona Burgin)

September 22, 6pm: Doors open for Word*Rock*& Sword: A Musical Celebration of Womens Lives.

Toshi Reagon, Meshell Ndegeocello, Joan As Police Woman, Lizz Wright, Slanty Eyed Mama, Morley, Dj Rimarkable, Alsarah, Imani Uzuri, Marcelle Davies Lashley, Sun Singleton, Allison Miller, Ganessa James, Alex Nolan, Liza Jessie Peterson, Arooj Aftab, Staceyann Chin, Christelle Durandy, Lenelle Moise, BETTY, Gwen Snyder Siegal, Climbing PoeTree

September 23, 6pm: Closing Service Kundalini Foods! To Heal/Cleanse Energize your Chakras With Chef/Healer Stefanie Kelly

Pillow Cafe
505 Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn
718-246-2711

Get complete information here.

We love Toshi!

By the time you get to the end of January, you might already find 2012 a little played out. But not if you celebrate with award-winning singer/songwriter/musician Toshi Reagon!

Toshi Reagon
(c)2008, Sharon Farmer 

Join Toshi for one of her four annual birthday shows at Joe's Pub (January 26-29) and catch the spirit. Get all the details and your tickets here.

Joe's Pub
425 Lafayette Street (between East 4th Street and Astor Place), Manhattan
(directions: scroll down)