The Passage Project

A Night Out at MoMA: Sanford Biggers, Lorraine O'Grady & Roselee Goldberg Discuss Art, Perception, & Race

After visiting the extraordinary Marina Abramovic retrospective the previous weekend, I was thrown into a state of nirvana following last Wednesday's Conversations: Among Friends Featuring Sanford Biggers, Lorraine O'Grady and Roselee Goldberg. The New York based artists joined Goldberg, an art critic and founder of Performa, in a conversation about art, their careers, others perceptions, and race.

Highlights included Lorraine's statement about how she was post-black before she was black. She explained that before her current life as an artist, she moved through her studies at Wellesley and the Iowa's Writers' Workshop without limitation. Her experiences in her professional life were similar. However, when entering the New York art world, she was suddenly compartmentalized because of her race. Instead of feeling defeating, she used these roadblocks to feed her work, creating Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, among other work.

Another high point of the evening came when Biggers discussed another way artist are limited by others. Biggers said that as a student, he was once told he had to choose a discipline to focus on regarding his art. Right at that moment, Biggers knew the man "didn't know what he was talking about". The multidisciplinary artist said that "performance is giving sculptural objects a life."

I still have a craving for more so hopefully I can get a break today and make it to P.S.1 before the closing of their performance art retrospective 100 Years.

Notes From the Diaspora, 1/30: Urwintore's The Investigation; Tibet House Benefit Concert; Boston African Film Festival

This regular section of The Passage Project is the spot to find abbreviated notes on news and events throughout the African Diaspora and beyond.

 

Image courtesy of Urwintore's website.

Theater
Montclair, NJ

It's been a long time coming. The Rwandan theater company Urwintore has brought their production of The Investigation by Peter Weiss to the United States and I've been waiting for the chance to see this production for myself for sometime now.  Originally produced in 1965, the play is based on transcripts from Frankfurt's war crimes trials of German citizens who worked at Auschwitz during WWII. Urwintore's production has been adapted by Jean Beaudrillard, conceived and directed by Dorcy Rugamba and Isabelle Gyselinx.

 

Image of Darcy  Rugamba courtesy of Thisislondon.co.uk.

Urwindtore's production was first performed in Rwanda in 2005 and later performed in London in 2007.
After wrapping up performances in Chicago last week, Urwintore brings their production to the Alexander Kasser Theater in Montclair, New Jersey February 5 - 9. The production will be performed in Kinyarwanda with English super titles.

Music
New York City

Image of musician Angelique Kidjo courtesy of Afropop.com.

Carnegie Hall will play host to the 19th Annual Tibet House Benefit Concert Tuesday, February 3rd at 7:30pm. Performers include Philip Glass, Antibalas, Steve Earle, Keb' Mo', Angelique Kidjo and Monks from India's Drepung Gomang Monastery.  The concert as been held at Carnegie Hall since 1993. Other guests are expected to be announced soon.

Film
Boston
The Boston African FIlm Festival will be taking place February 6 - 15 at The Museum of Fine Arts. This year's screenings include Cheik Doukoure's Paris Selon Moussa (Guinea/France, 2003, 96 min.) and Ngozi Onwurah's Shoot the Messenger (Nigeria/UK, 2006, 100 min.).

The Talented Eartha Kitt

             

On top, photo of Eartha Kitt  in 1952 taken by Carl Van Vechten, Courtesy of the Library of Congress. On bottom, image of Eartha Kitt courtesy of her website. 

Beginning her career as a dancer in the Katherine Dunham Dance Company in New York City, Eatha Kitt triumphed as an actress, singer and dancer, far from her birthplace in rural South Carolina. Kitt died on Christmas day from colon cancer at the age of 81. 

Below is a short list of a few of Eartha Kitt's career highlights:

• In 1953 Kitt records the sultry "Santa Baby" covered by a wide selection of artists including Madonna, Macy Gray, Natalie Merchant,  Kylie Minogue, The Pussycat Dolls, LeAnn Rhimes, Taylor Swift, Les Paul and RuPaul. Yes. Imitation the the highest form of flattery. There is a video of Kitt performing the song on YouTube. 
• In 1968, during the third season of television series Batman, Eartha Kitt took over the role of Catwoman.

                  

Images of Eartha Kitt courtesy of her website. 

• She is the author of four books, Thursday's Child (1956), Alone with Me (1976), I'm Still Here: Confessions of a Sex Kitten (1989) and Rejuvenate: It's Never Too Late (2001). 
• Her many films include Casbah (1948) The Mark of the Hawk (1958) with Sidney Poitier, St. Louis Blues (1958), and Boomerang (1992).
• Kitt performed at the reopening of The Cafe Carlyle in September 2007. The legendary venue remember's Kitt on their website and The New York Times has a video of her performing and happily teaching writer Melena Ryzik how to imitate for infamous purr. 
• Voice of Yzma in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove in 2000, the sequel Kronk's New Groove and the won an Emmy for the animated television series spin-off The Emperor's New School. 
• In 2000 she was nominated for a Tony and Drama Desk Award for her broadway performance in The Wild Party. 
• On Saturday, September, 20, 2008, Eartha Kitt did her last interview with Gwen Ifill for Historymakers. Filmed in Chicago at Northwestern University's School of Law, she also did a live performance. An Evening with Eartha Kitt will air on PBS in February 2009 and their website features a video excerpt of the interview.

Her official website includes a store where you can find all things Eartha, including sheet music, DVD's, music, books and frame portraits. 

Theater: Boys in the Photograph and 2010 World Cup/South Africa

Courtesy of the Johannesburg Civic Theater

There is now another reason to attend the 2010/South Africa World Cup.  Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton have adapted Webber's 2000 musical The Beautiful Game. Produced by the Johannesburg Civic Theatre, it will premiere at the Nelson Mandela Theatre in 2010 and will be one of the many cultural events that will be produced in conjunction with the FIFA World Cup. The story follows the lives of a group of boys playing on the same soccer team who are surrounded by the violence in Northern Ireland in the late 1960's. According to the Johannesburg Civic Theater announcement, "The musical is set in Belfast, Ireland, between 1969 and 1972, but could just as easily be set in Kosovo, Beirut, Jerusalem or the South Africa of not so many years ago. The themes of THE BOYS IN THE PHOTOGRAPH are universal: all over the world, communities are challenged by hatred."

The play will be workshopped at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts April 16-19 and will also run in Canada in 2009.

While in South Africa, the show will feature a multi-racial South African cast and will run from Monday, May 23rd, 2010 through Sunday, August 8th, 2010. A limited number of tickets are available now at Computicket. Group rates are available.