Reading through the dance reviews about Garth Fagan's Bucket Dance Theatre, you come across such comments as "And though most of the dancers are black, the movement is in no way ethnic" (San Diego Union). After awhile you begin to wonder if that's why the white critics are so enthralled with Fagan's choreography. (Although it's hard to see how the Union critic came to his conclusion, since a dance like "Time After Before Place" has an unmistakable Caribbean motif, including the carnivalesque costumes.)
I saw the Bucket Dance Theatre perform at the Joyce Theatre during the first week of a two-week engagement (their run ends November 13 [1988].) And though I acknowledged the skill of the dancers and the intricacy of the choreography put on them by Fagan, these gymnastic feats left me virtually unmoved. In fact, the audience that night showed more enthusiasm than I did. At the root of my attitude is the fact that Fagan, to quote the critic from San Diego, "never imposes ideas and issues upon the dance material." My preference is for dance-drama, not abstract movement.
Strangely, Fagan, a native of Jamaica, with roots in Afro-Caribbean dance (as a teenager he danced with the Jamaican National Dance Theatre) told the Los Angeles Times critic that he prefers to be known as "an artist who happens to be black." But then again, maybe it isn't so strange. Langston Hughes, in his famous 1926 essay, "The Negro and the Racial Mountain," spoke about a young black poet who told Hughes that he wanted to be known as "a poet--not a Negro poet." Hughes warned us against those artists who harbor "the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible."
That's why I have a tremendous amount of respect and affection for Kevin Jeff and his [Brooklyn-based] Jubilation! Dance Company. They make no apology for who and what they are. I just wish other dancers and choreographers felt the same way.
This item, which appeared in a dance column I wrote for the New York Amsterdam News, was published January 28, 1989.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
African Influence In The Americas
Since its inception in 1976, the Caribbean Cultural Center in Manhattan, along with numerous other black institutions, has been continuing the battle against the centuries-old myth that blacks have had nothing of value culturally or intellectually to offer the New World. The center has been doing this by researching and identifying African continuities and retentions, and showing their impact on general society.
The center, the brainchild of Marta Moreno Vega, a New York-born Puerto Rican and its executive director, grew out of a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship she received in 1975 to find out about various art collections that had been properly identified, as well as find out their location. At that time, Ms. Vega, a former art education teacher in the New York City public school system, was director of El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem and needed the information in order for the art objects to "make any sense."
She had no intention of starting an institution when she got the first of two six-month fellowships. But her difficulties in tracking down and identifying collections made it clear that a center was needed to make these publicly inaccessible artworks available for scholarly examination. It became necessary for her to travel throughout the Caribbean and Bahia, Brazil to see what other institutions were doing so that she could decide what she would do differently. She learned that local institutions focused only on the history and culture of their particular geographic area and that "[n]one of them brought the cultures together and explored their relationship and commonalities and their differences."
It became apparent to Ms. Vega that such a center would be a unique cultural treasure chest to scholars and laymen alike. As it turned out, scholars and researchers were very receptive to the idea because, she said, they "felt there had to be some kind of institutional vehicle that would bring this information to the foreground."
When she was asked how strong the African influence in the Americas has been, Ms. Vega replied: "It's pervasive. You see it in terms of instruments in orchestras, in terms of clothing style, in terms of foods. The Afro-American community is clearly becoming the majority culture. When you have a majority culture, you have food, clothes, art forms that are expressive of [that] culture. We have to be very clear that the influence and impact is there." Although the African cultural influence in the Americas is "very much intact," she continued, "the media doesn't focus on it and when [the media] does [they present this influence as coming from] primitive cultures. And derogatory terms makes us turn away [from that influence] or say it's not there."
The Caribbean Cultural Center, newly located in a narrow, four-story building near St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital on the West Side of Manhattan receives about 60 to 65 people a day. The support and attendance from the black community, said Ms. Vega, "has been very good. We get increasingly more pleased, more committed to what we're doing because the audience represents black people from all cultures."
The center plans to have an enclosed tropical garden in the backyard so that children can see the various kinds of "plants and vegetation that grows in the Caribbean." Also planned is the completion of fourth-floor remodeling work. This is where all audio-visual documentation of center activities will be made accessible to students and researchers.
When storage space for the audio-visual materials runs out, the center will donate to the New York Public Library's Schomburg Collection or some other library those materials no longer needed.
According to Ms. Vega, the center has developed a five-year plan and is "looking for those kinds of activities and art forms that [will] fit into the development of that plan," a sort of blueprint detailing the center's direction and aesthetic definition. She pointed out that in the search for "the broader impact of African cultures in the Americas," they would like to "move into Panama and Colombia and other areas where black continuities are."
This article was originally published in the Harlem Weekly newspaper in 1983.
Note: The Caribbean Cultural Center, in 2012 or 2013, plans to leave its 58th Street location and move to its new home, an abandoned firehouse on 125th Street in East Harlem, just steps from the Metro North and Lexington Avenue train stations.
The center, the brainchild of Marta Moreno Vega, a New York-born Puerto Rican and its executive director, grew out of a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship she received in 1975 to find out about various art collections that had been properly identified, as well as find out their location. At that time, Ms. Vega, a former art education teacher in the New York City public school system, was director of El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem and needed the information in order for the art objects to "make any sense."
She had no intention of starting an institution when she got the first of two six-month fellowships. But her difficulties in tracking down and identifying collections made it clear that a center was needed to make these publicly inaccessible artworks available for scholarly examination. It became necessary for her to travel throughout the Caribbean and Bahia, Brazil to see what other institutions were doing so that she could decide what she would do differently. She learned that local institutions focused only on the history and culture of their particular geographic area and that "[n]one of them brought the cultures together and explored their relationship and commonalities and their differences."
It became apparent to Ms. Vega that such a center would be a unique cultural treasure chest to scholars and laymen alike. As it turned out, scholars and researchers were very receptive to the idea because, she said, they "felt there had to be some kind of institutional vehicle that would bring this information to the foreground."
When she was asked how strong the African influence in the Americas has been, Ms. Vega replied: "It's pervasive. You see it in terms of instruments in orchestras, in terms of clothing style, in terms of foods. The Afro-American community is clearly becoming the majority culture. When you have a majority culture, you have food, clothes, art forms that are expressive of [that] culture. We have to be very clear that the influence and impact is there." Although the African cultural influence in the Americas is "very much intact," she continued, "the media doesn't focus on it and when [the media] does [they present this influence as coming from] primitive cultures. And derogatory terms makes us turn away [from that influence] or say it's not there."
The Caribbean Cultural Center, newly located in a narrow, four-story building near St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital on the West Side of Manhattan receives about 60 to 65 people a day. The support and attendance from the black community, said Ms. Vega, "has been very good. We get increasingly more pleased, more committed to what we're doing because the audience represents black people from all cultures."
The center plans to have an enclosed tropical garden in the backyard so that children can see the various kinds of "plants and vegetation that grows in the Caribbean." Also planned is the completion of fourth-floor remodeling work. This is where all audio-visual documentation of center activities will be made accessible to students and researchers.
When storage space for the audio-visual materials runs out, the center will donate to the New York Public Library's Schomburg Collection or some other library those materials no longer needed.
According to Ms. Vega, the center has developed a five-year plan and is "looking for those kinds of activities and art forms that [will] fit into the development of that plan," a sort of blueprint detailing the center's direction and aesthetic definition. She pointed out that in the search for "the broader impact of African cultures in the Americas," they would like to "move into Panama and Colombia and other areas where black continuities are."
This article was originally published in the Harlem Weekly newspaper in 1983.
Note: The Caribbean Cultural Center, in 2012 or 2013, plans to leave its 58th Street location and move to its new home, an abandoned firehouse on 125th Street in East Harlem, just steps from the Metro North and Lexington Avenue train stations.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
"The Block," A Play About Inner City Family Life
The Block, written by Earl A. Johnson and directed by Hamid Fardjad, ran for a month [October 28-November 20, 1983] at the Actor's Outlet Theatre on West 28th Street [in Manhattan]. It concerned itself with the problems faced by inner city black teenagers from the perspective of three families: a single, alcoholic mother on welfare who wants her daughter to quit high school and find a job; a stable but overly protective and inquisitive single mother who wants to meet her daughter's "little male friends," and a two-parent home where there are four teenagers present. Three of the four kids are problems. One daughter is pregnant, one son is involved in drug-dealing, and another son is consistently absent from school in order to pursue a boxing career.
Although many of the cast members were in group foster care, The Block did not specifically deal with foster care, only the problems that could cause a child to be placed by the authorities in an environment outside of the family unit. The play made the point that these problems can and do take place in any type of family setting. (It should also be pointed out that a child can be placed in foster care for reasons other than parental neglect and/or child abuse.)
The issues raised by the play were ones many adolescents would readily identify with: the lack of parent-child communication, teenage pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, the monetary lure of drug peddling, the struggle to prepare oneself for the adult world, racism, et cetera.
The Block, based on the experiences and thoughts of its 12 non-professional teenage actors, did not try to arrive at any simplistic solutions. Its goal was to present, in dramatic form, the reality of the streets and of home life for many kids in urban neighborhoods and to give us food for thought and discussion.
"Some grownups can learn something from it [the play], too," said 19-year-old Margaret M., a cast member who was working as a nurse's aide, "because there's some parents who act like [the parents in the play] toward their teenagers and there are some teenagers who don't listen to what their parents say. It is not only for the teenagers to learn something from the play, it's also good for some of the grownups to understand their kids better."
One interesting aspect of the play was the pairing of professional actors with non pros. Although it was easy to tell who was a pro and who was not by the quality of the acting, that in no way took anything away from the impact of the scenes or their message.
All that the participants asked the audience to do was come to the theatre with open minds and to check their negative thoughts about inner city life at the door.
The Block was conceived through improvisation, and was sponsored by the New York City Human Resources Administration's Office of Direct Child Care Services.
This article was originally published in the Harlem Weekly newspaper in 1983.
Although many of the cast members were in group foster care, The Block did not specifically deal with foster care, only the problems that could cause a child to be placed by the authorities in an environment outside of the family unit. The play made the point that these problems can and do take place in any type of family setting. (It should also be pointed out that a child can be placed in foster care for reasons other than parental neglect and/or child abuse.)
The issues raised by the play were ones many adolescents would readily identify with: the lack of parent-child communication, teenage pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, the monetary lure of drug peddling, the struggle to prepare oneself for the adult world, racism, et cetera.
The Block, based on the experiences and thoughts of its 12 non-professional teenage actors, did not try to arrive at any simplistic solutions. Its goal was to present, in dramatic form, the reality of the streets and of home life for many kids in urban neighborhoods and to give us food for thought and discussion.
"Some grownups can learn something from it [the play], too," said 19-year-old Margaret M., a cast member who was working as a nurse's aide, "because there's some parents who act like [the parents in the play] toward their teenagers and there are some teenagers who don't listen to what their parents say. It is not only for the teenagers to learn something from the play, it's also good for some of the grownups to understand their kids better."
One interesting aspect of the play was the pairing of professional actors with non pros. Although it was easy to tell who was a pro and who was not by the quality of the acting, that in no way took anything away from the impact of the scenes or their message.
All that the participants asked the audience to do was come to the theatre with open minds and to check their negative thoughts about inner city life at the door.
The Block was conceived through improvisation, and was sponsored by the New York City Human Resources Administration's Office of Direct Child Care Services.
This article was originally published in the Harlem Weekly newspaper in 1983.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Two Actors, Few Props, No Scenery
For its second season, Rainbow Repertory Theatre will present January 6-21 [1989] Philip Blackwell's Twoheads, a theatre piece for two actors, at the Alonzo Players Theatre, 317 Clermont Avenue, Brooklyn.
Originally commissioned in 1983 by John W. M. Neeley, a black art gallery owner in New York, Twoheads, in its diversity of themes and characters, has something of interest for almost everybody. The ten vignettes--some humorous, some serious--explore such issues as torture in South Africa, intergenerational romance, sexism, and homosexuality.
The production, directed by Rainbow Rep's artistic director Reginald T. Jackson, is not only a challenge to the actors, Raan Lewis and Bryan D. Webster, who must play a multitude of roles, but also to its audience who are required to use their imaginations since there are few props and no scenery. "Theatre happens," explained playwright Blackwell, in an interview I did with him for the New York Native, "somewhere between you and the actor. You ought to participate in theatre. Not like film where you can sit there and it sort of does it to you. It's very passive. Theatre's not like that. In theatre there's 'suspension of disbelief.' You say, 'I'm not in this big room with this woman kicking me in my chair. I'm on this beach with these people. Once you do that you hear the surf. It's not there, but that's what happens."
Blackwell admits that "some of the pieces are more successful than others, of course. The piece, 'Herbert, Look,' is about a black gay man and his black lesbian friend who commit illegal acts on a billboard in San Francisco."
While waiting for a bus to take them to see a Busby Berkeley movie, Laurie calls to Herbert's attention the "offensive" billboard. Herbert, with a shrug, can't see "what's so terrible" about a black woman appearing in a liquor ad bearing the slogan "Have you ever tasted Black Velvet?" Laurie heatedly replies, "How can you look at it and not see that it's a terrible ripoff of women? And in this case, a ripoff of black women?" She decides, to Herbert's dismay, to take "direct action"--with spray paint.
"Herbert, Look," continued Blackwell, "comes out of an aborted play I tried to write and which had never gone anywhere for me. To be honest, it works better as a piece in Twoheads than it would have worked as a play.
"'Brother, It's Good to See You' is the South African piece that was also very successful. It comes out of a combination of my continuing concern with what's going on in South Africa, what that means to me as a black man in America, and some specific things that I read."
Samuel, a victim of police torture, tells his friend Frederick of his experience: "If you'd seen what I've seen. We were in cells only this high. You couldn't lie out, you couldn't stand up... And hot. And no water...And the torture rooms...We could hear the screams. Then silence. Then screams again. They would come to the cell and pound on the door. And laugh. They would say, 'Come on, you're next.' And then...nothing would happen. They would go away."
Twoheads is part of Rainbow Rep's continuing effort to promote the work of gay and lesbian playwrights of color, with the added aim of presenting positive and inspiring images, especially to gay youth, who will be provided free admission.
This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News (January 21, 1989).
Note: See blog post published on April 3, 2012 for an interview with the late Philip Blackwell.
Originally commissioned in 1983 by John W. M. Neeley, a black art gallery owner in New York, Twoheads, in its diversity of themes and characters, has something of interest for almost everybody. The ten vignettes--some humorous, some serious--explore such issues as torture in South Africa, intergenerational romance, sexism, and homosexuality.
The production, directed by Rainbow Rep's artistic director Reginald T. Jackson, is not only a challenge to the actors, Raan Lewis and Bryan D. Webster, who must play a multitude of roles, but also to its audience who are required to use their imaginations since there are few props and no scenery. "Theatre happens," explained playwright Blackwell, in an interview I did with him for the New York Native, "somewhere between you and the actor. You ought to participate in theatre. Not like film where you can sit there and it sort of does it to you. It's very passive. Theatre's not like that. In theatre there's 'suspension of disbelief.' You say, 'I'm not in this big room with this woman kicking me in my chair. I'm on this beach with these people. Once you do that you hear the surf. It's not there, but that's what happens."
Blackwell admits that "some of the pieces are more successful than others, of course. The piece, 'Herbert, Look,' is about a black gay man and his black lesbian friend who commit illegal acts on a billboard in San Francisco."
While waiting for a bus to take them to see a Busby Berkeley movie, Laurie calls to Herbert's attention the "offensive" billboard. Herbert, with a shrug, can't see "what's so terrible" about a black woman appearing in a liquor ad bearing the slogan "Have you ever tasted Black Velvet?" Laurie heatedly replies, "How can you look at it and not see that it's a terrible ripoff of women? And in this case, a ripoff of black women?" She decides, to Herbert's dismay, to take "direct action"--with spray paint.
"Herbert, Look," continued Blackwell, "comes out of an aborted play I tried to write and which had never gone anywhere for me. To be honest, it works better as a piece in Twoheads than it would have worked as a play.
"'Brother, It's Good to See You' is the South African piece that was also very successful. It comes out of a combination of my continuing concern with what's going on in South Africa, what that means to me as a black man in America, and some specific things that I read."
Samuel, a victim of police torture, tells his friend Frederick of his experience: "If you'd seen what I've seen. We were in cells only this high. You couldn't lie out, you couldn't stand up... And hot. And no water...And the torture rooms...We could hear the screams. Then silence. Then screams again. They would come to the cell and pound on the door. And laugh. They would say, 'Come on, you're next.' And then...nothing would happen. They would go away."
Twoheads is part of Rainbow Rep's continuing effort to promote the work of gay and lesbian playwrights of color, with the added aim of presenting positive and inspiring images, especially to gay youth, who will be provided free admission.
This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News (January 21, 1989).
Note: See blog post published on April 3, 2012 for an interview with the late Philip Blackwell.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Seeking Guidance From The Blue Lady
The Blue Lady's Hands by John Champagne (Meadowland Books/Lyle Stuart, Inc., 156 pp.)
The nameless protagonist in John Champagne's first novel, The Blue Lady's Hands is described in the dust jacket copy as being "vulnerable, funny but above all resilient." Vulnerable? Most definitely. Resilient? Well, perhaps. Funny? No way. If this guy represents the New Gay Man of the late '80s and '90s, we're in deep trouble. He is an absolute wimp, with a capital W. Throughout this novel, which reads more like a confessional, he is whining and handwringing, all because of his need to find a "man who could love me."
This search for love brings him to Andrea, a psychotherapist, who tries to help him overcome childhood experiences that have made him feel that his "love is bad." One of these experiences is seeing his mother sent away to a hospital for electro-shock treatments when she suffers a nervous breakdown. He believes he is to blame because he loved her too much. Andrea explains to him that "when something happens that doesn't make sense, that can't be made 'right' with a kiss or a hug, then we tell ourselves a story. We make up a reason, find some reason for why things happen the way they do. That way, the world will still make sense. ...So you decided that it had to be your fault. In that way, you could still have some control over the situation."
The other person who is helping the protagonist to know "what it means to love someone" is the Blue Lady, a character he admits does not exist, except in his imagination. He describes her as wearing "robes as blue as a clear sea on a sunny day" and as having a "face...so bright, so radiant, it hurts my eyes to look at her." From time to time her hands start "poking around inside of me" causing "terrible pains in my chest." This is her way of reminding him whenever he begins to "love someone who can't possibly love me back the way I'd like to be loved" that "love is so very hard to bear" at times.
Later, near the end of the book, after he's found a new (possibly permanent) lover named Daniel, he asks himself: "Could I possibly have made up the whole story of the Blue Lady? I don't know. ...But I believe in the Blue Lady,"
The guy is all mixed-up. Let's face it, after endlessly wading through his self-pity and insecurities ("Am I attractive? I wonder if I really want to be with anyone."), you begin not to care if he ever gets himself together.
The Blue Lady's Hands is so fragmented (there are no chapters; events are presented as vignettes separated by white space) that the story is a bit confusing at times. Even the significance of the Blue Lady's presence is equally unclear. And to make matters worse, the poetry that the protagonist writes as "conversations with myself," add nothing to the story and are, in fact, intrusive.
I don't have anything against nonlinear novels, as long as they are coherently written. This one, sad to say, is not. The dust jacket copywriter must have been talking about another novel when he or she wrote that The Blue Lady's Hands is a "triumph of storytelling."
Note: This article was originally written for the Lambda Rising Book Report (later renamed the Lambda Book Report) in 1988. The manuscript was later returned to me because they received it past the deadline. The real reason, I think, was that my review of The Blue Lady's Hands was considered too harsh.
The nameless protagonist in John Champagne's first novel, The Blue Lady's Hands is described in the dust jacket copy as being "vulnerable, funny but above all resilient." Vulnerable? Most definitely. Resilient? Well, perhaps. Funny? No way. If this guy represents the New Gay Man of the late '80s and '90s, we're in deep trouble. He is an absolute wimp, with a capital W. Throughout this novel, which reads more like a confessional, he is whining and handwringing, all because of his need to find a "man who could love me."
This search for love brings him to Andrea, a psychotherapist, who tries to help him overcome childhood experiences that have made him feel that his "love is bad." One of these experiences is seeing his mother sent away to a hospital for electro-shock treatments when she suffers a nervous breakdown. He believes he is to blame because he loved her too much. Andrea explains to him that "when something happens that doesn't make sense, that can't be made 'right' with a kiss or a hug, then we tell ourselves a story. We make up a reason, find some reason for why things happen the way they do. That way, the world will still make sense. ...So you decided that it had to be your fault. In that way, you could still have some control over the situation."
The other person who is helping the protagonist to know "what it means to love someone" is the Blue Lady, a character he admits does not exist, except in his imagination. He describes her as wearing "robes as blue as a clear sea on a sunny day" and as having a "face...so bright, so radiant, it hurts my eyes to look at her." From time to time her hands start "poking around inside of me" causing "terrible pains in my chest." This is her way of reminding him whenever he begins to "love someone who can't possibly love me back the way I'd like to be loved" that "love is so very hard to bear" at times.
Later, near the end of the book, after he's found a new (possibly permanent) lover named Daniel, he asks himself: "Could I possibly have made up the whole story of the Blue Lady? I don't know. ...But I believe in the Blue Lady,"
The guy is all mixed-up. Let's face it, after endlessly wading through his self-pity and insecurities ("Am I attractive? I wonder if I really want to be with anyone."), you begin not to care if he ever gets himself together.
The Blue Lady's Hands is so fragmented (there are no chapters; events are presented as vignettes separated by white space) that the story is a bit confusing at times. Even the significance of the Blue Lady's presence is equally unclear. And to make matters worse, the poetry that the protagonist writes as "conversations with myself," add nothing to the story and are, in fact, intrusive.
I don't have anything against nonlinear novels, as long as they are coherently written. This one, sad to say, is not. The dust jacket copywriter must have been talking about another novel when he or she wrote that The Blue Lady's Hands is a "triumph of storytelling."
Note: This article was originally written for the Lambda Rising Book Report (later renamed the Lambda Book Report) in 1988. The manuscript was later returned to me because they received it past the deadline. The real reason, I think, was that my review of The Blue Lady's Hands was considered too harsh.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Dancing In Japan
Tyrone Aiken, the 26-year-old associate artistic director of the Blue Mercury Dancing Company, performed a male solo called "Returns," at the Nikolais/Louis ChoreoSpace on November 11, 12, and 13 [1988]. The work is choreographed by Loris Anthony Beckles, Blue Mercury's artistic director, to the music of jazz musician Lester Bowie.
Aiken recently returned from a six-week tour of Japan with Michiyo, "a small modern company." While there they were able "to tune into [the Japanese] people: what they're doing , what they thought about Americans, and dancers, and how inspiring they are [to outsiders]. They work so hard at what they do, whatever it is. They're just really very appreciative of artists or knowledge," said Aiken.
On a previous trip to Japan, Aiken, along with other members of Michiyo, spent time teaching and performing. On that trip, he recalled, there was "This one girl, one of my students there, [who] was so kind as to bow and tell me I was a god for teaching and thinking."
Said Aiken: "I don't know how soon, but I will go back. It's a really good experience."
This item, from a dance column I wrote, was published in the New York Amsterdam News (ca. February 4, 1989).
Aiken recently returned from a six-week tour of Japan with Michiyo, "a small modern company." While there they were able "to tune into [the Japanese] people: what they're doing , what they thought about Americans, and dancers, and how inspiring they are [to outsiders]. They work so hard at what they do, whatever it is. They're just really very appreciative of artists or knowledge," said Aiken.
On a previous trip to Japan, Aiken, along with other members of Michiyo, spent time teaching and performing. On that trip, he recalled, there was "This one girl, one of my students there, [who] was so kind as to bow and tell me I was a god for teaching and thinking."
Said Aiken: "I don't know how soon, but I will go back. It's a really good experience."
This item, from a dance column I wrote, was published in the New York Amsterdam News (ca. February 4, 1989).
Ailey Dancers Are Body-Poets
Among the various sections and inserts in the November 6 [1988] Sunday New York Times was--to my absolute surprise and delight--a 20-page advertising supplement celebrating Alvin Ailey's 30 years of dance making.
Surrounding the text were color performance photos and quotes from Ailey himself. In the back of the book was a schedule of the 1988-89 season at City Center [in Manhattan]. This slick -looking fundraising vehicle is worth saving because in a nutshell it gives potential subscribers the history and philosophy of the Ailey organization.
However, I was a bit dismayed with the presence of full-page cigarette and whiskey ads. For a [dance] company that glorifies dancers as "body-poets," these ads are out of place. Why didn't dance-related ads appear in their place?
This item, from a dance column I wrote, was published in the New York Amsterdam News (ca. February 4, 1989).
Surrounding the text were color performance photos and quotes from Ailey himself. In the back of the book was a schedule of the 1988-89 season at City Center [in Manhattan]. This slick -looking fundraising vehicle is worth saving because in a nutshell it gives potential subscribers the history and philosophy of the Ailey organization.
However, I was a bit dismayed with the presence of full-page cigarette and whiskey ads. For a [dance] company that glorifies dancers as "body-poets," these ads are out of place. Why didn't dance-related ads appear in their place?
This item, from a dance column I wrote, was published in the New York Amsterdam News (ca. February 4, 1989).
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