The Ups And Downs Of A Gay & Lesbian Film Festival

The New York International Festival of Lesbian and Gay Films, the culmination of a two-year search and acquisition project, comes at a most timely moment--the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village (in which dozens of gay men, many of them drag queens, fought the police back in a raid on a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn) out of which emerged the gay liberation movement.

The festival, an outgrowth of that movement, and the first of its kind in nearly two and a half years, will screen 45 movies, in 77 screenings, during its June 7-20 [1989 ] run at the Biograph Cinema (255 West 57th Street, at Broadway). "We planned it for the month of June," said festival producer Susan Horowitz, the owner of Tower Press, a printing firm that publishes the annual Gay Pride Guide, "to tie into the other cultural emphasis around Stonewall."

While she busied herself with the task of lining up financial backers for the festival within the gay community, her partner John Lewis, who, quipped Horowitz, calls himself "an old movie queen" because of "his passion" for film, "traveled to Berlin and to other film festivals, and was able to see a lot of material."

One of the gems acquired is the 1989 British documentary Desire by Stuart Marshall which discusses through on-camera interviews, stills, and archival footage homosexuality in Germany before and during the Nazi period. (It will be shown opening night for a special screening to benefit the Gay Community Center on 13th Street.)

Said Horowitz: "We had a commitment about a film on Langston Hughes's life by an English filmmaker [Isaac Julien's Looking for Langston] that we were very excited about being able to find on such short notice but it was taken away from us because they decided to hold out for the New York Film Festival which is certainly their prerogative."

The painstaking efforts of Susan Horowitz and John Lewis have paid off in media attention and positive feedback from "the gay community at large," beamed Horowitz. However, there is a downside, too. The New Festival, the sponsors of the event, have sent out via mail, 25,000 copies of the catalogue. Only 32 have been returned requesting that the recipient be removed from the mailing list because they felt that the catalogue--which others have praised for its graphic design--was "disgusting." Horowitz and her cohorts were dismayed to the point of shedding tears, despite the fact that this manifestation of gay self-hatred represented only "a very small percentage."  It became evident to Horowitz that 20 years after Stonewall, there was still "a long way to go" in bolstering gay pride. "That's why a film festival is essential, a community center is essential in every city of every type."


This slightly condensed article was originally published in the Philadelphia Gay News (June 9, 1989).

Pearl Primus, An Authority On African Dance

One of the greats in the black dance field who should be celebrated during Black History Month is Pearl Primus--dancer, choreographer, anthropologist , educator (she is professor of Ethnic Studies at Amherst College in Massachusetts). In the 1940s and '50s, Primus created such a stir with her African-based  dance works among critics and public alike that Walter Terry, the dance critic, now deceased, proclaimed her "the world's foremost authority on African dance."

That designation, resulting from her years of travel throughout the American South, the Caribbean, and Africa to study and document black dance, is anchored to her "search for roots" and her need to reveal "the dignity, beauty, and strength" of black people.


The 70-year-old Trinidadian-born artist-scholar's quest gave rise last summer to a photo-biographical exhibition at the Caribbean Cultural Center, "A Search for Roots: The Life and Work of Dr. Pearl Primus." The exhibition, part of the center's Third Annual Tribute to African Diaspora Women, consisted of many enlarged black and white performance photos from such dances as "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (based on the Langston Hughes poem) and "Haitian Play Dance" as well as facsimiles of printed concert programs.


Pearl Primus, declared Dan Dawson, who curated the show, is a "living national treasure."

This article was submitted to the New York-based New American newspaper on January 30, 1990,but was not published.

Note: Pearl Primus died in 1994 at the age of 74.

Bringing Jubilation To The Dance Stage

The style of dancing that has brought critical and public acclaim to Jubilation! Dance Company is labeled "kiative movement" by Kevin Jeff, the company's chief choreographer, and has been described in previous press kits as "a unique blend of modern, ethnic, jazz, and classical ballet technique in traditional African dance."

To many of Jubilation!'s fans all of this choreographic nomenclature is of little importance. The bottom line for them is the energy, skill, and joy exhibited by the dancers, both singularly and as an ensemble. All of which has broadened Jubilation!'s appeal not only in this country but abroad. (They recently returned from an extensive tour of 15 American cities and several cities in Canada, Italy, and Switzerland.)

Kevin Jeff founded Jubilation! in 1979 when he was 19 on the advice of his mentor Mr. Lee Lynn Thompson, who taught at the Bernice Johnson Dance Studio in Jamaica, Queens. The name of the company came from a suggestion by a female friend. "At the time, I was choreographing Jubilation! as a dance show," recalled Jeff, who has appeared in the Broadway musicals The Wiz and Comin' Uptown, "not as a dance company. She liked what she saw and said to me, 'I feel jubilant!' I just kept it. It felt good, it felt right."

Since then, Jeff has come a long way. He has done choreography for two Washington, D.C. musicals, Blackbirds and Street Dreams, and choreographed the dance sequence in filmmaker Spike Lee's 1986 comedy-drama, She's Gotta Have It. Jeff's involvement with this film has inspired him to want to do other commercially-oriented work.

This condensed article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News (September 24, 1988).

Hollywood In The South Bronx

Voice of the People
New York Daily News
220 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017
July 5, 1977

Dear Editor:

If the city had torn down some of the abandoned buildings in the South Bronx and replaced them with a huge television and motion picture sound stage, it would have helped the city's financial situation enormously. New jobs would have been created, companies providing goods and services would have benefited, and it would have given Hollywood some tough competition.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

The above letter was not published.

Note: There are today film studios in Brooklyn and Queens.

Mrs. Bill Cosby's Comedy Error

Letters
American Visions *
2101 S Street, NW
Washington, DC 20008-4011
January 21, 1995                                                                                                                                                                                           

Dear Editor:

In an otherwise wonderful and thought-provoking profile of Camille Cosby [Mrs. Bill Cosby] (AV, December/January 1995), I noticed one erroneous statement. When Mrs. Cosby said that "you don't see anything comedic about Hitler" shown on television, she completely overlooked such televised theatrical films as The Producers (1968) and History of the World--Part I (1981) (both films were directed by Mel Brooks) as well as Charlie Chaplin's 1940 comedy, The Great Dictator, in which he has a dual role--as a Jewish barber and a dictator (a Hitler lookalike named Adenoid Hynkel). She also overlooked Hogan's Heroes, the half-hour comedy series about Allied servicemen in a German POW camp, which made the Nazis look like buffoons and incompetents.                                                                                                                                            
Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

This letter was published in American Visions magazine's April/May 1995 issue.

* American Visions is a magazine devoted to African-American history and culture.

Curtis Sliwa's Disdain For "Brainiacs"

The Voice of the People
New York Daily News
220 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017
February 11, 1994

Dear Editor:

I have heard [Guardian Angels founder] Curtis Sliwa refer to intellectuals as "eggheads"and "brainiacs." Anyone who uses such disparaging terms as these has no respect for the inquiring mind and has no place on the program lineup of [public radio station] WNYC, a cultural and intellectual oasis on the AM radio dial. Plus his brand of radio would attract to the station the know-nothings and loudmouths who predominate on other talk shows.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

This letter was published on February 26, 1994.

An Underground Hideaway

Now that the AIDS epidemic has entered its second decade, more and more plays like Michael Fife's The Hideaway Hilton, will appear on Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway stages to explore the worrisome issues of internment and quarantine.

In The Hideaway Hilton, which ran for three weeks at the Theatre of 224 Waverly Place (Greenwich Village), six characters have hidden in an underground bomb shelter to escape the intensive roundup by the authorities of all those infected with an unnamed disease (probably AIDS, to judge by the symptoms alluded to).

With an ear always to the door for the dreaded knock that never comes, the characters--a male escort of rich old ladies, a yuppie couple, a gay man from the Deep South, a lesbian hack writer, and a young woman (under whose house the bomb shelter is located)--while away the monotonous, fearful days underground playing board games and movie trivia, revealing their most intimate secrets, and fighting (verbally and physically) with each other.

The play would have been more poignant had there been more of a gloom-and-doom ambiance and less campiness, particularly from Fife, whose voice and mannerisms bespoke a gay man rather than a fabulously gorgeous hunk who swept women off their feet.

This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News (November 21, 1991).