Reading Melinda Lopez's MALA

     This is not a review.  So it's a departure from the kind of posts that usually find their way here.  

     This is where the writing overtakes the reading; catches, by surprise.  It is "The Beginning," though, so "Denial" still holds sway.  "Coming Home" is always "Tough;" much like a "Blizzard" can "Suddenly" force redress of "The Big Stuff," Melinda Lopez's Mala offers a "Great Nutritional Supplement" for anyone who has ever served as the primary caretaker of a loved one.


     Now that word play out of the way, so many questions remain.  Most significantly, who Lopez names, and who she chooses to define only in relation to the main character.   who we know only as "Mala."

    The first reading?  While it obviously framed seeing the play, reading it as part of ArtsEmerson's Play-reading Book Club added layers lost otherwise. (And the added surprise of getting to sing "Happy Birthday" to Ms. Lopez on the day our group went to see the play?  Priceless.)
     
     There still time to see Melinda Lopez's Mala before this run ends on November 20th.  See The Boston Globe's review.

What gives at the Boston Art Commission?

                            the first in a series of posts analyzing breakdowns in the                                  public process associated with an exterior artwork yet "to be featured" at BPL's Mattapan Branch.       

Where to begin?

Sad 2 hear @PublicArtBoston is effectively thwarting a #PublicArrt project the Mattapan community was promised: http://t.co/tYRi0ogGvP
— ArtsMattapan (@ArtsMattapan) December 2, 2013

This, then, followed:

Sad 2 hear @BPLBoston has suddenly & inexplicablly withdrawn its support 4 the #PublicArt project built N2 the #Mattapan Library design.
— ArtsMattapan (@ArtsMattapan) December 2, 2013

So what gives?   
After four years of stringing an artist along (not to mention volunteers doing the Committee's work), now the Boston Art Commission would have the Mattapan Library Art Committee start from 'scratch.'  Really?  At whose expense?  "Inquiring minds want to know."

More next time.

Ntozake Shange's Gestalt: Lost..., Evermore

"When we revolt it's not for a particular culture.

We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe."

--Frantz Fanon

Ntozake Shange's new work, Lost in Language and Sound, is a poignant yet playful expose of her writing life. It lays bare her gestalt--the shape, figure, and form, that is, not only her body of work, but her story as well.  

It overhears a radio broadcaster asking the central question of this choreo-essay, "...how would Zake introduce Ntozake Shange?"  It is the hinge upon which three actors trade succinct, serial, soliloquies aimed at addressing this key question; albeit obliquely.  

Two dancers must have had something to say as well (they were on stage, after all), but seemed constrained to express it. Perhaps this was intended; a metaphor to be 'read' theatrically. 

Still the language told of "blood," "blood memory," and "dreams;" of her "blood trail" throughout the Old World, and New.  It hits the ear slightly ahead of the musical bed, but just after tangled sheets of free jazz foreshadowed its musings.

The story it told riffs on a couple of her lesser known, but potent, choreopoems--namely, Spell #7 and Boogie Woogie Landscapes; re/iterating a through-line of Ms. Shange's oeuvre.  

Here too, Lost in Language and Sound articulates the self-consciousness plight--the di/lemma of the Black artist 'coming to voice' where there is "no linguistic system besides the language of racism."  

It is a language that occupies territory, and is always already "contested" and dis/figuring.  Under such conditions, Ms. Shange admits even "the individual's breathing is an observed, an occupied breathing;" what Franz Fanon described as "combat breath."  The story she tells. 

Despite this, Ntozake Shange's Lost in Language and Sound bear the "elements of magic and leaps of faith" that mark her prior works. 

In counterpoise to an authoritative "drop, freeze" breaking the fourth wall throughout the performance, one line resounds a definitive call to the audience: "Can you stand up, chile?" It ended with a special on Ms. Shange interjecting, "I still sweat when I write."

Naychuhboy Productions and African Repertory Troupe, Inc. staged the dramatic reading of Shange's Lost in Language and Sound at Nuyorican Poets Cafe last Tuesday night to a packed house.  

Acted and directed by claude e. sloan, the performance featured Cassandra Cato-Louis and Mariposa Fernandez; as well dancers Johari Mayfield and Fatima Logan. It was scored by Michael Raye, with free jazz stylings by Mem Nahadr (vocals), George Sams (trumpet) and Mark Peterson (upright bass).  

Mattapan Action Network: Why We Sing, Why We Cry

Mattapan Action Network: Why We Sing, Why We Cry: Mattapan . The neighborhood conjures up mixed feelings.... It is an absolutely beautiful place to live (quiet, even). There are great place...

Marion Jones: Sacrifcial Lamb, Scapegoat, or Just Another Black Woman in America?

Within days of the latest Mitchell Report's release, I overheard the news that Marion Jones--the Olympic athlete who took three gold medals at the Sydney games--had been sentenced to six months in prison for lying about something we already knew: she has been taking performance-enhancing drugs.

We knew, in 2004, when she 'protested (just a little) too much,' saying, "I have never, ever used performance-enhancing drugs." Dick Pound (what a whirl!), chairman of the World anti-Doping Agency, admitted as much standing on the courthouse steps. He said, "The fact that she was using performance-enhancing drugs is not a surprise."

In fact, we knew, in 2000, when we watched her perform--her gait, so relaxed and free; her stride, elongated; her muscles ripped. What Dick Pound will only admit "suspect[ing]," that is, we knew; and we watched her performance in rapt exultation. She was 'bringing home the gold;' and she was exuding bi-sex appeal in the process. What more could American audiences want?!?

We loved her (then). As I recall, she was the news--so much so that I actually grew sick of hearing about her towards the Games' end. (My suspicions are always aroused whenever we have that kind of urgency about building somebody up--most especially, a Black somebody. The writing is always, right there--'on the wall.')

Of course we spent the last seven years witnessing her slow, spiraling descent from our (I started to say, her) Olympic glory days--because that's what they were: our--i.e., American--gold medals. Let's face it, Marion Jones (and Barry Bonds) made the BALCO doping scandal--an otherwise dry, overly technical story about corporate crime--'frontpage news.'

The media loved it; because it sold whatever they were selling. And so did we; and for more reasons than can be recounted here. Suffice it to say, our morbid curiousity being what it is--we find solace, at least, in such public morality plays. At its most benign--a kind of 'there but for the grace of G-d go I;" a sense of relief, coupled with a tacit acknowledgement of the sacrifice that's always associated, somehow, with 'lessons learned.'

This was the frame in which Mrs. Jones-Thompson herself cast the sentencing judge's decision: six months in the federal pen. On the courthouse steps, immediately after District Judge Kenneth Karas denied all pleas for leniency, especially those made on behalf of her two young children, Jones-Thompson said, "I promise that these events will be used to make the lives of many people improve; that by making the wrong choices and bad decisions, can be disasterous." This relentless goal-setter has cast her eyes on nothing less than redemption: 'others will learn from my mistakes.'

Curiously, despite Marion's obviously genuine contrition (a truly rare thing, these days), Judge Karas was vexed because he did not have a legal basis for sentencing this particular 'American darling' to even more time in the federal pen. According to one news source, Judge Karas made specific inquiries, looking for some way to "go beyond the six-month maximum sentence suggested in her plea deal;" going so far as to ask whether he could sever the charges in the indictment so he could hand down a sentence on each respectively.

I mean, what is that about? Am I the only one who's wondering how this tale of woe could possibly emerge in tandem with all the other stories of doping in professional and quasi-professional sports? To these, and other questions, I will return.

Tiger Woods

Excellence never loses focus. Always keep your eyes on the prize!

James Brown Olympia 1966

Enjoy an early backstage view of Mr. Brown transition from a Motown-style presentation to the "densely syncopated" funk-style that became his signature and his gift to the world.