Applications are currently being accepted for the 2021 New York State Summer School of the Arts (NYSSSA). The four-week summer program will be held fully online to ensure safety during the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis. Tuition will be free for all students who qualify, fostering equity by allowing students who may not have been able to participate otherwise. Students will be able to experience intensive work and interaction with internationally acclaimed artists and performing arts companies. [Read more…] about New York State Summer School of the Arts
Dance
Harlem’s “Black Beauty” Mills; London’s Josephine Baker
Born in 1799, Clemente Bassano (the family name originates from the Veneto region of Italy) settled in London and started his career as a fishmonger in Soho. By 1825 he ran a warehouse from Jermyn Street, St James’s, importing almonds, oil, capers, and macaroni.
His daughter Louise was an opera singer who toured with Franz Liszt on his London visit in 1840/1. Her brother Alessandro became a high society photographer with a studio in Regent Street. His portrait of Horatio Kitchener was used during the First World War for an iconic recruitment poster. [Read more…] about Harlem’s “Black Beauty” Mills; London’s Josephine Baker
Apaches in Paris and New York
In 1912, investigative journalist Alfred Henry Lewis published The Apaches of New York, an anecdotal narrative of notorious gangs in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
What strikes here is the use of the word “apache” in the sense of urban gangster. The term was re-imported from French slang in reference to thugs that roamed the eastern districts (“faubourgs”) of Paris prior to the First World War. [Read more…] about Apaches in Paris and New York
Coppola’s The Cotton Club Returning to Albany
The NYS Writers Institute is set to welcome filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola for the Albany premiere of a restored and re-edited The Cotton Club, and a conversation with Writers Institute founder William Kennedy, who co-wrote the film’s original screenplay.
The film is set around Cotton Club, a popular New York City nightclub in the 1920s and 1930s, when it was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue. Coppola’s restored and re-edited film adds 30 minutes of footage not in the original release, including several high-energy musical and dance numbers, and an expansion of the black characters’ stories and performances. Coppola spent half a million dollars of his own money re-editing it.
[Read more…] about Coppola’s The Cotton Club Returning to Albany
Women and American Dance History Classes in Saratoga
In honor of the Year of the Woman, The Capital Region Dance Alliance announces the return of its popular program, Dancing Through Time. The program combines movement, lecture and video, highlighting the inspiration of women and their influence in American dance. [Read more…] about Women and American Dance History Classes in Saratoga
Voodoo Opera from Harlem Renaissance
Magic rites in the jungle seal the fate of a love triangle in the long-forgotten opera of H. Lawrence Freeman restaged on Friday and Saturday at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. Voodoo was composed in 1914 and had its last performance in 1928. The music and libretto come from a composer who was a friend of Scott Joplin. author of more than 20 operas, and founder of the Harlem Renaissance’s Negro Grand Opera Company. The revival features Gregory Hopkins of Harlem Opera Theatre conducting in a production that drew on collaboration with the Harlem Chamber Players and the Morningside Opera. [Read more…] about Voodoo Opera from Harlem Renaissance
‘Immoral Tendencies’:
When Amsterdam Banned Burlesque
Two Amsterdam clergymen had concerns and asked Mayor John Dwyer to do something about the situation. The Rose Hill Folly Company was planning to perform on Wednesday, November 6, 1889 at the Potter Opera House on Market Street.
The formidable Reverend John McIncrow of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church and Reverend Donald Sprague of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church told the mayor the company had an “immoral tendency.” The clergymen also asked Dwyer not to allow the “posting of indecent pictorial advertisements of shows” in the city. [Read more…] about ‘Immoral Tendencies’:
When Amsterdam Banned Burlesque
Oneida Nation Dancers At Iroquois Indian Museum
The Iroquois Indian Museum will have a Social Dance Saturday on July 12 at the Museum featuring Onota’a:ka (Oneida Nation Dancers), based in the central New York Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) community of Oneida.
Founded by Elder and Wolf Clan Mother Maisie Shenandoah for the purpose of cultural education, the troupe’s original purpose continues to be carried forth by daughter Vicki, granddaughter Tawn:tene (Cindy Schenandoah Stanford) and an extended family with common goals. [Read more…] about Oneida Nation Dancers At Iroquois Indian Museum
Exhibit Highlights Historic Ships At Steamship Lilac
The museum ship Lilac has opened for the summer at Hudson River Park’s Pier 25. The exhibition Hero Project will be on view there through June 30.
With photographs by Jonathan Atkin, Hero Project is a selection from his on-going work-in-progress collaboration with dance artists aboard historic ships. His mission is to increase visibility of our maritime heritage by reaching new non-maritime audiences. In the exhibition, dancers athletically grace the gritty vessels in oversize photographs mounted throughout Lilac, from the bridge to the engine room. For more on the project, see http://www.heroproject.us [Read more…] about Exhibit Highlights Historic Ships At Steamship Lilac
Before The Twerk, There Was The Tango
About 100 years before some New Yorkers were shocked by the sexually-provocative twerk during the 2013 MTV Music Awards show on television, other New Yorkers were shocked by the tango.
After it first appeared in Paris, London, and Berlin from its starting place in Argentina, the tango soon came to New York where it became wildly popular in 1913. The tango’s rhythm has been described as “exciting and provocative” and the dance steps as “hot, passionate and precise.” Women often wore slit skirts when they danced the tango and there was full body contact with their partners, upwards from their upper thighs and pelvis. Routinely, the dancers’ hips were thrust forward and sometimes their legs were intertwined and hooked together. [Read more…] about Before The Twerk, There Was The Tango