Nicole – The Worlds of Ntozake Shange and Digital Storytelling

Quiet As It’s Kept

Uncategorized

by Nicole on May 11, 2016 0 Comments

The internet has become an increasingly present source in the academic world. For students,the Internet is a great source of information but it is also sometimes viewed as a threat. We are warned about untrustworthy sites and unreliable information available online, but the web is also a powerful research and communication. I personally use the internet to quickly find bits of information and as a stepping stone for academic work.

We are not supposed to use Wikipedia for anything but sometimes you need a summary of a book or biographies of individuals. Sites like Wikipedia are useful for gathering background information about an author you are reading in class. Sometimes the references list at the bottom of a Wikipedia page is a useful place to find more readings. Professors do not think Wikipedia is always a reliable source, and they are right. There is no way to ensure that the individuals adding to pages have the correct information. I think that most students do not use Wikipedia for more than the quick acquisition of information and keywords for further research.

The Internet is sometimes a good place to find books and other required readings. Sometimes Google Scholar has entire books and articles available to read. CLIO is also useful for finding materials online. CLIO has many digital copies of books as well as the rest of the online articles for which it is often used.

I think Barnard attempts to encourage the use of digital materials in the sense that computer use is becoming increasingly essential. Barnard seems to be embracing the Internet as a source of education. Many professors use blogs and Wikipages as a platform for discussion posts and communication between students. Also, Professors sometimes send us links to additional articles that are relevant to class topics.

Archive Find 2: McIntyre’s Choreodrama

by Nicole on April 5, 2016 1 Comment

During my visit to the New York Public Library of Performing Arts, I looked at programs from the Sounds in Motion company. One of the more interesting programs was from an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.

FullSizeRender
CAPTION: “Program from May 1987 interpretation of Their Eyes Were Watching God with choreography by Dianne McIntyre: This program is important because it shows how dance and literature can be combined to create a unique experience for the audience. For this performance, McIntyre also collaborated with The Okra Orchestra. In this performance, McIntyre did not only honor Zora Neale Hurston’s literature but also Southern black culture through a celebration of the blues. This performance recognized an experience that was particular to black culture.”

Reading Zake: Stories of Our Own

by Nicole on April 3, 2016 6 Comments

“as a poet in american theater/ i find most activity that takes place on our stages overwhelmingly shallow/ stilted & imitative,” (Lost in Language & Sound, 13).

As an artist, what Shange wants to create is a moment/experience and not a product. Shange argues that the American theater tradition that many black artists emulate are not sufficient to reach black people. The American theater tradition “cannot function for those of us from this hemisphere,” (13). She says that this theater tradition comes from a “[E]uropean psychology” that cannot and is not meant to heal and nurture black individuals. She means that this form is not useful for black people because it does not convey their experiences. Read More

The Well Told Story – Slavery in New York

by Nicole on March 6, 2016 1 Comment

In 2005, The New-York Historical Society created an exhibit called Slavery in New York. The exhibit existed on site at the museum for a period of time, but an online version of the exhibit was also created to last permanently on their website.

The online exhibit was created based off of a physical exhibit at therefore its elements seem to be a re-imagination of what the physical exhibit looked like. I am sure this affected the feel of the exhibit because it was not originally created for an online platform. Our projects differ because our platform is solely digital and has framed how we think about the telling of our individual stories.

Archive Find 1: “why i had to dance”

by Nicole on February 26, 2016 1 Comment

This program is from a theater production of Ntozake Shange’s essay “why i had to dance,” choreographed and directed by Dianne McIntyre. In Ntozake Shange’s essay “why i had to dance” she demonstrates the importance of dance not only to the preservation and exploration of black culture but also to the creative process of writing. In a mix of poetry and prose, she speaks to her experiences with dance and how it came to be an integral part of her writing process. This production of the piece took place at Oberlin College in 2012.

My plan was to go to the Shange archives to look specifically for a program from one of Dianne’s productions with Shange, but I was lucky that Professor Hall happened to bring such a program to class. I was able to scan this item in class and, therefore, was able to investigate the item more thoroughly on my own time. Read More

Images and Text: Questions of Identity and Meaning

Blogposts

by Nicole on January 29, 2016 1 Comment

I learned in a photography class at Barnard that early photography began to flourish among the masses with the adoption of portraiture by the middle class in the mid-1800s. Disderí, the European photographer who became famous for photographing the masses, created small photos of people called carte de visite that were more accessible to the middle class. He was often contrasted with other photographers who only photographed the rich. The professor argued that the middle class used photography as a statement of their status and as a way of self-fashioning. We, the students in the class, were prompted to inquire as to what the subjects of photographs were trying to say. Most of the photographs we looked at in this class were not created by black Americans nor did they feature people of color.

The Holiness of a Cookbook

by Nicole on December 3, 2015 1 Comment

While reading both Shange and Mae’s cookbooks I took time to think about the ways in which cooking is important in my family. The first thing that came to mind is the cookbook that my mother keeps which contains recipes from my grandmother and great grandmother and some of our current favorite dishes. To be honest, my mother really does not do too much cooking, my grandmother was the cook in our household until she passed away. My grandmother is no longer here to cook for us, so having a catalogue of her recipes is like preserving the memory of her existence in our household. Her recipes are proof that she did not leave us empty, but left behind ways of nourishing our bodies. This way my grandmother can continue to fill our stomachs despite her not physically being here. Now my mother’s cookbook, our cookbook, is not the same book my Nana (great-grandmother) used. My mother has updated the book itself, but the recipes on cards and sometimes scraps of paper are still the same. Shange writes that “[c]ooking is a way of insisting on living,” I also think that recipes themselves are a way our elders insist on continuing to live with us after their passing (If I Can Cook/ You Know God Can, Ntzoake Shange, 70). This is how we refuse the idea that black culture is static and was ruptured during the Middle Passage. The fact that black people can pass down recipes and see the similarities in traditional dishes among different peoples of color prove that “[w]e are not folklore,” (Shange, 32).

It resonated with me when I read that Mae does not cook with measurements and relies on the feel of things. Reading this reminded me of what I’ve seen in my own home.

And when I cook, I never measure or weigh anything. I cook by vibration. I van tell by the look and smell of it. Most of the ingredients in this book are aproximate. Some of the recipes that people gave me list the amounts, but for my part, I just do it by vibration. Different strokes for different folks. Do your thing your way.

(Vibration Cooking, Verta Mae, xxiii)

In my family’s cooking all of the recipes from my Nana and many of those from my grandmother are without certified measurements. Many describe using a tea cup as a measure. Now, what size tea cup, I have no idea. I believe that is what Mae describes as “[d]different strokes for different folks” cooking,” (Mae, xiii). Deciding to not use measurements also makes cooking a learning experience instead of following someone else’s formula. I believe that this is how the act of cooking becomes nourishment in itself, that making your own food is akin to the magical-like home remedies in Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo. Not only is the food nourishing, but the process of cooking and creating on your own terms is liberating.

Below are some photos of recipes from my family’s cookbook:

(My great grandmother’s recipe with measurements adapted by my mother)

(My grandmother’s recipe)

(My Aunt Gwen’s Recipe)

Outsiders: Uncle John’s Wisdom

by Nicole on November 12, 2015 2 Comments

“Them whites what owned slaves took everythin’ was ourselves & didn’t even keep it fo’ they own selves. Just threw it on away, ya heah. Took the drums what they could, but they couldn’t take our feet. Took them languages what we speak…But the fiddle was the talkin’ one. The fiddle be callin’ our gods what left us/be givin’ back some devilment & hope in our bodies worn down & lonely over these fields & kitchens. Why white folks so dumb, they was thinkin’ that if we didn’t have nothin’ of our own, they could come controllin’, meddlin’, whippin’ our sense on outta us. But the Colored smart, ya see. The Colored got some wits to em, you & me, we ain’t the onliest ones be talkin’ wit the unreal. What ya think music is, whatchu think the blues be, & them get happy church musics is about, but talkin’ with the unreal what’s mo’ real than most folks ever gonna know.”

(Shange, Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, pg. 22-23).

I find that often in literature the people who are outcasts and considered outside of society’s bounds are the most insightful. It is interesting that Indigo has the most thoughtful and honest conversation with an adult who is somewhat outside of the community because he is eccentric and lives outdoors. Uncle John is able to speak freely to Indigo despite her age because he separated from normal society. He is honest with Indigo about what it means that black people must take advantage of other modes of communication and expression. Indigo’s mother adores her and does her best to protect her but she wants to shelter her child instead of providing her with the necessary truths to prepare her for black womanhood. Not treating Indigo like a young adult is her mother’s way of protecting her and being a good parent. Unlike her mother, Uncle John does not feel the need to shelter Indigo. Uncle John is characterized as being “off” and does not subscribe to the unwritten rules of keeping children naive, so he sees no fault in educating Indigo on the history of her people.

The presence of white people in this passage, and in this book as a whole, is extremely different from the Shange works that we have read so far. In for colored girls, white people are not present nor seem to be of much importance. Of course, the systems that oppress the black women in the choreopoem are sometimes the result of a white presence, but in her manual for young black women how to deal with a white presence is not the goal. Instead she focuses on the relationships of black women with black men, other black women and self exploration. In Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo there is discussion about how black people must live their lives in response to the presence of white people around them. In this passage Uncle John schools Indigo on the mistakes slave masters maid when trying to subdue the spirits and cultures of black slaves. He does not conceal his contempt and disapproval of white people and their actions towards black people, in a way that we have yet not seen Shange of her characters refer to white people.

Questioning Binaries: Latin-Soul Music

by Nicole on November 3, 2015 1 Comment

In Rod Hernandez’s “Latin Soul,” he writes that the recognition of similarities in music between black and latino people has helped bring to light the crossings of their two cultures. The “shared musical sensibilities” of their music was heard most often in neighborhoods where black Americans and latinos shared similar disenfranchised spaces, such as in the South Bronx of New York City (335). Hernandez explains that the “varied musical traditions of the African diaspora were instrumental in bringing about greater awareness of blackness and brownness,” (335). Knowledge of the cross over between black and latino cultures has been suppressed because of color prejudice, but the influence of African culture on all types of music of the diaspora is one place where the similarities in culture are more easily recognized.

This discussion of black and latino cultures and the similarities in their music reminded me of a movie I saw called Chef (2014), about a struggling chef who drives his food truck from Miami all the way back to his home in California. In the soundtrack for the movie latin music style is mixed with jazz and blues and reflects the stops the protagonist makes on his journey back to California. Traveling between these two locations with large latino populations, California and Miami, the protagonist surveys the South and the food and musical traditions which it holds. The movie focuses on the locations of Miami, New Orleans and Austin as the locus of the changes in music. The soundtrack to the movie reflects this fusion of black and latino culture. Some of the songs are originally sung by black artists but have been reworked in the style of salsa. When I saw the movie I thought the soundtrack was the best feature, and I could not think why I had never heard black and latino music combined in this way. In the text, Hernandez says that what “is amazing about well groomed Salsa musicians is their ability to play all styles of music;” this soundtrack is emblematic of this statement (335). When I listened to this soundtrack the same emotions churned in me as when I listen the jazz my grandparents used to play for me as a child.

Alvin Ailey, BAM and Shange

Blogposts

by Nicole on October 24, 2015 1 Comment

I am really interested in Alvin Ailey’s ballet, Revelations, which Shange mentions in “why I had to dance” in Lost in Language and Sound. Growing up it was a tradition between my mother and I to go see Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater each year around Christmas when they perform at City Center. My mother would always choose a performance date on which they would be performing Revelations. Even before I was able to understand the importance of the ballet, I was aware that something about this piece in particular was sacred to many black dancers and black people who enjoy dance.