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The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Archive Find of the Week: “They Are Safe for Now”

by Clarke 1 Comment

Typed copy of Ntozake Shange’s (Paulette Williams) poem “They Are Safe for Now” published in 1966 in The Phoenix, the literary publication of her high school, Trenton High. 

This piece interested me initially because the poem was typed on a browned sheet of paper and the bottom left corner was significantly ripped off. I noticed the date, 1966, and the authorship, Paulette Williams. I recalled that there weren’t many pieces in the Archive that were taken from this time in Shange’s life, and I also hadn’t seen any using her name assigned at birth.

Archive Find 1: “why i had to dance”

by Nicole 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.

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.

Archive Find of the Week

by Kiani 2 Comments

A small green journal containing entries from early 2000s. Contains entries noting details about performances, to do lists, personal thoughts, and number lists. Telephone numbers of acquaintances and friends are scattered throughout pages. 

This object was of particular interest to me because of the nature of my project. I am interested in evoking the “archival body” as it appears in bodies of text. The journal is an obvious, yet appropriate, body of text. It evokes a fullness of a text while also alluding to bodies and spaces in the entries. In the pages of this journal, Ntozake Shange talks about spaces she’s inhabiting and other bodies that she’s interacting with. This object thus functions as an art object, a collection of memories, and a memorandum of physical activity.

I located this object in the Ntozake Shange papers at Barnard College and will be utilizing the permissions given to the Digital Worlds of Shange Class to use and publish choice sections and aspects of this journal.

I am not aware if there is any metadata associated with this item as I am almost certain I am the first to digitize the object.

Archive Find 1: Jazz Poetry

by Amanda 1 Comment

While visiting Barnard’s Archive this past week, I happened across a jazz poem by a contributor to “Phat Mama”. The poem, entitled me & miles, contributed by Thulani Davis (formerly Barbara Davis) talks about the way Miles Davis’ music influenced the narrator beginning as early as childhood– “when i was a childhood/then and oh yeah now/ me and miles/ had a/ real/ thing.”

Works & Insights Shared by Professor Valdés

by Melissa 1 Comment

During our meeting with professor Valdés yesterday, we discussed a wide range of topics that have shaped our projects and interests. Everybody took something truly transformative away from our discussion and it will be exciting to see how the shared insights manifest in our projects.

It is also worth mentioning that professor Valdés is very generous with her time and she has offered her support to everybody in the class. She extends an invitation to students who are interested in further discussion or have additional questions to email her. There is something for everybody so do take advantage of this opportunity!

Below is the list of works professor Valdés has suggested to us for further perusing/research.

 

On the sacred feminine:

Maureen Murdock, The Heroine’s Journey

Vanessa Valdés, Oshun’s Daughters: The Search for Womanhood in the Americas 

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves

On Mothers and Daughters:

Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born

Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering

Tillie Olsen, Silences

Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought

Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

On Dance and Embodied Knowledge:

Yvonne Daniel, Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé

Yvonne Daniel, Caribbean and Atlantic Diaspora Dance

Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repetoire

On African contributions to latinidad:

George Reid Andrews, 1800-2000 (a new edition comes out this year, I believe, where he extends his study to 1600)

About Toni Morrison and her Works :

Carolyn C. Denard, ed., What Moves at the Margin, (includes articles, speeches, and other shorter-non-fiction pieces)

Andrea O’Reilly, Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart

Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (short work)

La Vinia Delois Jennings, Toni Morrison and the Idea of Africa (to the question of diaspora)

Harlem Semester Walking Tours!

by Kim Hall 0 Comments

Dear Zakettes,

Harlem Semester has arranged for thematic walking tours of Harlem for linked classes. If you would like to go on one of these tours, I’ll need to know which one by next Monday’s class. You can see the list at the end of this post. (You are not confined to the ones that are earmarked as having special interest for our class). Also, we have purchased a block of tickets for the Meshell Ndegeocello WIP showing of, “Can I Get a Witness”: The Gospel of James Baldwin, which will be on March 4th at Harlem Stage.

Reading Zaki: Week 5

by Melissa 10 Comments

It’s so magic folks feel their own ancestors coming up out of the earth to be in the realms of their descendants; they feel the blood of their mothers still flowing in them survivors of the diaspora.

Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo

In revisiting Vanessa Valdes’ Oshun’s Daughters, I have been able to re-engage with Afro-spirituality as it appears in Shange’s work, specifically Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo. Valdés illustrates the ways in which each protagonist is associated with a Yoruba or Dahomean deity, sometimes representing more than one entity at a time. These depictions of Afro-spiritualist deities are heterogenous in that they activate a range of traditions manifested in African-descent communities across the western hemisphere. Shange does not limit the characters’ embodiments of Afro-spiritualism to singular practices; at times, we see the Oshun of Santeria, the Gullah-Geechee Blue Sunday, or the different forms of Erzulie in Haitian Vodou. In this effort, Shange is honoring the transcendent quality of Afro-spiritualism, in its limitless iterations across communities and cultural contexts.  

Reading Zake Week 2: “i talk to myself” from Nappy Edges

by Sophia 12 Comments

i can’t quite remember how many questions or journalists or people have happened to me in the last year. i can’t even remember everything i’ve said. i know i tried to convey my perceptions of the world, of men & women, music & language, as clearly as i cd, but poets who talk too much can trip over their own syllables. can become absurd. like the time i told this woman that the most important thing that ever happened to me was my tail-cutting party. or the time i started crying in the middle of a question cuz the person waz so nasty to me i cd no longer speak. he said i had no right to exist/ so i said/ go speak to a rightfully existing person, a white man, maybe. that’s not good press.

…

tz: well. how do you explain loving some men who write & some men who play music & some men who are simply lovable, when yr work for almost three years has been entirely woman-centered?

i can do a lot of things. we all can. women haveta. i waz not able to establish the kind of environment i that my work needed when i read with men all the time. you haveta remember there’s an enormous ignorance abt women’s realities in our society. we ourselves suffer from a frightening lack of clarity abt who we are. my work attempts to ferret out what i know & touch in a woman’s body. if i really am committed to pulling the so-called personal outta the realm of non-art. that’s why i have dreams & recipes, great descriptions of kitchens & handiwork in sassafrass, cypress, & indigo. that’s why in for colored girls…i discuss the simple reality of going home at nite, of washing one’s body, looking out the window with a woman’s eyes. we must learn our common symbols, preen them and share them with the world. the readings i usedta do with david henderson, conyus, bob chrisman, paul vane, ton cusan, roberto vargas & all the others at the coffee gallery, the intersection, & s.f. state were quite high, but the readings at the women’s studies center, with the third world women’s collective, international woman’s day affairs, with the shameless hussy poets, these were overwhelmingly intense & growing experiences for me as a woman & as a poet.

the collective recognition of certain realities that are female can still be hampered, diverted, diluted by a masculine presence. yes, i segregated my work & took it to women. much like i wd take fresh water to people stranded in the mojave desert. i wdnt take a camera crew to observe me. i wdnt ask the people who had never known thirst to come watch the thirsty people drink.