In celebration of the 20th anniversary of Africana Studies at Barnard, distinguished alumna Ntozake Shange ’70 returns to Barnard next week to kick off a year of programming in her honor. Ms. Shange is a Tony award winning author, whose work includes the masterpiece choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. On Wednesday November 7, the year of celebration will begin with a screening of Tyler Perry’s 2010 screen adaptation of for colored girls, followed by a candid discussion with Ms. Shange, Soyica Diggs Colbert, assistant professor of English at Dartmouth College, and Monica Miller, associate professor of English at Barnard, about the original groundbreaking work and its adaptation.
For those unfamiliar with for colored girls who have considered suicide, when the rainbow is enough, C. Davida Ingram provided a great breakdown of the original production, the film, and the cultural context of both at Ms. magazine for the film’s release in 2010:
Colored Girls first took shape in 1974 as an electrifying performance by Shange and four of her close friends in a Berkeley, Calif., women’s bar, the Bacchanal. As they moved and danced, they recited Shange’s poems–about coming of age, heartbreak, sexual assault, redemption. The choreopoem went on to Broadway to win an Obie and be nominated for Tony and Grammy awards.