By Walter Rutledge
Recently I had the extreme pleasure to see the Broadway smash hit Hadestown at the Walter Kerr Theater. The 2019 eight-time Tony Award winning musical is still wowing audiences with Anais Mitchell’s incredible lyric music score and touching book featuring dual love stories. Before we talk about Hadestown lets first have a Greek mythology tutorial. Continue reading
Moments in History created and performed by comedy duo Key & Peele showcases the fearless wit of stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Continue reading
By Walter Rutledge
The second installment from the Out and About NYC Magazine 2015 interview with entertainment icon Debbie Allen. In this section we discussed her views on choreography and directing. Continue reading
By Walter Rutledge
The Joyce Theater’s fall 2023 season began September 15 with the interdisciplinary gay romance saga Heart of Brick. The theatrical production combined live vocal music, spoken narrations, voiceovers, dance, lighting and a clean, simple set design to recreate an evening at Langstons, New York City’s oldest Black gay bar. This is the first presentation in Director of Programming Danni Gee augural season, and in the truest downtown dance style she left the audience with something to talk about. Continue reading
Dancer, actor and choreographer Carmen DeLavallade performs The Creation featuring choreography by her husband Geoffrey Holder. Holder also designed the costume and music.
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By Walter Rutledge
Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet Dance Theater of Brooklyn (JGCO) presented Remembering… on February 17th and 18th at BAM Fisher, Fishman Space. The 70-minute one act was an extremely enlightening audience friendly black history celebration. This multi-media event is a perfect example of art as education. Continue reading
Reposted by popular demand O&A NYC Magazine present an extraordinary live performance of William Shakespeare’s King Lear with the one and only James Earl Jones in the title role. Filmed in 1974 before a live audience in Central Park for the New York Shakespeare Festival the production featured Jones, Paul Sorvino and Raul Julia. Continue reading
By Walter Rutledge
In August Universal Temple of The Arts founder Sadja Musawwir Ladner joined the ancestors. A fixture in Staten Island arts scene for over fifty years Ladner provided arts education, performance opportunities and outreach to the underserved communities of her beloved borough- Staten Island. Her untimely passing shocked and saddened all who encountered this “community spirit”, fortunately her legacy lives on. On Saturday March 12, at 5pm the Universal Temple of the Arts will present the Staten Island Jazz Festival 33 at the historic St. George Theatre located at 35 Hyatt St, downtown Staten Island.
The festival will feature jazz music seven artists/groups including Nikara Presents…Black Wall Street (Nikara Warren), Bria Skonberg, Winard Harper & Jeli Posse, The Leopoldo F. Fleming Afro Caribbean Ensemble, Danny Mixon Quartet featuring vocalist Antoinette Montague, Dal Segno Trio featuring Darrell Smith, Michael Morreale and Houston Person and The Universal Temple of the Arts Jazz Ensemble. The evening will honor Women’s History Month as it celebrates the life and legacy of Ladner. There will also be a spoken word presentation featuring Professor Charles Thomas, Jordan Bracy and dancer Nubia Briathwaite, and a dance tribute choreographed by Walter Rutledge featuring Roumel Reaux, Briathwaite and Rutledge.
Musician Darrell Smith will make his debut in the role as the festival’s Music Director. Smith first met Ladner as a sixteen-year-old jazz enthusiast, now his many credits include imbuing and inspiring the next generation of young jazz aficionados at Jazz at Lincoln Center. O&A Editor-in-Chief sat down with Musical Director Smith to discuss the upcoming festival and all things jazz.
Staten Island Jazz Festival 33
Tickets can also be purchased at the St. George Theatre Box Office.
The incomparable Bones The Machine multi-talented dancer, artist, sculptor and director. In his 2013 dance/theatre film Jail Break.The legend of bonebreaking is not forgotten. Continue reading
Purlie is a musical with a book by Ossie Davis, Phillip Rose and Peter Udell, lyrics by Udell and music by Gary Geld and choreography by Louis Johnson. It is based on Davis’s 1961 play Purlie Victorious, which was later made into the 1963 film Gone Are the Days! and which included many of the original Broadway cast, including Davis, Ruby Dee, Alan Alda, Beah Richards, Godfrey Cambridge and Sorrell Booke.
Purlie is set in an era when Jim Crow laws still were in effect in the American South. Its focus is on the dynamic traveling preacher Purlie Victorious Judson, who returns to his small Georgia town hoping to save Big Bethel, the community’s church, and emancipate the cotton pickers who work on oppressive Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee’s platation. With the assistance of Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, Purlie hopes to pry loose from Cotchipee an inheritance due his long-lost cousin and use the money to achieve his goals. Also playing a part in Purlie’s plans is Cotchipee’s son Charlie, who ultimately proves to be far more fair-minded than his Simon Legree –like father and who saves the church from destruction with an act of defiance that has dire consequences for the tyrannical Cap’n.
Purlie is a musical with a book by Ossie Davis, Phillip Rose and Peter Udell
Free Dance Classes, Free Workshop, Cyphers and Street Dance Community Session 670 Lafayette Avenue Bedstuy, Brooklyn
Curated by Carlo McCormickFree Dance Classes, Free Workshop, Cyphers and Street Dance Community Session 670 Lafayette Avenue Bedstuy, Brooklyn
Curated by Carlo McCormick
The Dance of the Village Elders are back ! This time we exercise, dance and just have fun through the zoom platform or in-person at R.A.I.N. Nereid
Free Dance Classes, Free Workshop, Cyphers and Street Dance Community Session 670 Lafayette Avenue Bedstuy, Brooklyn
Curated by Carlo McCormickFree Dance Classes, Free Workshop, Cyphers and Street Dance Community Session 670 Lafayette Avenue Bedstuy, Brooklyn
Curated by Carlo McCormickFree Dance Classes, Free Workshop, Cyphers and Street Dance Community Session 670 Lafayette Avenue Bedstuy, Brooklyn
Curated by Carlo McCormick
The Dance of the Village Elders are back ! This time we exercise, dance and just have fun through the zoom platform or in-person at R.A.I.N. Nereid
Free Dance Classes, Free Workshop, Cyphers and Street Dance Community Session 670 Lafayette Avenue Bedstuy, Brooklyn
Curated by Carlo McCormickFree Dance Classes, Free Workshop, Cyphers and Street Dance Community Session 670 Lafayette Avenue Bedstuy, Brooklyn
Curated by Carlo McCormickFree Dance Classes, Free Workshop, Cyphers and Street Dance Community Session 670 Lafayette Avenue Bedstuy, Brooklyn
Curated by Carlo McCormick