Donald Byrd’s fifth Ailey commission draws on the Company’s theatrical roots and legacy of addressing social injustice. The work’s title references a 1921 tragedy that happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s segregated Greenwood District. At the time, it was one of the country’s most affluent African American communities, known as “Black Wall Street.” Continue reading
The premiere episode begins with the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction, periods that held so much promise for free black men and women. But as the North gradually withdrew its support for black aspirations for land, civil and political rights, and legal due process, Southern whites succeeded in passing laws that segregated and disfranchised African Americans, laws that were reinforced with violence and terror tactics. Continue reading
When you watch this documentary you see the systematic and deliberate racist destruction of Michael Jackson. Very insightful! Continue reading
Alena Wicker just finished high school and is planning on attending ASU as she inches toward her goal of being a NASA engineer. Continue reading
Frances Taylor Davis shares her life history as a pioneering dancer with Katherine Dunham Dance Company, her marriage to Miles Davis and renewal after as a survivor. Continue reading
HBO Documentary Films and Kunhardt Film Foundation present King in the Wilderness. The documentary chronicles the final chapters of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, revealing a conflicted leader who faced an onslaught of criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. While the Black Power movement saw his nonviolence as weakness, and President Lyndon B. Johnson saw his anti-Vietnam War speeches as irresponsible, Dr. King’s unyielding belief in peaceful protest became a testing point for a nation on the brink of chaos. Continue reading
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, was a famous Civil Rights leader, pastor, and humanitarian. 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
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs Revelations, Chroma, Grace, and Takademe in this 2015 rebroadcast. Continue reading
Carib Gold (1956) is most notable for its largely African-American cast headlined by Ethel Waters, featuring the first known film roles for both Geoffrey Holder and 2019 Oscar Winner Cicely Tyson. The film is a maritime-themed B-movie, written and filmed almost entirely in Key West, Florida, with locally-cast musicians and extras. Continue reading
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 
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 