Coach Pain have been in the field for twenty six years and plan to stay here for many more. While he always enjoyed his work and was successful with it, he was not as passionate then as he is now. The passion didn’t come until much later. The passion came through the most painful loss of his mother.It was my mother’s life: her sacrifices, support and guidance that made him the man today. Continue reading
Actor Vincent Price performs the iconic rap from Michael Jackson‘s mega hit Thriller. This was the first and only time performed the verses live on television. 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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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
This documentary follows the astonishing five-decade marriage of Carmen De Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder and focuses on their careers as dancers, actors, choreographers and more. 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
CARMEN and GEOFFREY, an intimate documentary, which was awarded Best Film at Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival 2009, follows the astonishing five-decade marriage and careers of two legends of the stage: Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder
This dynamic showcase—described as an “extravaganza” by curator Adrienne Edwards—brings together visual art, live performance, music, a range of archival materials, and a multi-screen video installation drawn from recordings of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) repertory to explore the full range of Ailey’s personal and creative life. 
The Brooklyn Museum, in partnership with the National Gallery of Art, closes this gap with Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, an exhibition of over 200 works that gives this revolutionary artist and radical activist her due. The Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor This dynamic showcase—described as an “extravaganza” by curator Adrienne Edwards—brings together visual art, live performance, music, a range of archival materials, and a multi-screen video installation drawn from recordings of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) repertory to explore the full range of Ailey’s personal and creative life. The Brooklyn Museum, in partnership with the National Gallery of Art, closes this gap with Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, an exhibition of over 200 works that gives this revolutionary artist and radical activist her due. The Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor 
A dance and fitness class for seniors taught by Walter Rutledge Nereid Older Adult Center 720 Nereid Ave, Bronx, NY 10466 This dynamic showcase—described as an “extravaganza” by curator Adrienne Edwards—brings together visual art, live performance, music, a range of archival materials, and a multi-screen video installation drawn from recordings of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) repertory to explore the full range of Ailey’s personal and creative life. The Brooklyn Museum, in partnership with the National Gallery of Art, closes this gap with Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, an exhibition of over 200 works that gives this revolutionary artist and radical activist her due. The Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor This dynamic showcase—described as an “extravaganza” by curator Adrienne Edwards—brings together visual art, live performance, music, a range of archival materials, and a multi-screen video installation drawn from recordings of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) repertory to explore the full range of Ailey’s personal and creative life. The Brooklyn Museum, in partnership with the National Gallery of Art, closes this gap with Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, an exhibition of over 200 works that gives this revolutionary artist and radical activist her due. The Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor This dynamic showcase—described as an “extravaganza” by curator Adrienne Edwards—brings together visual art, live performance, music, a range of archival materials, and a multi-screen video installation drawn from recordings of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) repertory to explore the full range of Ailey’s personal and creative life. The Brooklyn Museum, in partnership with the National Gallery of Art, closes this gap with Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, an exhibition of over 200 works that gives this revolutionary artist and radical activist her due. The Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor This dynamic showcase—described as an “extravaganza” by curator Adrienne Edwards—brings together visual art, live performance, music, a range of archival materials, and a multi-screen video installation drawn from recordings of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) repertory to explore the full range of Ailey’s personal and creative life. The Brooklyn Museum, in partnership with the National Gallery of Art, closes this gap with Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, an exhibition of over 200 works that gives this revolutionary artist and radical activist her due. The Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor This dynamic showcase—described as an “extravaganza” by curator Adrienne Edwards—brings together visual art, live performance, music, a range of archival materials, and a multi-screen video installation drawn from recordings of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) repertory to explore the full range of Ailey’s personal and creative life. The Brooklyn Museum, in partnership with the National Gallery of Art, closes this gap with Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, an exhibition of over 200 works that gives this revolutionary artist and radical activist her due. The Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor This dynamic showcase—described as an “extravaganza” by curator Adrienne Edwards—brings together visual art, live performance, music, a range of archival materials, and a multi-screen video installation drawn from recordings of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) repertory to explore the full range of Ailey’s personal and creative life. The Brooklyn Museum, in partnership with the National Gallery of Art, closes this gap with Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies, an exhibition of over 200 works that gives this revolutionary artist and radical activist her due. The Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 4th Floor 
