Black Studies: Performing Arts

The Brother/Sister Plays by Tarell Alvin McCraney McCraney's dramas of kinship, love, and heartache are set in the bayou of Louisiana and loosely draw on West African myths. In the Red and Brown Water charts the story of Oya, a fast and beautiful track star who must make difficult choices on her journey to womanhood. The Brothers Size dramatizes the struggle between brothers who have taken different paths.

Les Blancs: the Collected Last Plays of Lorraine Hansberry by Lorraine Hansberry; Robert Nemiroff (Editor) Les blancs -- The drinking gourd -- What use are flowers?

Myth, Magic, and Farce: Four Multicultural Plays by Sterling Houston; Sandra M. Mayo (Editor) Contents: Introduction --High Yello Rose-- Isis in Nubia--Black Lily and White Lily--Miranda Rites

Blues for Mister Charlie by James Baldwin In a small Southern town, a white man murders a black man, then throws his body in the weeds. With this act of violence--which is loosely based on the notorious 1955 killing of Emmett Till--Baldwin launches an unsparing and at times agonizing probe of the wounds of race. For where once a white storekeeper could have shot a "boy" like Richard Henry with impunity, times have changed. And centuries of brutality and fear, patronage and contempt, are about to erupt in a moment of truth as devastating as a shotgun blast.

An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins An Octoroon invites us to laugh loudly and easily at how naïve the old stereotypes now seem, until nothing seems funny at all. Jacobs-Jenkins is using a genre associated with exclamation points to ask questions not only about the portrayal of race in America but also about the inadequate means we have for such portrayals.

The House That Will Not Stand by Marcus Gardley New Orleans, 1836. Following an era of French colonial rule and relative racial acceptance, Louisiana's 'free people of color' are prospering. Beatrice, a free woman of colour, has become one of the city's wealthiest women through her relationship with a rich white man. However, when her lover mysteriously dies, Beatrice imposes a six-month period of mourning on herself and her three daughters.

Insurrection: Holding History by Robert O'Hara Robert O'Hara employs a language of wicked wit, of deliberate and immensely provocative outrageousness to speak to a vast, bloody, unapproachable outrage. He shatters the funereal hush that usually surrounds the representation of atrocity and holocaust, in the process waking his audience up.

Five Plays by Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes Mulatto -- Soul gone home -- Little ham -- Simply heavenly -- Tambourines to glory.

Love Conjure/Blues by Sharon Bridgforth LOVE CONJURE/BLUES places the fiction- form inside a traditional Black American voice/inviting dramatic interpretation and movement within the fit of a highly literary text—filled with folktales poetry haints prophecy song and oral history.

Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and his Music by Renée Levine Packer (Editor); Mary Jane Leach (Editor) The essays in Gay Guerrilla offer context on Eastman's life history and the era's social landscape, commentaries on the composer's personality and talents, and analyses of his music. The book presents an authentic portrait of a notable American artist that is compelling reading for the general reader as well as scholars interested in twentieth-century American music, American Studies, gay rights, and civil rights.

Songs in Black and Lavender: Race, Sexual Politics, and Women's Music by Eileen M. Hayes; Linda Tillery (Foreword by) She argues that the women's music festival is a significant institutional site for the emergence of black feminist consciousness in the contemporary period. Hayes also offers sage perspectives on black women's involvement in the women's music festival scene, the ramifications of their performances as drag kings in those environments, and the challenges and joys of a black lesbian retreat based on the feminist festival model.

Bessie by Chris Albertson

Lush Life by Billy Strayhorn

The Christmas Music of Johnny Mathis by Johnny Mathis

Billie Holiday by Carlos Sampayo; José Munoz Born in Baltimore in 1915, and dead too early in New York in 1959, Billie Holiday became a legendary jazz singer. With her voice even now managing to touch so many people, we follow a reporter on the trail of the artist on behalf of a New York daily. Through this investigation, Sampayo and Muñoz trace, through the undertones of racism, and in the wake of the blues, the slow drift of a singer who expressed the deepest emotions in jazz.

Last Night on Earth by Bill T. Jones In a book that is part memoir, part meditation, and part performance, 'today's most daring choreographer' (Newsweek) charts his dance's origins and development in the context of his remarkable life. And he brings to his account all of the honesty, dignity, and moral conviction that are the hallmarks of his work

Alvin Ailey: A Life in Dance by Jennifer Dunning Alvin Ailey (1931–1989) was a choreographic giant in the modern dance world and a champion of African-American talent and culture. His interracial Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater provided opportunities to black dancers and choreographers when no one else would. His acclaimed “Revelations” remains one of the most performed modern dance pieces in the twentieth century. But he led a tortured life, filled with insecurity and self-loathing.

Josephine Baker in Art and Life by Bennetta Jules-Rosette Creating the image -- Touring with Baker's image -- Opening nights -- Celluloid projections -- Living the dream -- Dress rehearsals -- Baker's scripts -- Hues of the rainbow in a global village -- Changing the world -- Legendary legionnaire -- Echoes and influences -- Eternal comeback.

Blacktino Queer Performance by E. Patrick Johnson (Editor); Ramón H. Rivera-Servera (Editor) Staging an important new conversation between performers and critics, Blacktino Queer Performance approaches the interrelations of blackness and Latinidad through a stimulating mix of theory and art.