I don’t know about y’all, but when attending festivals of this kind, I come expecting to see new, ambitious works, and I especially come to support stories that reflect the voice of my people.

Well, I think I found something that has equal parts ambition and fresh insight into Black manhood.

Artist, Cultural Strategist, Curator and Writer, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, presents #negrophobia, a social commentary, and critique to bring light to perceptions of “grief, misogyny and black patriarchal constructs of masculinity housed within the chaotic frame of a body and mind on the verge of psychosomatic collapse.”

In short, he wants to expose the eroticism and fear that comes along with being a human in a Black male body.

#negrophobia was originally commissioned by Gibney Dance Center and is made possible with the support of friends of anonymous bodies and the Philadelphia Cultural Fund with residency support from the Bushwick Starr and Miami Theater Center. Harlem Stage also helped make this production possible.

Kosoko was the co-curator of the 2015 Movement Research Spring Festival and the 2015 Dancing While Black performances at BAAD in the Bronx. He contributes to the Dance Journal (PHL), the Broad Street Review (PHL), and Critical Correspondence (NYC). Kosko has participated as a fellow with DeVos Institute of Art Management at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He is an inaugural graduate member of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) at Wesleyan University.

Head over to the Lower East Side to see Kosoko’s work
January 8, 2016 – January 17, 2016
at Underground Theater as part of American Realness at Abrons Arts Center.

Friday, January 8, 5:30 PM
Saturday, January 9, 8:30 PM
Sunday, January 10, 5:30 PM
Monday, January 11, 8:30 PM
Sunday, January 17th, 1 PM
Run Time: 75 minutes

For more information on the festival visit americanrealness.com.

The post Jaamil Olawale Kosoko Presents #Negrophobia at American Realness appeared first on Broadway Black.

Sun started writing Pike St. in 2013, reflecting on the effects that Hurricane Sandy had on the inhabitants of New York City. Told from the point of view of a Puerto Rican family in residence in Lower East Side (L.E.S.) Manhattan, Pike St. brings to life the story of Evelyn, whose teenage daughter Candace is paralyzed and not able to breathe on her own, and the preparations the family must make in the face of a looming storm.

This project is a bit of a homecoming. Sun was born and raised in L.E.S. and took her first art classes at Abrons Art Center. She has sought to tell a story that embodies the unique diversity of the landscape. 

The artistry is what has me most intrigued by this story. Telling a story from one point of view is one thing, but seamlessly transforming from a matriarch who will protect her daughter by any means necessary, to the daughter who is bound by the dependance of a breathing machine and not being able to walk, to a woman who has survived the Holocaust, to a brother who has fought in Afghanistan, speaks to a special dexterity that you don’t see everyday. 

The nature of all of these characters combined seems heavy. But nightly, like Evelyn, Sun leaves her heart on the stage in an effort to plant seeds of healing and redemption, three years after Hurricane Sandy. 

Sun is a playwright and performer. It is in her Off-Broadway play, No Child, where she played an entire classroom of children and the teacher, that garnered her an Obie award, as well as a Lucille Lortel Award and two Outer Critics Circle Awards. Her TV and film credits include “30 Rock,” “Law & Order: SVU,” and “Louie.”

Pike St. held previews starting November 10 and opened November 15. The direction is helmed by Ron Russell and the show is presented by Epic Theatre Ensemble. Visit Abrons Arts Center for tickets.

The post Nilaja Sun’s “Pike St.” Extended Through December 19th at Abrons Arts Center appeared first on Broadway Black.