Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 517

Baba Chuck Davis. Forceful Generosity. Divine Artistry. by Thomas F. DeFrantz

Baba Chuck Davis. Forceful Generosity. Divine Artistry. by Thomas F. DeFrantz | @tbirdinflight | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
A man who would bring forward the possibilities of the group, always in connection to the ancestors. Baba Chuck Davis transitioned May 14, 2017 at the end of 80 glorious years.
Davis believed in the African dance forms that he learned in New York in Washington DC and New York in the 1960s. He extended those dances in his own method, and throughout his career traveled to the continent to study, admire, and create music and dance.  His work with the DanceAfrica festival set a standard for embedding neo-African music and dance forms in contemporary curatorial traditions.  This move continues to be incredibly important: Davis helped us all understand how to support African dance companies in useful ways across many years.  
Davis started the DanceAfrica movement in 1977, before conversations about “multiculturalism” had settled.  Davis had no time for any sideward thinking; his festival included classes, workshops, and an essential bazaar of material culture and food that surrounded the dancing. His innovations allowed African dance in the United States to be aligned with its relationships in community.  Under his guidance, we assembled to witness dance and to dance ourselves, and to eat and drink and play together, looking fine in our newly-acquired fashions and accessories.  Davis cast African dance as part of a social constellation of wellness for Africans in diaspora and their admirers. 
Davis had his own company for many years - the Chuck Davis Dance Company - but later removed himself from the title of the group, to found the Baba Chuck made space for all of us interested in the dances of the African diaspora, and for all of us committed to making art about and for Black people.  His generosity demanded of us the attention that we all surely owe each other.  In person, he insisted on an abiding respect from each of us to another, whether we thought ourselves dancers or not.  His manner always put dance in conversation with life, and the expanding consciousness of a cosmic, vibrating-out-of-time African-derived humanity.  
Baba Chuck loved all of us in motion: ballet dancers, krumpers, tap dancers, modern dancers, neo-African dancers.  He has transitioned, but not left us at all; his example of a life in intentional, elegant motion compels us all to take care of each other; to pay attention to the dances of the elders and the ancestors; and to dance, always,  with the joy of human discovery.
Now that Baba Chuck has joined the ancestors, they shimmy and shift, enlarged and ever more lively to have such a dancing spirit among them. AXE! we shout, in tribute to the energy transformed.  AXE and Thank You, Baba Chuck, for all that you did and all that you have inspired!
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Thomas F. DeFrantz is Professor of African and African American Studies, Dance, and Theater Studies at Duke University. He is a dancer, a choreographer, and the author of Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey's Embodiment of African American Culture and the co-editor of Black Performance Theory.

#BackChannel: Dear White People and Black Students Coming to Voice on PWI and HBCU Campuses

Dear White People and Black Students Coming to Voice on PWI and HBCU Campuses
In the new Netflix series Dear White People, conversations about racism on a college campus take center stage. The story features members of the Black Student Union at a fictional Ivy League college called Winchester University, where the main character hosts a socially-conscious radio show. The series has received praise for featuring nuanced stories of students of color, and backlash by some who consider the show racist. The series offers a contrast to the experiences of students at HBCUs, like Bethune-Cookman, where graduates recently protested the graduation address by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
Contributors Natalie Bullock Brown, professor of film and broadcast media at St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, and Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African and African-American Studies & English at Duke University in Durham join The State of Things host Frank Stasio for this month’s installment #BackChannel.

Black America -- Through a Painter's Eye with Nell Painter

'As a Princeton Professor of history emerita and the author of seven books, most famously The History of White People, Dr. Nell Irvin Painter has made her mark in the world of academia. Now in her 70s she's added acclaimed artist to her list. After going back to earn a degree in fine arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, she has produced great art pieces and art critiques. Black America host Carol Jenkins sat down with Painter to discuss her voice, her art, and her opinion. ' -- Black America with Carol Jenkins

The Legendary Johnny Mathis and the Great New American Songbook

'Chances are, if you're Johnny Mathis, you've been revealing your feelings in song for a long time, having recorded his first #1 hit back in 1957. The singer, who has a new album of the Great New American Songbook, produced by Babyface, talks with a misty Nancy Giles about his wonderful, wonderful six-decade career.' -- CBS Sunday Morning

#UnderTheSoulCovers: BJ the Chicago Kid Covers Blackstreet's "Before I Let You Go"

'BJ The Chicago Kid interprets a stripped down version of Blackstreet's "Before I Let You Go" with guitarist Jeff V.' 

All American Boys: A Performance and Conversation

'Rebecca Carroll, of  the series How I Got Over: Reinventing Language Around Race, host a  performance of All American Boys, a production based on the award-winning book by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely that examines how two teenagers handle the consequences of racial profiling and police brutality. The story centers on high school students Rashad and Quinn – one black, one white, both all-American boys – who are forced to confront the reality of a violent act that leaves their school and community torn apart by racial tension. Adapted for the stage by Off the Page.' 

Logic Is Ready To Tell The World Who He Is

'Sir Robert Bryson Hall II, better known as Logic, grew up in poverty in suburban Maryland. His dad was addicted to drugs, and his mother flung racial slurs at her biracial kids. But that tough upbringing seems a world away now. Today Logic, 27, lives in a sprawling home outside Los Angeles, complete with a basement studio. The rapper's star has been rising rapidly in the hip-hop world; his new album, Everybody, debuted atop the Billboard 200.' -- NPR's Morning Edition

What Sticks With You From Growing Up Poor: Writer Ashley C. Ford Talks Scarcity

'There was never enough money to go around when Ashley C. Ford was growing up. But now, she has enough: she's a senior features editor at Refinery 29 and, at age 30, is financially stable for the first time in her life. She discusses the ideas that stick with her about money from growing up poor.' -- Popaganda | Bitch Media

"We Always Have Each Other": #FreeBlackMamas and the Fight to End the Money Bail System

'Attorney Nnennaya Amuchie discusses the work of National Mamas Bail Out Day, a nation-wide campaign to raise funds to free incarcerated Black mothers in time for Mother's Day, and places the campaign's resistance to the coercive nature of money bail in a larger contexts of prison abolition and Black solidarity and support in the face of state violence. Nnennaya's group is still taking donations for the DC. / Maryland / Virginia area via their Generosity page.' -- This Is Hell! Radio

Who Makes Cents: LaShawn Harris on Black Women and the Informal Economy

'LaShawn Harris discusses how black women in the early twentieth century engaged in the informal economy – performing work that wasn’t entirely legal – to get by and get ahead. Harris is Assistant Professor of History at Michigan State University. She is the author of  Sex Workers, Psychics, and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy.  Read more about her work here.' -- Who Makes Cents: A History of Capitalism Podcast