Forty Years Later, Schomburg Celebrates Shange’s “for colored girls”

A new exhibit honors “for colored girls” by famed poet Ntozake Shange.

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By Yasmin Nouh

Poet Ntozake Shange didn’t foresee, when her theatre piece “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf” first appeared on Broadway in 1976, that it would resonate decades later.

“It still amazes me how drawn people are to it,” says Shange, 65, who lives in Maryland. “Despite the longevity of the piece, contemporary artists still find elements that they love on their own and that relate to their own lives and that’s very gratifying and also very surprising to me.”

A new exhibit at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, “I found god in myself: The 40th Anniversary of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls,” displays 20 commissioned art installations reflecting lines from the play, plus archival material like photos from the first Broadway production.

Ntozake Shange and Marco Hall, her clothing designer, at the exhibit.

Ntozake Shange poses with Marco Hall, her designer, next to a painting at the exhibit.

Souleo, the exhibit curator, said that Shange’s poetry tackles issues as relevant now as they were 40 years ago. He cited the cases of Janay Rice and Marissa Alexander, whose assaults made headlines last month.”It’s important to capture their stories and to remind people that so much that’s in this text, from abortion to rape to sexual abuse, we still need to address.”

The performance piece blends poetry, music and dance — Shange called it a “choreopoem” — and explores love and loss through stories of rape, sexual and domestic abuse and sisterhood. After the Broadway run, the play earned multiple awards, won praise for diversifying the roles of black women on stage, sparked criticism for its portrayal of black men, and made Shange the second black woman to have her work performed on Broadway. (Lorraine Hansberry came first with “A Raisin in the Sun.”) Shange’s play, routinely taught in college drama departments as a seminal work in American theater, was adapted into a Tyler Perry movie in 2010.

“Her choreopoem had a choral flavor, reflective not just of one voice but of many voices,” said Barbara Lewis, a theater historian at the University of Massachusetts Boston in an email. “Shange brought wider representation, new energy and new spirit to the American stage.”

Shange, at a press conference announcing the exhibit, wore a magenta ruffled dress and spoke from a wheelchair. She spoke slowly, pausing between sentences, but continued with pensive intensity. Minor strokes and a neurological disorder have slowed her speech and impaired her balance.

“I think the play means the same thing that it did 40 years ago,” said Shange. “In the sense that I feel a sense of urgency about our situation and I feel as though the lives of black women are still taken for granted.”

She gave examples: women’s lower earnings, increased rates of rape and a hip hop scene that “continues to denigrate women and to encourage them into disrespecting ourselves, which is a sad thing because it puts more pressure on the young women of today than I experienced when I was younger.”

In her early twenties, Shange first performed “for colored girls” in 1974 in the San Francisco area with Paula Moss, who danced to her words. As their performances garnered a following, the women decided to drive across the country to take “for colored girls” to New York.

Aku Kadogo, then a senior studying dance at New York University, started performing with them. “They were coming from the West Coast, and they were full of fire and energy,” said Kadogo, who performed in “for colored girls” as it moved from the Lower East Side bar scene to Broadway.

An art installation by artist Amber Robles-Gordon titled "My Rainbow is Enuf."

An installation by artist Amber Robles-Gordon titled “My Rainbow is Enuf”

Shange gave her poems to director Oz Scott, who worked with her to transform “for colored girls” into a play performed as a series of poetic monologues by seven black women.

Director and producer Woodie King Jr. saw the production and decided to show the play at the New Federal Theater, known for producing plays by emerging black playwrights. “The response was overwhelming,” said King, who founded the theater. “It was a huge, huge hit.” The play ran for about 25 performances to sold-out audiences before it moved to Broadway in 1976, where it subsequently ran for two years.

Early reviews lauded the play as a “theatrical milestone” and a “luminous SOS.” Jessica Harris of the New York Amsterdam News wrote about its portrayal of black women: “It was a picture representing them not as whores or as matriarchs, not as superwomen or as mighty mommas, but simply as women: women who want to be loved, who try to be kind and who just might get tired and evil at times, but women who above all are real people with the full spectrum of emotions and reactions that real people have.”

The play’s success, following “A Raisin in the Sun,” was novel at a time when American theater remained dominated by white male directors and producers, said Scott. “It showed that here are two plays by black women about black people that can hold a white Broadway audience,” said Scott. “That’s saying something.”

Since “for colored girls,” Shange has written several plays and novels, poetry anthologies, children’s books and essays in magazines including Ms., Essence and VIBE. In 2010, she co-wrote a nearly 600-page novel entitled “Some Sing, Some Cry” with her sister Ifa Bayeza; it chronicles the stories of seven generations of an African-American family.

“I just try to take a view of intimate relationships in the black world because that’s all I know,” said Shange in a later phone interview. “And because there’s not enough of it” in popular culture.

The exhibit runs through January 3. Two satellite exhibitions featuring artwork related to “for colored girls” appear at La Maison d’Art and the Sol Studio in Harlem through Oct. 25. Shange is scheduled to speak October 15 about her play and its influence at the Schomburg Center.

(Photos by Yasmin Nouh)

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