Black Queer Love

always been known for the risky and powerful movements which are often why dancers retire from the company. The dancer’s movements were often very intense and emotive, such as the “throws” across the stage in which the dancers would, almost violently, launch themselves across the stage in different forms (leaps, falls and flips to name a few). Another section where the movements were emotive is where the dancers were thrusting their hips in different positions to perhaps show sexuality in “self”.

Alvin Ailey’s notable choreography, Cry, has become an excellent success as he represents the hardships of African American women that have undergone years of slavery and suffering. The piece is a solo performance by Judith Jamison, created for “all black women all over - especially our mothers”, and has affected international audiences as he takes them on a touching journey of bleak misery, forceful oppression and prideful happiness. Alvin Ailey uses a range of dance techniques and components of dance to expose the suffering of slavery within the African society, together with core motifs, costume, music, space, time and dynamics. The motifs given are influenced with these parts of dance to form phrases and portray the intent of the work, identifying the alterations in mood and

Intro: Like various art forms such as film, television, and literature allows artists to express their own sense of identity, that being nationality, race, class, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. In this case, Queen uses music to illustrate the themes of gender and sexuality through their music video I Want to Break Free (1983). This essay will attempt to discuss how Queen’s music video, I Want to Break Free, explores queerness in relation to queer theory. Firstly, I will introduce the ideas and arguments of queer theory through Gilbert Herdt article Same Sex Different Cultures (1997). I will then discuss Queen’s portrayal of drag within the music video and how it can be seen as queer rather than heterosexual. Lastly, I will argue that

The two live dance works viewed this year were “Emergence”, performed by Sydney Dance Company, choreographed by Rafael Bonachela, performed at the Princess Theatre and a recorded dance performance titled “Image”, choreographed by Jason Northam and Liesel Link. The two dance performances substantiated were exceedingly diverse and dissimilar. The two performances juxtaposed their intentions and interpreted opposing elements through diversity in movement vocabulary, structural devices and form, performance skills and technical elements.

While the speaker has succeeded in providing an enhanced image of the performer, the act of assigning meaning to the performance and the representation used holds the capacity to limit the experience. As the speaker continues to reconfigure her strip tease into a “[graceful] and calm” artistic dance, he makes a simultaneous attempt to distance himself from the crowd, making no mention of his gender or race directly (5). However, the speaker’s attempt to portray the dancer from objective eyes falters as his

The experience of existing as a woman is a universal one, only experienced differently as discrete colors that separate one woman from the next. With these different colors, characterizations, of what it means to be a woman, it is however, easy, to find a plethora of shades between works that enlighten another meaning. In Gina Prince-Bythewood’s 2014 film, Beyond the Lights we get a glimpse into a singer’s life at the top, and in Josefina Lopez’s Real Women have Curves we get a glimpse into a group of hard working Hispanic women who work at the heart of Estela’s success, her factory, the Garcia Sewing Factory. Although life as a superstar is promised with complete riches and happiness, Noni shows the inaccuracy of that notion. On the other hand, life as newly legal residents in America living paycheck by paycheck is promised towards adversity and unhappiness, yet Estela and her family and friends prove that notion is not as accurate as the aforementioned notion. Through Noni’s mother, Kaz, and Kid Culprit, Noni becomes a presence in the music business, and through Estela’s mother, sister, and friends, Estela ultimately comes to own her own boutique. These two works are analogous in their exploration of the expectations from Noni and Estela’s mothers, and the influence of those who surround Noni and Estela have over their lives, but are different in the types of love that affect their drive in life. These similarities and differences are evident through the contrasting nature

Not only do these white belly dancers take a dance and sexualize it, intentionally or not, they go to extents as to reinvent themselves and give each other names. “This, in my estimation, completes the brownface Orientalist façade” (Jarrar). Women, when confronted, talk about how this is now a sort of community to them but don’t care to question how this can be harming to a culture. An emotion she keeps constant, that affects the tone of the essay, is anger and astonishment, always asking how and why someone can be so ignorant to appropriation. Astonishment in the sense of being surprised that some people have the audacity to participate in appropriation. “Find another form of self-expression. Make sure you’re not appropriating someone else’s” (Jarrar), after being told that it’s a part of their, white women’s,

Reed argues that as gender is performative, performance studies highlights the gender issues visible in dance (1998: 516). The unconnected cross cultural examples of the rituals of Cuban Santeria, Greek Wedding, and the Weimer performer Anita Berber illustrates how dance can used to analyse how performance challenges, as well as enforces gender relations and power structures.

These visuals may reconstruct and confirm racist pigeon-holes that dub black buttocks with terms such as “junk,” “bubble,” or “cake,” linking its physicality and location to ideas of black ghettos, and dictating “its value and the spatial location for women who possess this body type” (Durham 41). However, within these stereotypes, along with Beyoncé’s self-representations, exists “classed femininity,” where “shared racial history is less useful when attempting to delineate within-group distinctions, such as class” (Durham 40-41). “Black ghetto” stereotypical depictions, such as hypersexuality, are often performed to maintain southern black authenticity in hypermasculine demeanors in order to gain respect from their black and white counterparts. This is done when Beyoncé’s lower half is utilized in her musical performances “to mark authentic blackness rooted in the American South” (Durham 43). These “hood” roots assist in creating respect and visibility for these otherwise demeaned, diminished, and silenced bodies, although, this practice can merely be a facade as “both the street and the strip club are hypermasculine spaces where Black girls and women are economically and sexually vulnerable” (Durham

Kirsten Child’s Black Bubbly Girl Sheds her Chameleon Skin is a musical play describes the life of black woman Viveca who was brought up in a white centered culture. She developed a different feeling towards her white peers since in the kindergarten at Los Angeles suburban to Broadway. Since she was a young girl, dancing was her life ambition. She arrives at Broadway where she lives her dream despite the ever-changing politic of race and class discrimination. Using the style of performance by the author, the paper will focus on how the black woman Viveca despite the racial and class status discrimination, she manages to become an active and great dancer in Kirsten’s choir and how she gained her freedom. She is a freedom agent.

In Judith Butler’s Performative Acts, and Gloria Anzaldúa’s Light in the Dark, they explore concepts of the performance of gender and sexuality, and clashes between one’s identities they impose upon themselves, and the structure of identities imposed upon them by external actors. In both works, there’s a push by the authors to redefine gender and sexuality performances in ways that radically challenge the social norms. While there is much value in altering standard gender/sexuality performances, a brief discussion in class had me wondering about my own performance of these things, and the substance approach I take when constructing my own gender/sexual identity.

Another noteworthy element, in the first part of the narrative, the costumes were reflective of stereotypical attire for each gender: the woman wore a dress, and the man wore a shirt and pants. In the second sequence, they are wearing the same type of shirt, perhaps indicating there is less significance in their attire than their physicality. This second sequence is intercut with the cutaway sequence and with the third and final part of the narrative. The result of this is a visual collage of dance, allegorical representation, and conventional video narrative. The second part of the narrative is also the point in the music video where the abusive nature of the relationship is solidified through the movements within the

"In a perfect world, when he's with her, he would be wishing he was with me; when he looked at her, he would be looking at me; when he smiled at her, his smile would be for me; when he thought about someone, he would be thinking about me. In a perfect world, he would realize that I'm the one he was supposed to be with & I would still be standing here waiting for him still when he finally knows this. But this isn't a perfect world and people do get hurt. Because how can you give your dreams to someone else, yet share your dreams with me? Sometimes the truest love is the love that can never be"

In the article “The Story of My Body” by Judith Ortiz Cofer, and the writing “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos” by Joan Morgan, both writings report about women are discriminated by different social perspectives. In “The Story of My Body”, Cofer points out us her personal narrative story about how the multiple cultural genders affect her as an individual person. In her writing, she divides her work into separate titles: SKIN, COLOR, and SIZE, LOOKS which are four supporting points about her article. In, “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos”, Morgan explains how black folk views of the hip-hop music which can release their pain and express themselves. Also, Morgan mentions that hip-hop music has some negative impacts on the black community. Although Morgan using lots of strong vocabularies and evidences develop the article, Morgan’s tone tends to more hip-hop style than academic which is hard to understand the idea of her piece of writing. In Cofer’s view is conveying us to understand the message which is to be the person who has optimistic and positive attitude no matter what body color he/she has. These two writings both are effectively persuading the reader how women are treated by society, but Morgan’s tone tends to more hip-hop style than academic, compare with Cofer’s writing is more clarified and organized by supporting her narrative experience.

present and one of those is the theme of love. Philia, Eros, and Agape are the three types of love present in the play and are what represent the theme of love. These three types of love, Philia, Eros, and Agape are expressed by the different characters in the play. The expression of the theme of love in the play is not just there by accident; William Shakespeare put it in this comedic and romantic play with a purpose.