Tag: Celebrity Gossip

There was nothing shy about Robert Brustein, who died Sunday, Oct. 29, at the age of 96. The American Repertory Theater founder was fearless about taking on all comers be they Tom Stoppard, August Wilson or Tony Kushner. He would rail, in his erudite way, about the perceived sins of the A.R.T.’s main rival in the Boston area, the Huntington Theatre Company, or the place where I worked, the Boston Globe, and its often scabrous critic Kevin Kelly.

I was having a grand old time in the 1980s and ‘90s as television critic when Kelly died and my editor suggested that I make the switch to theater. The feuding protagonists Kelly and Brustein were the Holmes and Moriarty of Boston theater. Who was Holmes? It depends who was doing the casting. For some members of the local theater community, they were both Moriarty. To me, they were both heroes of a sort, complete with Achilles heels and glass chins.

Brustein had been on the losing end of another feud, at Yale. He had founded the Yale Repertory Theatre in 1966 and ran it until 1979 when A. Bartlett Giamatti, Yale’s president, didn’t renew his contract. (It was the same year his first wife, Norma Brustein, an actor and teacher at Yale, died at 50 from a massive cardiac arrest.) Yale’s loss became Harvard’s gain as he came to Cambridge and founded the American Repertory Theatre in 1980. (Diane Paulus Americanized the spelling to “theater” when she became artistic director in 2008.)

Kelly had bristled when Brustein, who was also The New Republic’s theater critic, criticized the Huntington for allowing its theater to be used by August Wilson and his director, Lloyd Richards, to fine-tune New York-bound productions of his play. Brustein argued that it was not the role of regional theaters to stage what amounted to Broadway tryouts.

Kelly was likewise never accused of holding back and he let loose on Brustein. Not only, said Kelly, was it unseemly for Brustein to be taking on the Huntington, his main local rival, but he was taking on Lloyd Richards, who succeeded him at Yale. Furthermore, Kelly called Brustein a hypocrite because A.R.T. productions had also gone on to New York.

And that was just the beginning of Globe-New Republic back-and-forth nastiness. When Kelly died in 1994, Brustein called for the Globe to hire a distinguished theater scholar. Instead, they bumped up their television critic who was also not shy and had trashed the A.R.T.’s world premiere of David Mamet’s “The Cryptogram” while filling in for the ailing Kelly.

So welcome to your new job, Mr. Siegel.

Actually, Brustein and his No. 2 man Rob Orchard did graciously welcome me to the job. I had been a big theater fan ever since my English major days at Boston University in the 1960s when I became enamored of David Wheeler’s modernistic Theater Company of Boston.

In many ways, Brustein was the natural successor to Wheeler, whose TCB ran its last season in 1973 and who later became one of the most dependable directors at A.R.T. Brustein also specialized in modernism. He regularly revisited plays by the fathers of modernism – and they all were fathers at the turn of the 20th century – Chekhov, Brecht, Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, Ionesco, Pirandello and Beckett. He also embraced the contemporary children of modernism. Harold Pinter’s works were a staple, along with those of Sam Shepard and Mamet, who became something of a resident playwright. The women were fewer in number but I saw my first productions by Suzan-Lori Parks, Adrienne Kennedy and Naomi Wallace at the A.R.T.

But when it came to the productions, Wheeler’s M.O. was to get out of the playwright’s way, Brustein’s was more to get in the playwright’s (and the audience’s) face, at least in the manner of staging. He embraced the European mode of high modernism, a more avant-garde or high-concept approach of presenting theater even when, or particularly when, staging the classics. It would not be unusual then to see Agamemnon enter the Loeb Drama Center stage in a golf cart; Lulu, the eponymous bad girl of Frank Wedekind’s play, enter on roller skates; or for Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame” to be set in an abandoned subway station.

An infuriated Beckett tried to have his name removed from that 1984 production for disregarding his stage directions. Imagine how Shakespeare would have felt about a production of “Hamlet” beginning with company stalwart Jeremy Geidt declaring “I’m freezing my balls off.”

The playwright was not king at A.R.T. The company became known as the home of auteur directors such as JoAnne Akalaitis (who directed that controversial “Endgame”), Peter Sellars, Anne Bogart and Brustein’s successor, Robert Woodruff. They in turn featured creative artists who would assemble equally inspired designers whose sets, lighting, movement and other elements would add up to a kinetic orgy of effects that audiences embraced — or didn’t. The aesthetic was not for everyone and the results varied from production to production. When the A.R.T. came to Cambridge for its first season, there were 13,000 subscribers eagerly anticipating them. The number was roughly halved for the second season.

Rob Orchard, his No. 2 at both Yale and A.R.T. and who carried their legacy over to ArtsEmerson, which he founded, said yesterday via email, “His influence on the theater is incalculable. We worked together since 1969 and he was always the smartest person I knew and the most fun to be around. There isn’t an aspect of my adult life that hasn’t been blessed by our association. Among his many gifts his capacity for empathy was among the greatest.”

Personally, I was always eager to walk into the Loeb Drama Center or their second stage at the Hasty Pudding Theatre and was frequently, hardly always, entranced when I walked out.

Looking back at it, Joni Mitchell had it right: You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. A.R.T. stood for the American Repertory Theatre and Brustein totally believed in a fixed company — a true collection of top actors whom Boston-area theatergoers got to know in everything from Shakespeare to Shepard. Geidt, Cherry Jones, Karen MacDonald, Thomas Derrah, Stephanie Roth, Alvin Epstein, Will LeBow, Paula Plum, Tony Shalhoub, Remo Airaldi, Elizabeth Marvel and Bill Camp were only some of the names.

Actors who joined them for one show or one season included Mark Linn-Baker, Mark Rylance, Christopher Walken, Christopher Lloyd, Ken Howard, Kathy Bates, Diane Lane, Claire Bloom, F. Murray Abraham, Brooke Adams, Arliss Howard and Debra Winger. These actors came to Cambridge at a time when the Huntington eschewed big-name actors for the most part.

Contemporary writers, composers and directors championed by Brustein aside from Beckett, Mamet and Shepard? Along with those mentioned earlier, how about Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, Don DeLillo, Andrei Serban, Andrei Belgrader, Christopher Durang, Richard Foreman, Dario Fo, Larry Gelbart, Derek Walcott, Paula Vogel, Steve Martin, Julie Taymor, Susan Sontag, Lisa Kron, Martin McDonagh and Eric Bogosian, whose edgy monologues held Cambridge audiences spellbound long before TV swallowed him up.

A list of A.R.T. designers would similarly comprise a who’s who of many of the top people in the fields of lighting, costumes and sets.

Beyond the names, what was most important was an aesthetic that by and large avoided what was considered kitchen-sink realism in favor of a more abstract, dream-like theatricality that didn’t try to modernize classics as much as find a timeless world that looked forward and back simultaneously.

Brustein’s A.R.T. was equally notable for who was not on the list, artists who were personae non gratae at his theater, such as the two giants championed by Peter Altman (Brustein’s counterpart at the Huntington) — Tom Stoppard and the aforementioned August Wilson. Brustein didn’t care much — and said so — for them or others deemed to be among the best American playwrights of our time: Arthur Miller, Tony Kushner and Edward Albee. When Albee was a visiting artist at Emerson, I asked him if Brustein’s positive review of his play “The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?” made him think better of Brustein. He shook his head dourly and said, “An enemy from the beginning.”

There was something of a yin yang, then, between the Huntington and A.R.T. during the Brustein-Altman years with the Huntington leaning toward more straightforward representational plays and the A.R.T. toward more psychological and symbolic productions. One could argue that Boston theatergoers were well-served since they had the best of both worlds.

On the other hand, one could argue that wearing two hats weakened Brustein as an artistic director. In some cases he would castigate artists in The New Republic and they’d never be seen again in Cambridge. It’s interesting that after Brustein critiqued a book by Shepard and Taymor’s “The Lion King,” neither artist returned to the A.R.T. Oskar Eustis, who took himself out of the running as Brustein’s successor, championed the greats of all schools, both at Trinity Repertory Company and The Public Theater, where he wound up instead of A.R.T.

Brustein, though, was a terrific critic, one of the best in the country. His “The Theatre of Revolt” is the best book on modernism onstage that I know of. His New Republic reviews were must-reads whether I agreed with him or not. Like most critics, I was wowed by Stoppard’s 1993 play “Arcadia” but laughed out loud when Brustein called it “the best play of the century — the 19th century.”

Of the battles Brustein waged with playwrights, none was more front and center than the contentious debate between Brustein and August Wilson as it also involved racial issues in the theater.

Although liberal on most issues, Brustein bristled at anything approaching racial favoritism as you could discern from the paucity of people of color in his pantheon of playwrights and actors. Brustein insisted that his arms were open to greatness regardless of race — as witnessed by Smith, Kennedy and Derek Walcott and actors such as John Douglas Thompson.

Black artists today obviously embrace Wilson, but his theories of American theater were not the dictionary definition of wokeness either. Black people, he thought, should form their own theaters, not rely on white-run theaters to let them in. He also opposed color-blind casting, saying that Black people should play Black characters and not give the pretense that we are living in a color-blind society.

The two faced off in a 1997 debate at Town Hall in New York. As William Grimes said in his New York Times story:

“In his opening statement, Mr. Brustein … described his differences with Mr. Wilson, the acclaimed author of ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,’ ‘The Piano Lesson’ and other plays, as tension between two ideas of the theater as old as Plato and Aristotle. In the Platonic view, the theater is an arena for political action and the perfection of human behavior. To Aristotelians, it is a medium for exploring what he called ‘the workings of the human soul, which has no color.’”

Wilson stood firm that American Black artists should create Black theater centered on Black experience and that such art was no less universal than David Mamet’s.

When it came to Brustein vs. Wilson or the A.R.T. vs. the Huntington, I was pretty much Switzerland. I thought both August Wilson and Robert Wilson, the world’s most famous auteur director whose productions appeared at the A.R.T., were both pretty damn great. I’m sure Brustein would have preferred that I had a pro-A.R.T. agenda, but I think he was also happy that the A.R.T.-Globe feud was over.

For my part, I greatly admired Brustein and the only contentiousness I remember was when he allowed an A.R.T. staffer to pose as a member of the public to write a letter to the editor about my reviews of A.R.T. comedies like a Molière production I panned. In general, I did not think that A.R.T. comedies were nearly as funny or un-PC as Brustein thought they were. Brustein acknowledged that it was a mistake to let the staffer hide his affiliation and that was that.

At any rate, Brustein would carry on unbowed until he left at the end of the 2001-02 season, succeeded by Robert Woodruff, a brilliant director who, if anything, doubled down on Brustein’s aesthetic. But while critics, including me, heaped praise on his artistically aggressive choices, audiences were less impressed. He didn’t have Brustein’s charm (i.e. fundraising abilities) or his instincts for keeping Harvard’s nay-sayers at bay. Brustein had said, for example, that doing Shaw was his gift back to audiences who wanted more traditional theater. Eustis had laughed when I mentioned that to him saying, “Only in Cambridge would staging Shaw be a sign of artistic compromise.”

Still, the Shawlessness, humorlessness and growing number of empty seats at the A.R.T. after Brustein — Woodruff was part of a troika that included Rob Orchard and Gideon Lester — was too much for Harvard, who fired Woodruff and eventually turned to Diane Paulus, whose aesthetic is much more populist and political.

But the influence remained. In a statement yesterday, Paulus said, “Bob’s impact on the American theater is immeasurable. As director, playwright, theater critic, artistic director, and founder of the American Repertory Theater, Bob galvanized groundbreaking theatrical creations and inspired artists from all over the world to do their best work.  As a college student at Harvard, I was in awe of Bob when I interviewed him for my senior thesis on The Living Theatre. I was forever marked by the daring productions that were created at the A.R.T. under his leadership. Bob’s influence on me personally, and on countless other artists, is enormous and profound.”

For his part, Brustein turned more toward playwriting, without great results, and academia, particularly at Suffolk University. While there, he was awarded the 2010 National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama, one of his many awards as a theater artist and critic. In an East Room ceremony, Obama presented the medal to Brustein “for his contributions to the American theater as a critic, producer, playwright and educator. As founder of the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theatre and Institute and as the theatre critic for The New Republic since 1959, Mr. Brustein has been a leading force in the development of theater and theater artists in the United States.”

At the same time, The New Republic became less and less interested in theater criticism. He remained a regular at A.R.T. openings after he retired, although he was not happy when the regular company dwindled down to five or so actors under Woodruff and was further discouraged when Paulus disbanded the company altogether.

If you accept Brustein’s distinction between Platonic political theater and Aristotelian “workings of the soul” that also leaves his legacy in some question. Today the political is paramount, nowhere more so than at the A.R.T. Of the modernists Brustein treasured, you won’t find many being produced in the Boston area the past few seasons except for the Arlekin Players’ adventurous adaptations of Chekhov.

Would Brustein, had he remained active, have changed his mind about political theater as so many others did after the murder of George Floyd? I wouldn’t bet the house on it.

And then there’s the question of Brustein’s mode of presenting plays — abstract in form as well as content at a time when political demands and audience tastes seek the straightforward and no longer embrace abstraction, if they ever did.

Still, tastes change and it’s a fool’s errand to predict what theater will look like five to 10 years from now. I do hope there’s another Robert Brustein out there, complete with a penchant for the abstract and his epic, kinetic aesthetic. And also the determination to damn the torpedoes and go his or her own way.

Robert Brustein is survived by his wife Doreen Beinart; his son Daniel Brustein; a stepson, Peter Beinart, the journalist; a stepdaughter, Jean Stern; two grandsons; and five step-grandchildren.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

Justin Timberlake — I’m begging you please put the blaccent down.

In Britney Spears‘ bombshell memoir, “The Woman In Me,” the ‘NSYNC singer takes an unfathomable amount of hits to his mostly rehabbed persona as a post-modern reformed woman hater. But this time, Spears chars her publicly despised ex-boyfriend with accusations of cultural appropriation. Spears said that Timberlake and his bandmembers in ‘NSYNC were “white boys” who loved “hip-hop” and “hung out with Black artists. Sometimes, I thought they tried too hard to fit in.” 

A viral clip of the memoir narrated by Oscar winner Michelle Williams recently took the internet by storm in which Spears recalled an interaction between Timberlake and R&B singer Ginuwine. She said that Timberlake said in a blaccent, an accent that approximates African American Vernacular English (AAVE) that racists and cultural appropriators use when they mimic Black people, which is perfectly and hilariously performed by Williams, “Oh yeah, fo shiz, fo shiz! Ginuwine! What’s up, homie?”

The internet had a field day with the clip, finding more ammo to call out the star for his past digressions. Timberlake didn’t get off scot-free either. People dug up photos of the singer wearing cornrows multiple times. The internet also found archival footage of him performing in the early ’00s, and the singer is adorned with a bandana and saggy pants while he beatboxes his name in a blaccent. “See they call me Lake — T-T-T-Timberlake.” Even other ‘NSYNC band members like Chris Kirkpatrick were caught in the crossfire for wearing box braids and faux locs which are two very specific Black hairstyles.

Timberlake’s career has mostly benefited from his Black-adjacent persona. Post-‘NYSNC, his solo career has revolved around his successful collaborations with many Black artists like Timbaland, Jay-Z, Missy Elliott and many more. He currently writes, produces and sings with some of the most hyper-visible, chart-dominating, and pop culture-shaping Black artists in the industry like Beyoncé and SZA. Timerberlake’s forced proximity to Blackness and Black culture has only benefited his career.

Nevertheless, Timberlake’s pathetic antics are not the first time a white or non-Black celebrity has cosplayed as a Black person to get ahead in their careers — and it certainly won’t be the last either. The list is extensive and crosses genders and races. Some of pop culture’s biggest stars like long-time racebending Gwen Stefani, traumatic twerker Miley Cyrus, blaccent queen Awkwafina (Nora Lum), repeated offenders Kardashians-Jenners and cornrow-wearing Justin Bieber will never beat the culture vulture allegations. All are grave and guilty offenders in their own right, whether that is using African American Vernacular English (AAVE), wearing Black hairstyles or just loving Black people and culture just a little too much (the fetishization is real).

Beginning with Gwen Stefani, the No Doubt lead singer may be the worst of them all. She has run through almost every race’s cultural hairstyles, clothes or traditional garments. She’s worn deadlocks, Bantu knots, bindis, a feathered headdress and traditional Indigenous jewelry and dressed as a Chola. This is not hella good. Of course, she has apologized for her offenses but her most recent wrongdoing was in 2022 so how sorry is she if the outrage still keeps her relevant? 

Similar to Stefani, child star Miley Cyrus also cherry-picked from Black culture in her “Bangerz”-era. To break free from the Hannah Montana mold Disney had superglued Cyrus in — she decided going Black or more “urban” was the way to break free and cause a stir. She was right. Her pop-trap music-like songs such as “23” enraptured a nation so fascinated with her problematic and new hyper-sexual image, so different from squeaky clean Hannah Montana. In her music video for “We Can’t Stop,” Cyrus was dripping in gold grills and acrylic nails, getting “turnt up” with her “home girls.” I mean who can forget all the twerking on creepy Robin Thicke at the 2013 VMA performance of “Blurred Lines” where she wore a nude two-piece and a foam finger that she motioned she was fingering herself with? It was a fever dream that a 14-year-old version of me fervently loved to deny I ever watched live.

Funny enough, once Cyrus milked all she could out of the aesthetic, the culture and the music she returned to her white country-folk roots. She told Billboard Magazine: “I can’t listen to [hip-hop] anymore. That’s what pushed me out of the hip-hop scene a little. It was too much ‘Lamborghini, got my Rolex, got a girl on my c**k.” She has since apologized for her comments on the hip-hop genre that has propelled her career to such great heights. Ultimately, the damage is done.

That’s the thing, once all the damage is inflicted, all that’s left is the person they were trying to run from that they failed to mask with Blackness. Blackness is cool until it’s not. Someone like Awkwafina knows that all too well. The Queens-born comedian spent most of her early career in comedy sporting a thick blaccent. Not only was it present in her comedy, the infamous Awkwafina blaccent made its way into the blockbuster “Crazy Rich Asians” too.

After years of criticism from the Black community, she finally responded in an incredibly lukewarm nonapologetic statement: “As a non-Black POC, I stand by the fact that I will always listen and work tirelessly to understand the history and context of AAVE, what is deemed appropriate or backwards towards the progress of ANY and EVERY marginalized group,” she said. “But I must emphasize: to mock, belittle or to be unkind in any way possible at the expense of others is: Simply. Not. My. Nature. It never has, and it never was.”

One thing I’ve noticed with these celebrities is their ability to shapeshift into anything regardless of the cost. I’m not even sure that Blackness even means anything to them, which is why they’re so easily able to move in and out of it. But that’s the thing, a real Black person knows it’s something we can’t turn off. A specific memory comes to mind for me. When I was in elementary school cornrows were the bane of my existence. As an insecure Black girl in a predominately white school, I feared the tight rows my mom spent hours braiding clung onto my head too tight and made my already large forehead more real estate space for prying eyes. So how does someone like Timberlake or Stefani steal parts of my culture that made me feel insecure and make it into something chic and edgy while I feared being criticized for it?  

Unfortunately, I believe that even in a post-racist America, this will continue. Celebrities will continue their same song and dance, and Kim Kardashian will continue to be the ring leader (Kim, I see you with that deflated BBL). But I find humor in knowing the internet will always flame the culture vultures ready to swoop in and steal more of the Blackness that has been the backbone of pop culture and its biggest moments.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

The work of award-winning Zimbabwe-born sculptor Shepherd Ndudzo is instantly recognisable. Fluid, elongated black bodies and body parts flow from white rock in a typical work. The bodies are dancing or praying, holding hands or reaching out.

These figurative sculptures, carved out of stone (marble and granite) and wood (ironwood), were recently shown along with his abstract wooden sculptures (titled Seed) at the FNB Joburg Art Fair in South Africa by Botswana’s Ora Laopi contemporary art gallery and research project.

The work by the artist (born in 1978) was displayed as a celebration of the sculpture of Botswana, where he lives and works. The show was dedicated to his father, Barnabas Ndudzo, the famed creator of realistic, often life-size sculptures. In a documentary produced by the gallery, Shepherd tells how he was taught to sculpt by his father. He says that his works speak about migration and help tell his family story.

It’s a tale that spans three neighbouring southern African nations, all known for their sculpture – Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. It exposes a history of shared traditions and schools of teaching, of colonial-era gatekeeping and art world wars. It’s this history that informs the research for my PhD thesis on Zimbabwean art.

It’s my view that Shepherd Ndudzo’s work can only be fully appreciated by understanding his transnational story and how it has shaped his life and career, showing how art traditions are invented and reinvented across borders.

Kekana school

His father Barnabas was born in Zimbabwe and attended the Kekana School of Art and Craft in the late 1960s. Early art schools in Zimbabwe were founded and run by white missionaries and expatriates. But the Kekana School was founded by a black artist and teacher. The school was started at St Faith’s Mission near Rusape by South African sculptor Job Patja Kekana in the early 1960s, long before Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980.

Kekana had trained at Grace Dieu Mission Diocesan Training College near Pietersburg (Polokwane). The same institution was attended by Gerard Sekoto and Ernest Mancoba, two of South Africa’s prominent black modernists. (Modernism was an era of experimentation in art from the late 1800s to the mid 1950s. It saw new ideas, new media and the uptake of socio-political concerns.)

Kekana had settled at St Faith’s in 1944 and stayed until he died in 1995, except for the three years (1960-1963) when he attended art college in the UK. When Shepherd enrolled at St Faith’s High School in Zimbabwe in the early 1990s, he briefly met his father’s ageing mentor.

Shepherd mostly learned from assisting and observing his father at work. Like Kekana and all his students, Barnabas mostly carved realistic statues and busts.

Art war

Zimbabwe is famous for its “Shona sculpture” tradition in which artists use handmade tools, patiently carving human and animal forms from serpentinite rocks. UK-born artist, teacher and museum curator Frank McEwen pigeonholed artists from various ethnic backgrounds and different countries – and not just from the Shona people – in a single misnamed cultural basket. Their individual creative styles did not matter.

McEwen was the founding director of the Rhodes National Gallery (National Gallery of Zimbabwe). Although he was celebrated for his efforts at promoting Zimbabwe’s abstract stone sculpture tradition, ensuring that the world accepted it as modern art, his presence was bad for artists who worked with media like wood and were making realistic works, as well as for those stationed at missionary workshops. (Figurative art represents existing objects. Abstract art usually has no real-life visual reference. Realism refers to accurate depictions usually portraying a sitter or model.)

McEwen preferred working with sculptors from the National Gallery School and the Tengenenge workshop until he had a fall-out with its founder, Tom Blomefield. As reported in the press, Blomefield accused McEwen of stealing artists from his stable. Art historian Elizabeth Morton highlighted that when Kekana visited the National Gallery School soon after his return from the UK he was chased away by McEwen, who didn’t want to see him near his students.

Barnabas

With McEwen holding the most powerful position at the nation’s central art institution, artists from Kekana’s school found themselves on the periphery of Zimbabwe’s mainstream art canon. They had to rely on church commissions and teaching jobs. This probably explains why Barnabas briefly found himself conducting “ecumenical workshops” for the Methodist Church in 1970 and 1971. Today the national gallery doesn’t have a single piece of his in its collection.

Barnabas headed south, finding a home at the Federated Union of Black Artists (Fuba), an academy in Johannesburg. He settled in Botswana in the mid-1990s. He taught art at Gallery Ann and other institutions before moving to Thapong Visual Arts Centre where he continued to mentor emerging artists.

He gained considerable recognition and respect in Botswana. And it’s in Botswana that his son Shepherd continues to sculpt, having moved to the country initially to assist his father.

Shepherd

The younger Ndudzo collects the hardwood he uses from construction sites, especially from trees bulldozed for road construction. He prefers marble from Zambia and Namibia which comes not only in white, but also in various shades of grey and brown. He highlights how citizens of these countries walk across the countryside on this resource, hardly appreciating its importance. The black granite he combines them with is mostly from Zimbabwe.

Recently, Shepherd took me to his home in Oodi village in Kgatleng district. His vast open yard is his studio – where his artist neighbours tolerate the deafening noise of his sculpture making.

Though he talks about moving away from his father’s realistic style, I still see strong elements of it in his work. The bas-relief carving in the larger works of wood exhibited at the Joburg Art Fair is a good example. It’s a style inherited from Kekana, who “taught his students bas-relief carving, and realism and understanding of the wood grain”.

Thus I see Shepherd Ndudzo as an artist sustaining a legacy emanating from the Kekana school. However, his work oscillates between figuration and abstraction. It’s quite conceptual in that it is about ideas and quite experimental in that it blends different elements. The artist points to the likes of Tapfuma Gutsa as his greatest inspiration. Gutsa transformed Zimbabwe’s stone sculpture tradition, blending stone with various other elements.

Lineage

Shepherd’s decision to dedicate his exhibition to his father and mentor is an important gesture. It highlights the story of a sidelined artist, mostly written out of history, like others from the Kekana school.

Artists do not make art in complete isolation. Highlighting the lineage Shepherd Ndudzo belongs to helps us understand his practice, choice of materials and aesthetic references.

It’s a lineage that’s transnational in outlook – linking Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe – and his materials are drawn from different countries. This helps us appreciate how artistic practice can feed off art ecosystems across southern African borders.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

On consecutive nights, Los Angeles’ AFI Fest presented the world premieres of very different documentaries about renowned writer-director-stars.

The Rob Reiner-helmed Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, premiering on HBO in November, is fundamentally a meeting of peers. The Stand by Me filmmaker and his subject, the auteur behind Lost in America, were high school classmates and have been lifelong chums. Their interaction is wholly amiable and the resulting film is loose, warm and without confrontation.

Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz’s Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story, hitting Amazon in November, isn’t a confrontational documentary either. In one of the film’s first scenes, the Diary of a Mad Black Woman mastermind and industry mogul nonpareil is about to take the stage at the 2019 grand opening of Atlanta’s Tyler Perry Studios when Ortiz asks him a question, a query he concludes by calling Perry “sir.” It’s a respectful form of address, not obsequious at all, but it makes one thing immediately clear: This interaction, like everything chronologically before and after, is not one of peers. Maxine’s Baby has a title that suggests vulnerability, but this documentary is defined by a celebration of control.

It doesn’t matter if Tyler Perry had literal control over Maxine’s Baby or no filmmaking control at all — Perry is an active participant but not an executive producer here — because the documentary’s primary journey is tracing Perry’s life from a youth characterized by abuse and powerlessness. He has found a maturity in which he has full control over a media empire and, surely, full control over a personal and professional image that has faced doubt and adversity and floats above anything so parochial as “criticism,” especially from the likes of me.

Bekele and Ortiz appear to have had impressive access to Perry over a period of 10 years, yet nobody is going to come away from Maxine’s Baby thinking that there’s anything here that runs counter to exactly the way Perry wants to present himself to the world. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine anybody coming away from the film unimpressed and uninspired. What it lacks in spontaneity, Maxine’s Baby makes up for in an aggressively persuasive message.

Despite the title and despite the directors’ access, Perry has done previous interviews that were more clearly aimed at projecting vulnerability and fragility. Power recognizes power, and you see in the documentary how often Bekele and Ortiz have to lean on extended anecdotes that Perry told other, higher-profile interviewers and isn’t sharing here. The film’s most graphic memories of his difficult childhood are from an aunt, his cousin Lucky, and interviews Perry did with 60 Minutes, Oprah Winfrey or Piers Morgan, sampled extensively here. In his own conversations with the filmmakers, Perry is candid, but not confessional.

At almost every turn, you can see how Perry has decided to present himself and how the directors align with that vision, whether it’s the decision to bleep any instance of Perry swearing (which he does only when quoting other people) or how it treats (or doesn’t treat) his son and his son’s mother. One of the recurring images in the documentary is the back of Perry’s head, as if he’s constantly moving forward or constantly looking off at the next thing and the filmmakers are just doing the best they can to follow behind him.

The documentary has a clear throughline when it comes to grounding Perry’s inspirations in the escape from childhood abuse and in his faith, and, at its very best, it offers his blueprint for success. It’s a blueprint that relies on centuries of Black storytelling and art stemming from the church, but also from an obsessive work ethic that is astounding. I can feel whatever I feel about the quality of Perry’s films and television shows, but the thing that he has built is remarkable, and any dark side to the way the empire has been created — say, for example, past difficulties with unions — definitely isn’t a part of this documentary’s version of his life.

The art itself borders on irrelevant. Only a few of the films on Perry’s résumé are given individual attention, and there’s no sense at all that he has matured or even changed at all as an artist — an oversight given that one can easily look back at his first few features and see that he’s absolutely grown and his thematic aspirations have changed as well. Too often, the documentary conflates artistic success with commercial success and conflates criticism with obliviousness, and while it’s easy to see how it would motivate Perry to think that way, I personally think his astonishing success is much less interesting if you take it in such binary terms. Instead, “doubters” is probably the second item on Perry’s list of inspirations, behind only “faith.”

Some of those doubters are present here — academics, select Black artists — but their criticisms are presented almost in passing, with nowhere near the enthusiasm expressed by supporters like Killer Mike or Perry’s longtime publicist or half the executives at Lionsgate. The pointed barbs levied by The Boondocks or Atlanta — and some of the exceptional behind-the-scenes footage of Perry at work in Maxine’s Baby is indistinguishable from Donald Glover’s “Kirkwood Chocolate” — go unacknowledged.

Nobody is more pointed and direct in their criticisms of Perry’s filmmaking than Spike Lee in a mid-’00s interview, but the only refutation Maxine’s Baby requires is Lee’s enthusiastic presence in footage from that Tyler Perry Studios gala opening. Whether Lee was right or wrong, the film implies, Perry won.

In general, Perry won. Maxine’s Baby is a record of that victory even if, as a blueprint, it’s one that can be learned from, if not reproduced. Perry makes it very clear that nobody can outwork him and, honestly, I believe him.

Fans will find the documentary revelatory and, because his respect for and understanding of his fans is so central to his success, emotionally gratifying as well. But even if you’re not necessarily a fan and Perry’s control feels suffocating at times, that doesn’t stop Maxine’s Baby from being a frequently fascinating look at a unique figure.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

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Jacqueline Avant was not only one of America’s premier philanthropists but an icon within charitable work as well. News of her tragic demise sent shockwaves through media channels across the nation; many mourned a selfless woman dedicated to charity work who will no doubt be greatly missed by so many communities worldwide.

Who Was Jacqueline Avant?

A woman of elegance and grace, Jacqueline Avant made her mark as an American philanthropist dedicated to organizing benefits, often with a celebrity-filled guest list, to rally funds for child care services as the president of “Neighbors of Watts.” However, before her philanthropic pursuits, she had adorned herself in roles of a model and a primary school tutor.

Jacqueline Avant was married to Clarence Avant, an influential music producer and executive dubbed “The Black Godfather,” known for elevating Black artists during the 70s and 80s and earning his place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by 2021. As part of an influential group led by both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama former US Presidents – Clarence was part of their influential circle, playing an essential role in helping these talent-seekers realize their careers and achieve greatness in American pop music history. Clarence’s keen ear for talent helped propelling them all – while his renowned work would secure its spot among Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famers during those two eras.

How Old Was Jacqueline Avant at the Time of Her Death?

One fateful night turned tragic for Jacqueline Avant when she suffered a gunshot injury at her residence. At the early hours, shortly after 2:20 a.m., the Beverly Hills Police Department, led by Chief Mark Stainbrook, responded to a distress call reporting a shooting at her home. Law enforcement found a devastated Mr. Avant clutching his wife, trying to comfort her in her final moments. The gunshot had wounded her back, and despite being discovered alive, she later succumbed to her injuries at a local hospital, at the age of 81.

What Circumstances Led to Jacqueline Avant’s Death?

On December 1st, 2021, an unspeakable tragedy struck the Avant household. At age 81, Jacqueline Avant was tragically gunned down at home in Beverly Hills by an assailant who fired into her bedroom wall, with husband Clarence Avant holding onto her to try and provide comfort during such a devastatingly cruel event. Clarence held his wife close in attempts at solace during such an emotional scene. Initial reports and investigation revealed that the assailant, who was on parole during the incident, first entered a plea of not guilty. However, a subsequent change in plea marked the progression of the case.

Jacqueline’s legacy as a philanthropist, an arts aficionado, and a community trailblazer was widely remembered and acknowledged. Her family, in the aftermath, shed light on her remarkable journey and expressed their deep grief over her irreplaceable loss.

Who Was Responsible for Jacqueline Avant’s Murder?

The case took a decisive turn in 2022 when Aariel Maynor, aged 30, accepted responsibility for the heinous crime. Maynor was found guilty of first-degree murder for shooting Jacqueline Avant to death and continued committing acts of violence throughout her funeral procession and funeral home visitations process. However, Maynor’s crimes did not stop there: he also committed multiple other heinous crimes including theft of funds from Jacqueline’s estate and theft from one of Jacqueline Avant’s trust funds. He also faced charges and was subsequently convicted of attempted murder after firing multiple shots at a security guard stationed outside the Avant residence. The charges mounted with firearm possession and residential burglary.

A twist in the case came when Maynor, while attempting another burglary in a Hollywood home shortly after the murder, inadvertently shot himself in the foot. In pain and desperation, he called 911, leading to his swift arrest. The justice system, having weighed the severity of his actions, sentenced Maynor to a lengthy 190 years in prison, ensuring he would remain behind bars without the possibility of parole.

Jacqueline Avant’s tragic demise is a stark reminder of the fleeting nature of life. Esteemed philanthropist, loving wife, and influential figure; her untimely death has left a deep-seated void within the communities she served. Justice may have been served, yet its magnitude remains undeniable.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

In case you need a transcript, the excerpt says of Timberlake, “His band NSYNC was what people back then called ‘so pimp.’ They were white boys, but they loved hip-hop. To me, that’s what separated them from the Backstreet Boys, who seemed very consciously to position themselves as a white group. NSYNC hung out with Black artists. Sometimes, I thought they tried too hard to fit in.”

Brenda Chase / Getty Images)

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment