American Theatre Culture

The general argument made by Peter Catapano in his work, “Performing Race on the Great Divide”, is that minstrelsy has been a significant topic that’s been examined upon by many intellectuals. More specifically, Catapano argues that minstrelsy has influenced the field of race and entertainment. He writes, “popular music, theater, and popular advertising images were particularly destructive to their notion of uplift and respectability of a race that was suffering under an assault of odious stereotypes.” In this passage, Catapano is suggesting that there were stereotypes about African-American culture in music and shows back in the older days. In conclusion, Catapano’s belief is that even though the great divide raised a challenge between the

The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater was created after a famous performance, led by Alvin Ailey and a group of African-American dancers in March 1958, dramatically changed how individuals viewed American dance. The theater’s goal was to celebrate the African-American culture and preserve the legacy of modern dance, which has since, been achieved through performances, “for an estimated 25 million people at theaters in 28 states and 71 countries on six continents[...] (by) more than 235 works by over 90 choreographers,” (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater). Alvin Ailey, born in Texas, grew up knowing that his experiences living in the South would have some influence on his works later on his life. In Los Angeles, Ailey began to dance when he discovered the beauty of dance by the performances of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. Soon after, his friend persuaded Ailey to join a class in one of the first racially-integrated dance studios which existed in the United States, led by Leston Horton.

Research Paper for Alvin Ailey Biography Born in Texas, on January 5, 1931, Alvin Ailey was one of the greatest black modern dancer-choreographer in the United States whose works continue to resonate with audiences worldwide. His mother was only 17 years old when he was born, and his father left the family soon after his birth, so Alvin grew up poor in Navasota, the small Texas town with his mother. Despite the racism and poor economic conditions, Ailey enjoyed the abundance of entertainment available to blacks, and inspired by the black church services he attended as well as the music he heard at the local dance hall. At the age of twelve, after finishing the school year in Texas, Ailey moved to Los Angeles, California, with his mother.

In early 1900, Patrick “Pat” Chappelle founded The Rabbit’s Foot Company (or, The Rabbit Foot Minstrels) as a roaming, tented minstrel company. Chappelle, equipped with a strong entrepreneurial spirit and notable talent as a banjo guitarist, was to become the figurehead of one of the most successful vaudevillian entities in U.S. history, and, perhaps most importantly, the first exclusively black-owned and operated traveling variety shows in the country. Despite this evolution to “variety show,” The Rabbit’s Foot Company “came forth in the unmistakable form of a minstrel show.” To define, minstrel shows oft manifested as sketch, musical, and variety performances that targeted and mocked black people using blackface and exaggerated stereotypes

By helping break down racial barriers and reshape cultural norms with its big role in promoting African American performers and popularizing new musical genres The Apollo Theater became the most famous and influential theater in the world. I. Topic of paragraph: The Great Apollo Theater wasn’t always so big since its grand opening in 1914 as a whites-only burlesque theater,

In the essay Two Afro-American Contributions to Dramatic Form, Eleanor Traylor talks of the roots and traditions that were brought to the original American theatre from black African-Americans. The importance of knowing where devices and ideas come from is important in all things, but in theatre we sometimes seem to overlook these things. Instead of discovering where our entertainment comes from , we as a society look at the believability or even the fantasy of the thing and then leave our opinion at face value. Discovering where the stories originated and how they have transformed is just as important to current theatre.

For instance, scene 1 incorporated smooth, relaxed, and loose movements while scene 2 encompassed heavy, swaying, and sharp movements. Scene 3 embodied weightless, smooth, and sustained movements, but scene 4 contained swinging, relaxed, and light movements with a high tempo. Overall, this performance opened my eyes to some of the ideas, values, and beliefs of African-Americans in the 1900s and inspired me in a variety of different

There was singing, dancing, and comedy. One practice that emerged, however, was the blackening of one's face with burnt cork or shoe polish. These white men would emphasize the shape of their lips and then parodied their speech patterns. These blackfaced characters became a huge success but brought

At first, the act was predominantly done by white people who wore black faces to depict how African-Americans spoke and acted, but eventually, there was a recorded increase in African-Americans themselves who too wore the black faces. The acts included a variety of comic acts, African-American music, comic skits, and dancing (Minstrel Show). However, with the shows’ popularity, it was also quite clear that the acts were highly depicted as racist towards the African Americans. This notion comes about from the fact that the acts portrayed African Americans as lazy, ignorant, and as those who loved music and dancing regardless of any other facet of life. Surprisingly, the history of the minstrel acts has over the time infatuated both black artists in the modern day and a clique of white artists locally referred to as “wiggers” which translates to white artists who want to act as black artists (Blacking Up: Hip-Hop 's Remix of Race and Identity).

The vaudeville shows play an important role to increase the industrialization and well-being of the people as well as help to demonstrate the slave culture that African American suffer at that era. According to Adair,

There is a clear through-line in our nation’s history of blackface. As a detrimental tradition, the practice reflects a collectively low opinion of African-Americans, so much so that it became feasible to reduce an entire group of people to caricatures. When Rondrich describes minstrelsy as the “first truly American band” based on its origin within and its reflection of our past beliefs, I found it a sickeningly accurate statement. It is rather astonishing how music has been used to disseminate racially charged imagery—in this situation, Adorno’s fears of music perpetuating group-thought was startlingly supported. Beyond the racial elements, the growing popularity of blackface minstrelsy reflects how low-quality entertainment (more colloquially,

Creating Minstrel shows in which white actors would dress up and portray blacks as coons. Around the early 1900’s, during the Jim Crow Laws, whites believed that blacks were genetically inferior to whites, and argued that they were children, irresponsible,

The European and Pacific Theatre There were many battles in World War II, all of them being important and having different outcomes. Two main theaters we are focusing on are going to be the European Theatre where the Invasion of Normandy took place, along with the Pacific Theatre where the Attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. Both events had major impacts on the outcome of World War II, along with all the other battles we encountered. If ether of these battles turned out differently, America may not have become the amazing beautiful place it is today. The battle of Pearl Harbor occurred early morning in Honolulu, Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

I enjoyed the comical and lighthearted dancing and singing approach the characters had to the somber situations around them. Watching this few years later and after taking a Text and Meaning course, I was struck at the sheer amount of things that stood out. The Negroes were declared “other”. In post colonialist theory, declaring one race “other” marginalizes them and stresses on how

Imagining the effects of getting rid of the Endowment can be hard to simply imagine, which is why some may be so eager to eliminate the Endowment altogether. When there is no tangible view of what could be lost, one can easily say that for the greater good, one could survive without the object. An additional argument against funding the NEA is that art will survive without the grants of the Endowment. This is the number one reason out of ten on the list of why the Endowment should be eliminated (Jarvik). Think about this piece of work: Hamilton, An American Musical.