Mixing it up at Spoleto: annual festival shaping up to be one of the most diverse events on the arts calendar

Black Issues in Higher Education, August 12, 2004 by Kendra Hamilton

Thus, Brown prefers to concentrate on the writing--the commissions from Washington's Arena Stage, the Houston Grand Opera, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and the Actor's Theatre of Louisville, among others, that have allowed him to write plays as The African Company Presents Richard III," The Little Tommy Parker Celebrated Minstrel Show," "The Negro of Peter the Great," based on an unfinished novella by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and many others.

Brown notes that he was inspired to write "The Fula from America" based on events that transpired more than 20 years before, and by the events of Sept. 11.

He was struck by "this whole discussion about, 'How could this have happened? why do they hate us?' And then the answer comes--and of course, it's all White guys saying this--they hate us because of our freedom," Brown says.

The play allowed him to explore both American notions of freedom and prosperity, as well as the concept of the "ugly American" through his confrontation with his own behavior as a privileged and oftentimes obnoxious American traveling on a shoestring budget in West Africa.

"Deep in my psyche, I was looking for my African roots," Brown says. "But I discovered how American really I am."

Brown is hard at work on his next play "Pure Confidence," a story of a racehorse jockey in the antebellum South. "I'm fascinated by these guys who absolutely dominated the racing industry, "he says.

And Brown also dreams of the day when he might find an African American conservatory of theater, teaching the arts that African Americans brought to the stage, especially the dancing and the singing skills that were cultivated during minstrelsy and vaudeville. "When we were doing 'Little Tommy Parker,' we found it quite difficult to cask" Brown explains. "The men auditioning might be able to sing, but they weren't able to dance. Or they might be dancers without being actors."

"But when you think about it, hack in the day, these guys were the total package. There were incredible conditions of prejudice, they faced all sorts of restraints, yet they were dancing, singing, acting comedians, tragedians--you name it. We've lost so much of what we were" because of our cultural shame, our miseducation about our culture, he says.

A NEW GENERATION

Interestingly, the global sway of hip-hop culture appears to be making it possible for a new generation of African American artists to find success without compromising their love of their culture. DJ Spooky is one such success story, making waves as a conceptual artist, as a writer, as a musician and as a professor of mediated art at the European Graduate School in New York City.

After graduating from Bowdoin College with degrees in philosophy and French literature, Miller found himself in New York, writing for magazines such as Artforum and The Village Voice. But the "egomania" of New York editors grew so tiring and the profits from his sideline of delaying at parties grew so large that he moved into music full time--along with making art, editing cutting-edge digital media magazines, "remixing" films, and writing books of essays and, now, a novel.