<b><i>Mother Tongue: Monologues for Lesbian Ancestral Wives and Revolutionary Women Speaking the Unspeakable</b></i>will draw you into deeper conversation about one of the most taboo subjects in Black sexual politics same sex love and gender nonconformity. With beautiful imagery, evocative music and bold movement, poets, drummers, dancers and actors dramatizing and performing community will speak of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identities of people in Black communities that remain intensely controversial, and/or dismissed as an insignificant aspect of their lives.
The Black lesbian in particular, who stands at the crossroads of two well-developed ideologies in America, one about women and one about "the Negro", remains a dangerous site saturated with the belief that female sexual energy deserves punishment. Mother Tongue Monologues continues to center the multilayered texture of Black women's lives as it rarely ever is, and shatters the silence around the treatment of the lesbians among us as objects of hypersexualization, entertainment and media fodder, pornographic exploitation, backlash and displaced anger. The Performance challenges cultural beliefs that insist on seeing tragedy in sex and gender identities that present a threat to a patriarchal status-quo informed by a racist paradigm that for centuries kept its foot on the necks of women, while confining men to a destructive code of masculinity that often undermines their very freedom and humanity.
Arts.Dance
Khajakool and Urbintel Entertainment
present
THE BIG MOUTH BOUT
RAINMAKER VS. PHYA STARTA
plus CHRIST IS VS. TAHANI SALAH
plus RUDY CABRERA VS. BRO. EARL
Special Guests Karen Jaime w/ Emmty Soul and Dulcinea Detwah
Friday April 6th, 2012
$15 in advance
$20 at the door
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Boulevard
Harlem, New York
Subway
Take 2 or 3 train to 135th Street
MTA Bus
M7 M102
to 135th StreetDriving
FDR Drive to Harlem River Drive; Harlem River Drive to 135th St.; two blocks west; Interstate 87 (Major Deegan Expwy.) to Madison Ave. Bridge (138th Street Exit); one block west to Malcolm X Blvd.; turn left; proceed to 135th St.
present
THE BIG MOUTH BOUT
BLUE VS. CHARAN P
plus POETIC ASSASSIN VS.BRO. EARL
plus EDSON DACOSTA VS. SUZEN BARAKA
Special Guests BGT Family -Michelle Cooper, Olivia Gilmore & Kadeem Sir Musiq Nichols
Friday March 2, 2011
$15 in advance
$20 at the door
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Boulevard
Harlem, New York
Subway
Take 2 or 3 train to 135th Street
MTA Bus
M7 M102
to 135th Street
Driving
FDR Drive to Harlem River Drive; Harlem River Drive to 135th St.; two blocks west; Interstate 87 (Major Deegan Expwy.) to Madison Ave. Bridge (138th Street Exit); one block west to Malcolm X Blvd.; turn left; proceed to 135th St.
The Big Mouth Bout is a combat-style Blood and Guts Poetry! tournament. Spoken word artists of various weight classes and levels go head-to-head in numerous rounds of lyrical warfare, with the winners advancing to the next rounds and the losers going back to their pens and pads. The B.M.B. is the only no-holds-barred series where it is every poet for him or herself. Just like boxing (its mother sport), there can only be one winner, also known as the Big Mouth Bout champion. The Big Mouth Bout is more than just a poetry competitionit's a battle to the finish. It requires the agility, smarts, and heart of a lion. It mandates passion, zeal, and ferocity. It's not about points. It's not about slam. This is the B.M.B. The Big Mouth Bout. Blood and Guts Poetry! of epic proportions.
Arts.Performance