what does when the rainbow is enuf mean

When the Rainbow is Enuf by Mara Licole Knits | This design was created to pay homage to the beautiful Ntozake Shange while highlighting her message that there is strength in individuals but when that strength is tested you can find love and even greater strength in communities that come together in solidarity.

Full Answer

When the Rainbow is enuf based on true events?

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf is a piece of work inspired by events of Shange's own life. Shange admitted publicly to having attempted suicide on four different occasions.

When the Rainbow is enuf was originally recorded?

The original sound recording of the Broadway production of for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf was recorded by Buddah Records, catalog number BDS 95007-OC, 1976.

What does it mean when you see a rainbow?

In some cultures, a rainbow symbolizes death, specifically the transition to the spiritual realm. Thus, rainbows are perceived as bridges to the afterlife. Hence, when war broke out in the earlier history, and a rainbow appeared, it meant that fallen soldiers were moving out of the physical world.

What does each color mean in For Colored Girls?

The cast consists of seven nameless African-American women only identified by the colors they are assigned. They are the lady in red, lady in orange, lady in yellow, lady in green, lady in blue, lady in brown, and lady in purple. Subjects from rape, abandonment, abortion and domestic violence are tackled.

When the rainbow is enuf Broadway?

A for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf Broadway revival will open in 2022, with details on casting yet to be announced. Tony nominee Camille A. Brown, who has choreographed Once On This Island and Choir Boy on Broadway, makes her Broadway directorial debut with this work.

What is For Colored Girls Only about?

The film depicts the interconnected lives of ten women of color, exploring their lives and struggles as women of color. It is the first film to be produced by 34th Street Films, an imprint of Tyler Perry Studios, and distributed by Lionsgate Films. It is also the first R-rated film directed by Perry.

What is the theme of For Colored Girls?

The central theme is that For Colored Girls offers tools for analysis of black women's experiences of oppression in different spaces, triggered by their socio-cultural context.

Why is For Colored Girls closing early?

NEW YORK - Monday's news that the show "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf" had just been nominated for seven Tony awards was made bittersweet by last week's news that, due to poor ticket sales, the show would be closing May 22 — three months earlier than planned.

Why is For Colored Girls closed Broadway?

“The decision ultimately is based on economics,” Simons said. “For Colored Girls” is the second Broadway show to announce an unplanned closing this spring because of weak sales. A stage adaptation of “The Little Prince,” which began previews March 29 and opened April 11, announced last week that it would close May 8.

How do you marry a woman and the turn around and let a man bend you over?

Carl : How you gonna ask me a question like that? Jo : How did you marry a woman, and then turn around and let a man bend you over? Carl : Ain't nobody bending me over.

Is For Colored Girls based on true story?

The film is based on Ntozake Shange's electric play, the self-described choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf.” Inspired by “our mothers,” including Isis, Zora Neale Hurston, Anna May Wong and Calamity Jane, the work was first staged in 1974 as a work in progress and ...

Why Did I Get Married 3?

The feature is set to be released in 2022, according to Deadline. Perry once said he would retire just a few years ago in “A Madea Funeral." The film went on to gross $75 million at the global box office, and a final string of stage performances.

Who wrote For Colored Girls only?

Ntozake ShangeNtozake Shange, a spoken-word artist who morphed into a playwright with her canonical play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf,” died on Saturday in Bowie, Md. She was 70.

Events in History at the Time of the Choreopoem

Any generalization about such a large segment of the population—young women of color—would be understandably difficult. As with most other groups, their experiences vary depending on where and how they live.

The Choreopoem in Focus

The poetry is shared among seven women who are each associated with a color and a city: the lady in brown (Chicago), yellow (Detroit), purple (Houston), red (Baltimore), green ( San Francisco ), blue (Manhattan), and orange (St. Louis).

For More Information

Churgin, Jonah R. The New Woman and the Old Academe: Sexism and Higher Education. New York: Libra, 1978.

What color are the ladies in "Bein alive and bein colored"?

The play begins and ends with the lady in brown. The other six performers represent the colors of the rainbow: the ladies in red, orange , yellow, green, blue, and purple. The various repercussions of “bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysical dilemma” are explored through the words, gestures, dance, and music of the seven ladies, who improvise as they shift in and out of different roles. In the 1970s, when Ntozake Shange herself performed in for colored girls. . ., she continually revised and refined the poems and the movements in her search to express a female black identity. Improvisation is central to her celebration of the uniqueness of the black female body and language, and it participates in the play’s theme of movement as a means to combat the stasis of the subjugation. In studying this play in its textual, static format one should, therefore, keep in mind the improvisational character of actual performance and realize that stasis is the opposite of what Shange wanted for this play. In fact, in her preface she announces to readers that while they listen, she herself is already “on the other side of the rainbow” with “other work to do.” She has moved on, as she expects her readers to do as well.

What is Shange's last name?

Born Paulette Williams on October 18, 1948, Shange, at the age of twenty-three, adopted the Zulu name Ntozake (pronounced “en-toe-zak-ee” and meaning “she who comes with her own things”) Shange (pronounced “shon-gay” and meaning “who walks like a lion”) as a name more appropriate to her poetic talents. She felt that her Anglo-Saxon last name was associated with slavery and her given name was a feminized version of the male name Paul. Shange once stated in an interview that she changed her name to disassociate herself from the history of a culture that championed slavery.

What did Shange say about the rainbow?

One night while driving home after teaching an evening class and feeling especially depressed, Shange saw a huge rainbow over the city of Oakland, California, and realized that women have a right to survive, because as she asserted in a 1976 New York Times interview, they “have as much right and as much purpose for being here as air and mountains do.” In that same interview, Shange explained that she realized that the rainbow is “the possibility to start all over again with the power and beauty of ourselves.” Her experience inspired the title of for colored girls . . . , composed of twenty poems she wrote over a period of years and read in women’s bars in San Francisco during the summer of 1974. She later took her choreographed poems to New York. After two years of off-Broadway performances and with the help of a New York director, Shange combined her poems and formed them into a production that ran for 747 performances on Broadway. Shange continues to write drama, fiction, and poetry, but for colored girls . . . remains her biggest commercial and critical success. She has indicated that she would prefer to be known for more than this work. She would rather be known for her current non-commercial work, including her bilingual work with Latin American working people’s theater, her association with the Feminist Art Institute, and her construction of installation art.

How many poems are there in For Colored Girls?

The twenty poems of for colored girls. . . were written and read at women’s bars in San Francisco long before Shange decided to weave them together into a formal dramatic production. Thus, each poem exists and stands on its own, often narrated in monologue (a dramatic sketch performed by one actor) by one of the ladies, while the other performers look on, encourage, or enact the story. The collection of monologues narrated by different performers (not characters per se because they take on different roles) gives a sense of multiple perspectives, of fragmentation. However, each fragment amplifies the others such that they are unified by a common theme, the rendering of black female identity.

When I die, I will not be guilty?

“When I die, I will not be guilty,” Shange proclaimed in an interview with Claudia Tate in Black Women Writers at Work, “of having left a generation of girls behind thinking that anyone can tend to their emotional health other than themselves.” Shange has expressed a desire to make for colored girls . . . , a play that explores the pain and promise of “bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored,” available—on library and school bookshelves or given as a gift—to young women coming of age in America. This play is to supplement the widely available information on contraception with “emotional information,” the kind of information Shange says did not get as a child, even though she grew up in an affluent, loving home. This work, like her other pieces, is meant to dispel the myths and lies that little girls hear and to replace them with something they can really use. “I want them to know that they are not alone and that we adult women thought and continue to think about them,” Shange told Tate. for colored girls. . . is an exploration, beginning with the made metaphor of including a lady in brown among those dressed in colors of the rainbow, of the concept of a “colored girl” as “a girl of many colors.” Facets of the black woman from gender- and socially oppressed victim to triumphant spell weaver and self-actualized person combine to portray a rainbow of possible selves that celebrate the black female identity.

When the rainbow is enuf?

for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf is a choreopoem, a poem (really a series of 20 separate poems) choreographed to music. The performers dance the poems as well as narrate the lines. These are not poems set to

Is Ntozake Shange a playwright?

Shange has asserted that the form of the conventional play is too restrictive; in her introductory essay to three pieces, which was quoted in Ntozake Shange: A Critical Study of the Plays, she called it “a truly european framework for european psychology” which cannot serve as a medium in which to express black culture, psychology, and sensibility. In that same essay, she explained that because she views American theater as “overwhelmingly shallow . . . stilted, and imitative,” she insists upon calling herself a “poet or writer” rather than a playwright. Indeed, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has more in common with poetry, music, and dance than with traditional theater scripts, but it is certainly good theater—good dramatic theater—as well. In a departure from conventional theater, she jettisons characters and plot, instead presenting transient performer/characters who portray an apartment house of stories. Within each apartment, each episodic poem, lives a black girl, trying to escape the confines of an oppressive society. Yet even though Shange has done away with plot, there is a progression within the poems that explores the “metaphysical dilemma” of “bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored.” The play ends with a sense of closure as though the dilemma has been accepted or understood and fully expressed, and, if not resolved, on the way to a solution. Typical of Shange’s style, she coins a new term for her dramatic work—“choreopoem,” a choreographed poem. Her poems are not just accompanied by music and dance, but “danced poems” in which dance, movements, and gestures express as much meaning as do the words of the poem.

Race

While there are no white characters in for colored girls..., Ntozake Shange makes it clear that race forms an important part of her characters' identities. The title of for colored girls... indicates that Shange's impetus for writing the choreopoem in the first place was to encourage women of color to embrace their identities.

Rites of Passage

The women in the play narrate stories that represent each stage of life and womanhood. They celebrate first love, dreams for the future, and sexual awakening (“toussaint”), the ebullience of graduating from high school and losing one’s virginity (“graduation nite”).

Alienation and Loneliness

The women in For Colored Girls are firmly entrenched in modern-day America. Their perspective is relatable and although they are only defined by the color of their dresses, they share deeply personal stories about marginalization and isolation.

The Desire to Be Loved

The women in for colored girls... are seeking fulfilling love. Over the course of the choreopoem, they start to learn how to articulate what they want in a man. Each one desires someone who makes her feel special and supports her.

Female Friendships

Although many of the poems in for colored girls are recited by individual women, there is a strong undercurrent of sisterhood and communality - especially since the women do not have names. The ladies often participate in weaving the stories together, sometimes contributing lines and characters.

Music and Dance

Music and dance are practically additional characters in the choreopoem. Characters often describe the importance of music and dance to self-expression. Occasionally, the stage directions call for one or more of the women to break out into chants or dances. These creative expressions are outlets for the women's emotions, hopes, and fears.

Self-Actualization

The women in the choreopem start out as adolescents who do not understand themselves. They struggle to accept their race, gender, and their places in the world. They make mistakes in early relationships because because they are desperate for love but behave as though they do not deserve it. However, the arc of for colored girls...

How many women are in the movie For Colored Girls?

For colored girls is considered a choreopoem (i.e. there are monologues that also include dance and music) with seven women in different colors speaking to the audience. The seven women are the lady in red, lady in orange, lady in yellow, lady in green, lady in blue, lady in brown, and lady in purple. Some of t.

How does NTozake Shange use personification?

In “For Colored Girls” NTozake Shange uses personification to describe how people are looking at her since she got an abortion. Her outlook on the world is different now and so is her circle, people stop being friends with her because of a decision she decided to make : Her world has changed due to the fact that she is bring life to the world, she too is ashamed of the decision that was made and now she has to deal with it. The sentence in the book says, “eyes crawling up one me eyes rollin in my thighs metal horses gnawin my womb dead mice fall from my mouth” (36)

What does NTozake Shange use to show?

NTozake Shange uses symbolism, personification, and similes to show how much colored girls go through and how they get through it all everyday without complaining of having a fit . I used text evidence to show how the girls struggle and the reaction they get from people when they try to do better with themselves.

How does NTozake Shange use symbolism?

NTozake Shange uses symbolism to show how the music to her is describing a way of life and how people's lives are. It describes the sounds that is being portrayed from her point of view and how the music expresses thoughts and emotions.The way of life is being described as hard and not easy as a For Colored Girl in the south. The symbolism that is given is, “ But sing her rhythms/carin/struggle/hard times sing her song of life. She been dead so long,closed in silence so long,she doesn't know the sound of her own voice, her infinite beauty” (17)

When did Ntozake Shange start writing for colored girls?

Ntozake Shange first began working on For Colored Girls in 1972. It started as a dialogue for a character named Cypress who later became one of the sisters in a later work. The narrative merged into a poetry play for seven parts and developed on Shange’s drive from San Francisco to New York.

What does each color mean in the poem for colored girls?

Each girl is labeled by a color. Each color serves as a symbolic meaning for each girl. For example, the poem that contains the lady in red is suffering from domestic violence, which red serves as a metaphor. Largely unique for the style of the book, For Colored Girls may be one of my new favorite books.

What is a cheropoem that is for women, written by a woman, and be stopped?

A cheropoem that is for women, written by a woman, and be stopped by no one. Ntozake tells the story of 7 women who have endured sexism, rape, body shaming, racism, and more. These women are represented as colors of the rainbow and are connected as they put on a performance to display their pain.

What do rainbows mean to us In Life?

Before we look at what rainbows symbolize according to various cultures around the world, let’s talk about what people think of when they see a rainbow and what they associate them with.

Rainbow symbolism in various cultures

As a natural phenomenon that has existed since long before human ancestors came down from the trees, rainbows will have been familiar to people around the world since the dawn of time.

Modern rainbow symbolism

Right up until today, the rainbow has continued to be used as a symbol, so let’s have a look at what it represents now.

what does it mean when you see a rainbow?

Rainbows have had deep symbolism to many people, both in ancient societies and those of today. But what does it mean if you see a rainbow?

A beautiful sight and a welcome sign

Rainbows have been seen as an almost universally positive omen by people all around the world, so not only are they beautiful to see but they also come as a welcome sign of peace, good luck and new beginnings.

What Does a Rainbow Symbolize?

A rainbow symbolizes different things depending on where you are in your life. But to get a clear understanding of the spiritual message behind a rainbow, it is essential to know when and how rainbows occur.

Rainbows in Christianity

For christians there is plenty of biblical reference and so there is a strong rainbow meaning in the religion.

Rainbows in Buddhism

Buddhists have an interesting take on the meaning and symbolism of rainbows. Their belief focuses more on the colors rather than the form.

Rainbows in Different Cultures

We may not see rainbows every day, but their existence has been witnessed and widely recognized worldwide. As a result, cultures associate several beliefs with rainbows. But it is interesting to know that most cultures share similar spiritual connections with rainbows.

Rainbows in Greek Mythology

In ancient Greek culture, the rainbow was personified by the goddess Iris. She was a messenger with gold wings.

Rainbows in Native American Culture

The Native American Navajo tribe has a different interpretation and wisdom around rainbows. Instead of seeing the rainbow as a bridge, they view it as a multi-colored spirit serpent that only the brave get to ride.

Rainbow Dream Meaning

When you dream of a rainbow, brace yourself because it means that you will experience positive changes in your life.

Events in History at The Time of The Choreopoem

• “Colored girls.”
  Any generalization about such a large segment of the population—young women of color—would be understandably difficult. As with most other groups, their experiences vary depending on where and how they live. Nevertheless, Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem tries to address experiences tha…
• Toussaint L’Ouverture
  In the process of constructing a positive racial and gender-based identity, black girls were much more likely to encounter white heroes than black ones in their school books and in the media. In the chore-opoem, the girl who struggles with integration in St. Louis faces this problem. She sne…

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The Choreopoem in Focus

For More Information

Author Biography

Plot Summary

Characters

Themes

Style

Historical Context

Critical Overview

• Taking for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf to New York City in 1976 entailed polishing the act for a more demanding, theater-sophisticated audience than the appreciative and supportive mostly female audiences in the cafes and women’s bars of San Francisco. Shange, just twenty-seven at the time, relied on theater d...

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Criticism

Further Reading

Sources