What is the movie for Colored Girls about?
For Colored Girls is a 2010 American drama adapted from Ntozake Shange 's 1975 original choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.
How did “for Colored Girls” start?
Both in their 20s, they were quickly joined by other young women, and sometimes by musicians, as they performed the choreopoetry that would become “For Colored Girls” in women’s bars, cafes and Fillmore District clubs. After Shange and Ms. Moss drove to New York City, the work acquired a director and a more fixed shape.
Is ‘for Colored Girls’ a choreopoem?
Dance | ‘For Colored Girls’ Is a Choreopoem. What’s a Choreopoem? ‘ For Colored Girls’ Is a Choreopoem. What’s a Choreopoem? This landmark work, “a whole new form of theater,” originated with a poet, Ntozake Shange, dancing.
Is ‘for Colored Girls who have considered suicide’ a play?
“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf” is not a play. Or that’s not what the breakthrough work was called by its author, Ntozake Shange. Her word was “choreopoem,” and any production of “For Colored Girls,” like the major revival now in previews at the Public Theater, has to figure out what the term means.
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Why is Ntozake Shange choreopoem for colored girls based on her experiences?
Ntozake Shange titled her choreopoem for colored girls... because a lot of it is based on her experiences as a woman of color. However, the specificity of the various stories mean that any woman can find something here to relate to. Shange avoids sounding preachy or exclusive by letting each lady speak for herself - allowing the audience/reader to interpret her story instead of forcing a particular lesson. Shange's audience, therefore, becomes caught up in the humanity of these individual stories and discovers that the commonality of the human experience goes much deeper than skin color. Shange evokes the pain of heartbreak, the desire to be loved, the value of a friend to lean on, a sense of alienation in the modern world, and the struggle for maturation - which are all universal truths.
What is Shange's style of writing?
Shange wrote for colored girls... in the vernacular. She meant her writing to invoke the way real women write and speak; she made these choices so that the choreopoem would feel authentic, relatable, and open. She uses common abbreviations and occasional derivations from traditional English, as well as slang, cliches, and hyperbole. The language is also quite lyrical, and she uses melodic sounds and intonation to blur the lines between poetry and song. Shange takes dramatic license with the structure of her paragraphs, sentences, and words. Her unique style does not allow the reader to become complacent - he or she must be present in the process. Shange makes each and every word vividly present in order to express the many layers of meaning. Overall, the language is idiosyncratic, luminous, and fully evocative of its speakers, whom can be either beautiful, broken, or both.
What is the meaning of poetry in Ntozake Shange?
For Ntozake Shange, poetry is a means of expression, catharsis, and self-awareness. It allows the poet to transcend his or her daily existence and experience a sense of belonging to something important and meaningful. Poetry, like music and dance, connects the poet with her inner goddess and gives her a language to understand herself and her place in the world. Even when poetry deals with commonplace issues, it can elevate and inspire because it gives the poet a voice. The women in the play use poetry to articulate their thoughts and fears and share their experiences. They find power in the commonality of their struggles.
Why is Toussaint the first love of the lady in brown?
Toussaint is the lady in brown's first love because he is so much more of a role model than anyone she sees around her... until she meets Toussaint Jones. By realizing that there are men like Toussaint L'Ouverture in the world, the lady in brown is suddenly able to articulate what she wants in a partner. 7.
What does the little girl in the poem feel like?
She experiences prejudice and discrimination and feels like her world is stifling and cruel. When she reads about Toussaint L'Ouverture, she finds her own hero to worship - a black man who stood up to his white oppressors and won. Reading about Toussaint's life leads the young girl to form a more coherent racial consciousness, while his masculinity and heroic appeal also provoke a sort of sexual awakening, albeit a very innocent one. Toussaint is the lady in brown's first love because he is so much more of a role model than anyone she sees around her... until she meets Toussaint Jones. By realizing that there are men like Toussaint L'Ouverture in the world, the lady in brown is suddenly able to articulate what she wants in a partner.
How many choreopoems are there in the movie "Ladies"?
On stage, the 20 different choreopoems are danced and spoken, creating whirls of color, movement, and non-narrative interaction, as each of the seven “ladies” takes center stage to share her story.The others listen and react, and offer gestures of support or comfort.
What is the ending of Shange's play?
In Shange’s play, the tragic monologue ends with the chilling, agonizing words “and he dropped them,” which echoes out into the theatre like a curse you can’t take back. The story is placed nearly at the play’s end. In the film, the event takes place closer to its middle.
Why did Alice's father give her to a white man?
Alice’s father, though, “gave” her to a white man because he didn’t want granddaughters as “ugly” as Alice. The cycle of abuse and degradation, Perry implies, begins in and ends as a family legacy. Unlike in Shange’s play, entrenched social inequities are left mostly off the hook.
When the rainbow is enuf?
Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf was one of the first feminist performance texts of the 1970s. Shange wrote the choreopoem in bars and performance spaces in Berkeley, often performing the monologues herself, until she stitched them together and turned them into a tour de force ensemble piece for an African American female cast playing characters named only by the color of their outfits (Lady in Red, Lady in Brown, etc.).
When did the play "For Colored Girls" come out?
for colored girls triumphed on Broadway in 1976 after its initial run at Joe Papp’s Public Theatre in downtown Manhattan. The play was the first I ever saw on Broadway. As a young college-aged white girl from Pittsburgh who’d never seen theatre like this or heard these stories before, I was overcome by the experience. I still vividly remember those powerful African American women talking to the audience, wearing their colorful costumes and moving with the grace of dancers.
Does Perry open the monologues out to other characters?
Occasionally, Perry successfully opens the monologues out to other characters in the film.
Who plays Frank in the movie Juanita?
Juanita’s scenes with Frank (Richard Lawson), for instance, her unfaithful boyfriend, are staged in her small apartment, where he insists she take him back and where she finally tells him off. Frank’s dialogue—like that of the other men—is stilted and less vivid. Shange’s words, after all, were written for women, and Perry has difficulties writing appropriate rejoinders for the men he creates to people his more realistic movie world.
What does Nyla ask Tangie about?
Nyla shows up at Tangie’s apartment to ask for money, explaining that she needs it for college, but Tangie is not fooled. She then deduces that Nyla is pregnant, but Nyla denies this. Tangie relishes in the fact that Nyla is not so perfect after all and that Alice will hate her the way she hates Tangie. She then tells her about the time she got pregnant and reveals where to find a back-alley abortionist.
Why does Kelly feel guilty for not taking Crystal's children away?
That night, Kelly is unable to sleep, feeling guilty for not taking Crystal's children away sooner because she had to see the doctor about her infertility.
What does Alice tell Nyla to do?
Alice and Nyla return to their apartment where Alice tells her to pray for forgiveness. As Nyla prays, Alice attempts to exorcise her with ashes and hot oil, hurting Nyla. Nyla freaks out, fights off Alice and then runs away to Yasmine's apartment, hoping to find some comfort.
What is Juanita waiting for in Jo's office?
Juanita is waiting in Jo's office at a magazine company. Crystal shows up for work, having been running late and informs Jo that her 9 o'clock appointment has arrived, despite it already being 10 o'clock. Juanita is then allowed in to interest Jo in giving some money to a non-profit organization that specializes in women's health care, but is rudely rebuffed.
What is Yasmine talking about in her dance class?
Yasmine is boasting to the girls in her dance class about Bill, a man she met on the subway, and agrees to a date, despite her initial hesitance. One of Yasmine's dance students, Nyla, is talking with the girls about her graduation night and losing her virginity ("Graduation Nite"), and later begins to vomit.
What does Jo leave on her husband's phone?
At a restaurant, Jo leaves a voice message on her husband's, Carl, phone, imploring him to call her. At that same restaurant, Yasmine and Bill have a date night together, recalling a story about her love for Latin dances ("Now I Love Somebody More Than").
How many reviews does For Colored Girls have?
Upon its release, For Colored Girls received generally mixed to negative reviews from most critics. At Metacritic the film received an average score of 50, based on 33 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".
What did Shange want from her?
What Shange wanted from her, she said, was not literal translation: “You respond to the energy of her words, the meaning. You’re going deep to the place where she’s coming from.”. There was “total collaboration,” she said, among Shange, a choreographer and a director.
What is a choreopoem in theater?
Gardiner, the definition is not that complicated. “A choreopoem,” she said, “is a combination of all forms of theater storytelling.” Which isn’t to say that it’s simple to realize. In the carefully chosen words of the revival’s in-demand choreographer, Camille A. Brown, “combining text with movement is very complex.”
Where did Shange take dance classes?
More broadly, “movements propelled the language and/or the language propelled the dance.”. After Shange relocated to New York , her favorite dance classes were those she took as a scholarship student at Sounds in Motion, the Harlem studio of the choreographer Dianne McInytre.
What is the significance of dance in Shange?
Shange, for her part, persistently emphasized the importance of dance in her life and work, the way it connected her to her body and her African-American heritage. “It’s how we remember what cannot be said,” she once wrote.
Who wrote the choreopoem for Colored Girls?
“You need everybody in the room at all times,” she said. “Even when I’ve directed musicals, everyone had a set role,” she added, whereas in “For Colored Girls” rehearsals, the team of black women — she and Ms. Brown and the composer, Martha Redbone — were “all in the pot, cooking it up together.”
Does the poem "For Colored Girls" have dance?
References to dance abound in the text of “For Colored Girls,” in both the poetry (“we gotta dance to keep from cryin/we gotta dance to keep from dyin”) and the stage directions. Yet some audience members, Ms. Moss recalled, wondered where the choreography was. “That wasn’t the point,” she said. “This was a whole new form of theater. The choreography was within the poem and the performer. We worked hard to be free in our bodies as we recited the words.”
Who is Aku Kadogo?
Aku Kadogo, another McIntyre student, joined Shange’s crew, improvising in bars then becoming an original cast member of “For Colored Girls.” Now the chair of theater and performance at Spelman College, she remembers how dance was “more public” back then: “Dance was around us, integral to our culture, and Ntozake captured that. She caught it with language.”
What is the theme of For Colored Girls?
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. They feel lonely even when they are amongst people, describing crowded cities filled with leering men, the threat of domestic abuse, and a pervading sense of cruelty, racism, and indifference. In terms of their interior lives, many of the women are profoundly estranged from their lovers, their friends, and even themselves. Ultimately, they realize that in order to be fulfilled in love, they must accept themselves and rely on their fellow women for support.
What do the women in For Colored Girls learn?
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. As young women, they make the mistake of compromising themselves in the pursuit of love and meet with disappointment when the men they choose (or who choose them) cannot be what they want. Their sorrows are immediately relatable to most men and women who have experienced a painful relationship. Shange captures the raw pain of unrequited love, lost love, and broken love. Finally, the ladies learn to love themselves and articulate their wants and needs.
What is the sorrow of Shange?
Their sorrows are immediately relatable to most men and women who have experienced a painful relationship. Shange captures the raw pain of unrequited love, lost love, and broken love. Finally, the ladies learn to love themselves and articulate their wants and needs.
Why is the title "For Colored Girls" important?
indicates that Shange's impetus for writing the choreopoem in the first place was to encourage women of color to embrace their identities. All of the main characters in Shange's choreopoem are women of color, and their racial identity and gender affects the perspective through which the audience experiences ...
What are the women's stories in the play "Toussaint"?
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”). As the choreopoem progresses, the women navigate the various ups and downs of romantic relationships, the sustenance that comes from female friendships, and the movement toward an understanding of one’s place in the world. In this way, these poems highlight certain rites of passage - both official and unofficial.
How do the women in the choreopem start out?
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... moves the women from ignorance and confusion to self-awareness and self-actualization. The women learn to celebrate their physical appearance, their female friendships, their scars, their successes, and their connection to something more powerful and divine. By the end of the piece, they become fully-fledged human beings, unique and powerful, glorious even when flawed.
What is the importance of music and dance in a choreopoem?
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, ...
