Two best friends break into a warehouse and uncover strange artifacts that unleash incredible powers. Continue reading
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Author: OutandAboutnycmag
3/29/15 O&A Gospel Sunday: The Edwin Hawkins Singers
The Edwin Hawkins Singers- Oh Happy Day with Shirley Miller and Ain’t It Like Him featuring Tramaine and Walter Hawkins. He is one of the originators of the urban contemporary gospel sound. Edwin Hawkins Singers is probably best known for his arrangement of Oh Happy Day (1968–69), which was included on the Songs of the Century list. Continue reading
3/28/15 O&A Its Saturday Anything Goes: The League Of Extraordinary Dancers -Episode One – The Tale Of Trevor Drift
The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, commonly called The LXD, was a 2010–2011 web series about two groups of rival dancers: The Alliance of the Dark who are the villains and The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, the heroes, who discover they have superpowers referred to as “the Ra” through their dance abilities. The entire story takes place over hundreds of years, beginning in the 1920s up to the year 3000. Continue reading
3/27/15 O&A Shall We Dance Friday: Serenade
Serenade is a ballet by George Balanchine to Tschaikovsky’s 1880 Serenade for Strings in C, Op. 48. Students of the School of American Ballet gave the first performance on Sunday, 10 June 1934 on the Felix M. Warburg estate in White Plains, N.Y., where Mozartiana had been danced the previous day. This was the first ballet Balanchine choreographed in the United States. Continue reading
3/26/15 O&A Throwback Thursday: Missy Elliott
Melissa Arnette “Missy” Elliott is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, and record producer with childhood friend and producer Timbaland. In the late 1990s, Elliott expanded her career as a solo artist and rapper, eventually winning five Grammy Awards and selling over 30 million records in the United States. Elliott is the only female rapper to have six albums certified platinum by the RIAA, including one double platinum for her 2002 album Under Construction. Elliott is also known for a series of hits and diverse music videos, including The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly), Hot Boyz, Get Ur Freak On, Work It, and the Grammy award-winning video for Lose Control. Continue reading
3/24/15 O&A: Only In The Darkness Can You See The Stars- Dance Of The Village Elders Perform Friday
The Harlem Hospital Auxiliary, in partnership with the Ailey Arts In Education & Community Programs, presents The Dance Of The Village Elders in Only In The Darkness Can You See The Stars on Friday, March 27; 6pm in the Herbert Cave Auditorium located on the 2nd floor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Pavilion at Harlem Hospital Center, 560 Lenox Avenue at 135 Street. The program title Only In The Darkness Can You See The Stars was a statement made by Martin Luther King Jr. during the bleakest days of the civil rights struggle. Continue reading
3/25/15 Wildin Out Wednesday: Three Looks At Richard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was a comedian, actor, film director, social critic, satirist, writer, and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities and profanity, as well as racial epithets. O&A NYC Magazine takes a look at three different points in Pryor’s groundbreaking career. Continue reading
3/24/15 O&A Inspirational Tuesday: Never Give Up – Yolanda Adams
Keep the dream alive, don’t let it die
If something deep inside keeps inspiring you to try, don’t stop
And never give up, don’t ever give up on you
Don’t give up Continue reading
3/21/15 O&A Dance- REVIEW: Ailey II- Breakthrough
By Walter Rutledge
Ailey II opened the 2015 New York City season at the Joyce Theater with the world premiere of Breakthrough by French-born choreographer Manuel Vignoulle. The full company work takes us to a dark world where emotions and relationship are forbidden. Vignoulle’s abstract narrative was the highlight of the company’s first independent season.
Good choreographic structure and strong use of imagery assist to immediately establish his environment/altered reality. Moving in a mechanized uniformity the performers convey a sense of conformity. Vignoulle uses patterns, and isolated movements (such as heads swaying from side to side as the dancers “zombie” walk upstage) to enhance the automaton-like precision.
Occasionally individuals emerge, only to submit back to the group dynamic. These departures are manifested in almost spastic, abrupt movements that exude a sense of anxiety and then suppression. Throughout the opening section there is an underlying and deliberate tension that smolders, instead of explodes; that produced a kind of visual foreplay.
The duet that followed, featuring Shay Bland and Terrell Spence, released the pent-up tension from the preceding section. The costume of pants and turtleneck tops were striped away on stage revealing black briefs and a bra. The ensuing duet was a continuous ribbon of movement. Intertwining, cascading and caressing, at one point Bland walked up Terrell’s back and the stood on his shoulders as he rose from kneeling to standing.
The section that followed is best described as the running section. The ensemble returned clad in briefs and bras and literally ran for their lives. One of the most impressive devises was reversing the stage perspective. Vignoulle removed the ensemble who were running behind Deidre Rogan, but when she yelled, “Wait…. wait”, it became clear she was the one left behind; and soon captured by David Adrian Freeland Jr.
Freeland covered her head under his shirt, and both danced blind under the garment. The duet evoked a feeling of blind terror and victimization. It ended with Freeland exiting leaving Rogan left spent and discarded.
The ensemble returned in their opening attire for a finale section, which served as a combination of a resolution and epilog. The focused physicality built to a coda-like climax, ending with a gravity/momentum induced closing statement. Vignoulle successfully presented a complete statement that balanced unadorned economy with rich, yet directed imagery; the true benchmark of storytelling. Breakthrough is a breakout.
To see an interview with Choreographer Manuel Vignoulle and Ailey II dancer Shay Bland click below:
http://outandaboutnycmag.com/31615-oa-ailey-ii-presents-the-world-premiere-of-breakthrough/
3/22/15 O&A Hollywood Monday: Fire In The Blood (Short Film)
Fire in the Blood set in the early 1920s, a young African American man, Henry, must fight to survive with the help of his two best friends when a town of racists attempt to hunt him. Continue reading
