Saturday, February 18, 2012

NYTimes.com: 'African American History Month – JOSEPHINE BAKER: Black Diva in a White Man’s World'


[Josephine Baker (CinemaArtsCentre.org)]



Members: $9 / Public: $13
Includes Reception and Book Signing
Tickets available at the Box Office,
or by calling 800-838-3006

A revealing documentary about one of the most famous and popular performing artists of the 20th century. Her legendary banana belt dance created theater history. The film portrays the artist in the mirror of European colonial clichés as well as a resistance fighter, an ambulance driver during WW11, and an outspoken activist against racial discrimination involved in the worldwide Black Consciousness movement of the 20th century. For black Americans, Baker became ‘a role model’. Baker herself 'wasn’t allowed to be the real American she wanted to be.' In an article she says, 'I had been suffocating in the United States…A lot of us left, not because we wanted to leave, but because we couldn’t stand it any more…' During the mid-1920s Baker found fame in Paris, performing at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees and eventually the Folies Bergeres.”




1 comment:

Wilmer Wise said...

I played in the orchestra which accompanied Josephine Baker at Carnegie Hall and the Loews Victoria on 125th Street in 1972......I think. A recording of that show was made and I don't think it was ever released. It was an unforgettable experience!