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Performing Blackness

Enactments of African-American Modernism

By Kimberley W. Benston

Published May 18th 2000 by Routledge – 400 pages

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Description

Performing Blackness offers a challenging interpretation of black cultural expression since the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. Exploring drama, music, poetry, sermons, and criticism, Benston offers an exciting meditation on modern black performance's role in realising African-American aspirations for autonomy and authority.

Artists covered include:

* John Coltrane

* Ntozake Shange

* Ed Bullins

* Amiri Baraka

* Adrienne Kennedy

* Michael Harper.

Performing Blackness is an exciting contribution to the ongoing debate about the vitality and importance of black culture.

Author Bio

Kimberley Benston is Kenan Professor of English at Haverford College. He is the author of Baraka: The Renegade and the Mask and editor of Speaking of You: The Vision of Ralph Ellison.