Category Archives: Black Arts

The Importance of August Wilson to American Theater

Posted on July 4, 2013 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

August Wilson is a playwright. In my opinion he is the most important American playwright of the 20th century.  His work the Century Cycle is the most expansive chronicle of American life in  the history of American theater. His tale of America … Continue reading →

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Unlikely Magicians

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

Theater offers you a chance to solve a character’s problem, enjoy his destiny, fight along side him against his fate. Theater gives a performer a place to spend the emotional currency stored in an their well of lived experiences, it gives you a place to go when it is necessary to vacate your own reality temporarily for the sake of being able to carry it when you are forced to return to it. Continue reading →

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Seven Guitars, A Glorious Gaze at the Mundane

Posted on June 22, 2013 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

This gallery contains 1 photo.

Wilson meets us where we live in all our drama and turmoil amidst the mundane backdrop of one day following another despite the brutality of the previous one. Continue reading →

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Seven of One, Five of the Other: Half way through August Wilson’s Century Cycle

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

Wilson is a bluesologist and we are blues people. Avotcja Jiltonilro explained to me once that the blues as we know it actually evolved from praise music not from the angst of the American experience as we have been taught. It is our song. Our ever overstanding of the beauty and majesty inherent in life and our heart’s determination to continue beating. Continue reading →

Posted in Black Arts, Craft, non fiction essay, North American African Perspective, Performing Arts, Tales of Iron and Water, Theater, work in progress | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

home in the graveyard

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

brothers hug corner dreamstil they bleedcuz that’s allthey own i woke up lastnight dreamed i built me a homeI pray my grave is not the only land I ever own

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First Funeral, 2013

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

Forever young never to be a grand father early in your day the work of you is done you were like the heat that never found the sun the shine resting in the diamond the tune up before the song … Continue reading →

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under fire

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

how do I tell them stop shooting they are being shot at “its like sport” hunting each other because they keep hearing that they are worthless so they disconnect from the god within hunted by everybody else no chance of … Continue reading →

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So THIS is transformation–

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

I know my role. I am an interlocutor .

I am a craftsperson, an artisan. I create. My tools are word and story. I am an interrogator I listen. I speak. I question. I hold our place in conversation. It is my gift, my task, my purpose in this awareness. Continue reading →

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True North: Me and Wilson

Posted on September 29, 2012 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

When you are on a quest there are some things in your control and others that are left to fate. There are things you can bring to the journey but the more important things are those you take away. One … Continue reading →

Posted in arts scholarship, August Wilson, belonging, Black Arts, journal, non fiction essay, North American African Perspective, Performing Arts, Tales of Iron and Water, warrior art | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

In Search of A Song

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

Every Wilson play I have directed is about Africans finding their song.  The search for our lost song is a part of a conversation about movement literal and figurative both voluntary and involuntary. We have indeed lost our song and we often … Continue reading →

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