Category Archives: Performing Arts

Top 5 Things to do in Pittsburgh This Weekend – 06/28/2013

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

Advertisements Fences starring The Lower Bottom Playaz. Oakland CA. October 2013. http://www.lowerbottomplayaz.com http://www.TalesofIronandWater.com

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Theatre Review: Fences by August Wilson (Metro)

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

Advertisements Fences starring The Lower Bottom Playaz. Oakland CA. October 2013. http://www.lowerbottomplayaz.com http://www.TalesofIronandWater.com

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As Promised: My Final English Paper

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

Advertisements Fences starring The Lower Bottom Playaz. Oakland CA. October 2013. http://www.lowerbottomplayaz.com http://www.TalesofIronandWater.com

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The Importance of August Wilson to American Theater

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

Advertisements 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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Arts, Craft, I'm Just Saying!, Life., non fiction essay, North American African Perspective, Performing Arts, Tales of Iron and Water, Theater | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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

True North: Me and Wilson

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

Advertisements 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. … 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

Advertisements 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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Arts, journal, non fiction essay, North American African Perspective, Performing Arts, Theater | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

In the sorrowful funk and divine fury of the music there is a delicately etched study of humanity for us to consider if we want more than entertainment from our theater. Continue reading →

Posted in Black Arts, Craft, North American African Perspective, Performing Arts, Theater | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments