conception
Shange's work on for colored girls would be a rapid ascent from inception (1974) to it s eventual Obie award-winning status (1977). She explored culturally and historically significant time periods in the Black experience with her writings. Pulling inspiration from her personal experience, Shange backdrop in her formative years was the politically tense 1960’s, with the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Arts movement. Black poets such as Ishmael Reed and Nikki Giovanni, who were both apart of the art movement, would ultimately become big inspirations for her poetry. Shange gives homage to the poets and musicians that were her contemporaries in the arts.
She used poet Judy Grahn's The Common Woman as both a thematic and structural model for these choreopoems, evolving it to reject traditional western drama forms for an honest representation of Black culture.
Returning home to Oakland after teaching a women's studies course, she remembered feeling rather depressed til witnessing a miraculous sight. "I was driving the No. 1 highway in Northern California and I was overcome by the appearance of two parallel rainbows," recalls the author."I had a feeling of near death or near catastrophe. Then I drove through the rainbow...and put that together to form the title." That serendipitous moment was Shange's realization that it was necessary for her to live in spite of her pain. She had something to say, but for all the other women she loved and imagined could very well be suffering in that very same vein.
for colored girls began in 1974 as a singular poem, developing later into a collection. She first penned "one", a poem about a temptress who uses her sexuality as a means of revenge for heartbreak. The title for colored girls would come from this poem, the term used so her "grandmother would understand... I wanted to get back to the brass tacks of myself as a child; I was a regular colored girl..." While cultivating these poems, Shange was studying dance and movement with two dance companies, and these sensibilities would manifest into the text. Her teachers on the west coast included Halifu Osumare, Ed Mock and Raymond Sawyer. She would perform these in women's bars (like the Bacchanal)and coffeehouses at night, while still teaching during the day. Paula Moss began to choreograph these performances, and also fed stories that Shange would later include into the collection.
Now that buzz was growing around the production, the venue needed to expand as well. It was at Minnie's Can-Do Club in Fillmore that the show was listed as a "must see" in The Bay Guardian. With this pickup in buzz, Shange and Moss would then take for colored girls cross-country to perform it in New York venues like the Nuyorican and Studio Rivbea. She was supported heavily by the Nuyorican and working Third World Communications, resources which housed these early readings and promoted her works.
Here in New York, Shange's poems were avant-garde and improvisational. She would read the poems in whichever order she pleased, and improvise dance numbers with troupes on the spot. She caught the attention of Oz Scott, a stage manager who would help give the show some form. Scott would gather the actresses to join both Moss and Shange in the show, and they contributed their own individualism to the work. With Scott, she also would name the characters after their colors to help discern and individualize their personalities. At the end of 1975, they presented the show they had to Gail Papp, director of play development for the New York Shakespeare Festival. She was overcome with emotion and immediately brought it to her husband's attention, legendary director Joseph Papp.
She used poet Judy Grahn's The Common Woman as both a thematic and structural model for these choreopoems, evolving it to reject traditional western drama forms for an honest representation of Black culture.
Returning home to Oakland after teaching a women's studies course, she remembered feeling rather depressed til witnessing a miraculous sight. "I was driving the No. 1 highway in Northern California and I was overcome by the appearance of two parallel rainbows," recalls the author."I had a feeling of near death or near catastrophe. Then I drove through the rainbow...and put that together to form the title." That serendipitous moment was Shange's realization that it was necessary for her to live in spite of her pain. She had something to say, but for all the other women she loved and imagined could very well be suffering in that very same vein.
for colored girls began in 1974 as a singular poem, developing later into a collection. She first penned "one", a poem about a temptress who uses her sexuality as a means of revenge for heartbreak. The title for colored girls would come from this poem, the term used so her "grandmother would understand... I wanted to get back to the brass tacks of myself as a child; I was a regular colored girl..." While cultivating these poems, Shange was studying dance and movement with two dance companies, and these sensibilities would manifest into the text. Her teachers on the west coast included Halifu Osumare, Ed Mock and Raymond Sawyer. She would perform these in women's bars (like the Bacchanal)and coffeehouses at night, while still teaching during the day. Paula Moss began to choreograph these performances, and also fed stories that Shange would later include into the collection.
Now that buzz was growing around the production, the venue needed to expand as well. It was at Minnie's Can-Do Club in Fillmore that the show was listed as a "must see" in The Bay Guardian. With this pickup in buzz, Shange and Moss would then take for colored girls cross-country to perform it in New York venues like the Nuyorican and Studio Rivbea. She was supported heavily by the Nuyorican and working Third World Communications, resources which housed these early readings and promoted her works.
Here in New York, Shange's poems were avant-garde and improvisational. She would read the poems in whichever order she pleased, and improvise dance numbers with troupes on the spot. She caught the attention of Oz Scott, a stage manager who would help give the show some form. Scott would gather the actresses to join both Moss and Shange in the show, and they contributed their own individualism to the work. With Scott, she also would name the characters after their colors to help discern and individualize their personalities. At the end of 1975, they presented the show they had to Gail Papp, director of play development for the New York Shakespeare Festival. She was overcome with emotion and immediately brought it to her husband's attention, legendary director Joseph Papp.
the choreopoem.
The Choreopoem is a form of dramatic expression through combining song, dance and music.
The term was coined by Shange in 1975.
She stresses importance on the use of music and nonverbal communication to heighten the text to a level of theatricality that poetry or dance are limited.
The roots of the choreopoem are based in African dance tradition, the call to response and the storytelling characteristics of griots.
Using choreography when developing for colored girls helped Ntozake face the trauma in her childhood experiences and reclaim her healing physically.
Shange transformed her own suffering pain and eventual joy into a celebration of black female identity. Judy Grahn’s “The Common Woman” serves as the model for structure and theme.
The term was coined by Shange in 1975.
She stresses importance on the use of music and nonverbal communication to heighten the text to a level of theatricality that poetry or dance are limited.
The roots of the choreopoem are based in African dance tradition, the call to response and the storytelling characteristics of griots.
Using choreography when developing for colored girls helped Ntozake face the trauma in her childhood experiences and reclaim her healing physically.
Shange transformed her own suffering pain and eventual joy into a celebration of black female identity. Judy Grahn’s “The Common Woman” serves as the model for structure and theme.
to Broadway and response
critical response
With Papp at the helm of production alongside Woodie King Jr., the show opened at the Public Theater in June 1976. Shange would perform as the lady in orange.It received widespread acclaim to audiences who were stunned by the production. People were overcome with emotion.
Critics who disliked the show are unable to make the choreopoem fit their preconceived notions of theater, a strict model of linear plot and development in character. Challenging these expectations would have allowed an understanding of Shange’s original plan: to meld dance and poem into performance that deconstructed narratives created by European dramatic standards.
Critics who disliked the show are unable to make the choreopoem fit their preconceived notions of theater, a strict model of linear plot and development in character. Challenging these expectations would have allowed an understanding of Shange’s original plan: to meld dance and poem into performance that deconstructed narratives created by European dramatic standards.
impact
for colored girls is significant in it's value culturally and emotionally. The show is a study into the experience of Black women as a collective, and in its universal reach, it is considered a manual for the American Black girl to help navigate her maturing into womanhood. By gathering the lived experiences of Black women across the country, she has allowed the to be "nourished by each other's creative renderings of their particular and common experiences". Linguistically, Shange broke away from the white gaze by reinforcing her own black female identity in the work. By giving a voice to black women everywhere, she reinforced that they are valid and important.
“Shange offers her piece quite literally to young black girls, hoping that young girls coming of age will...comprehend the full impact of the issues rendered.”-Neal A. Lester
“Shange offers her piece quite literally to young black girls, hoping that young girls coming of age will...comprehend the full impact of the issues rendered.”-Neal A. Lester