The triumphant, masterful production of The Black Clown—that performed its New York City premiere from July 24-27th as part of the 2019 annual Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival—offered a theatricalized glimpse into the journey and experiences of a Black person in America. When I encountered what bass-baritone Davóne Tines—who performed the title role and adapted the piece along with composer Michael Schachter from Langston Hughes’ poem about a Black man’s resilience against a legacy of oppression—said about The Black Clown, I knew had to witness it firsthand: “When I first read The Black Clown it was like receiving a revelation that
Tag: circus
Cirque du Soleil VOLTA Brings Its New Big Top Show to The New York Area
There is simply nothing that can compare to the circus -- the dazzle, danger and derring-do, the shrieks of joy and gasps of amazement at the sheer feats of human accomplishment, both bizarre and beautiful at the same time. The “under-the-big-top” traveling, tented circuses have been around for hundreds of years and the origins of the acts, from juggling to contortion, for thousands of years, utilized to entertain both royal courts and street corners. But like all art forms, circus has fallen in and out of fashion over the eras as increasingly sophisticated audiences demanded much more than the mere