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Description
Lucy Negro, Redux, uses the lens of Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" sonnets to explore the way questions about and desire for the black female body have evolved over time.
Product Details
Publisher | Third Man Books |
Publish Date | March 12, 2019 |
Pages | 119 |
Language | English |
Type | |
EAN/UPC | 9780997457827 |
Dimensions | 8.1 X 5.2 X 0.5 inches | 0.5 pounds |
About the Author
Caroline Randall Williams is a multi-genre writer and and educator in Nashville Tennessee. She is co-author of the Phyllis Wheatley Award-winning young adult novel The Diary of B.B. Bright, and the NAACP Image Award-winning cookbook Soul Food Love. Named by Southern Living as "One of the 50 People changing the South," the Cave Canem fellow has been published in multiple journals, essay collections and news outlets, including The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, CherryBombe and the New York Times. Her debut collection of poetry, Lucy Negro, Redux: The Bard, a Book, and a Ballet (Third Man Books, Spring 2019) is being turned into a ballet to debut in 2019.
Paul Vasterling's artistic career began at age 10 when he started studying piano, then expanded at age 16 when he started dancing. From this start, Vasterling landed at Nashville Ballet where he became a company dancer, teacher, ballet master and choreographer. He stepped into the role of Artistic Director of Nashville Ballet in 1998, ten years after he began his association with the organization. A choreographer with a deep affinity for music, Vasterling has created over 40 works, ranging from classical, full-length story ballets to contemporary one-acts. With a special focus on highlighting the wealth of artistry and rich history of Nashville, Vasterling's connection to music and passion for community have led to collaborations with numerous nationally and internationally renowned musicians and institutions including The Bluebird Cafe, Ben Folds, Rhiannon Giddens and more; Nashville Ballet has commissioned 22 original scores for brand-new ballets under his direction. Vasterling is also a gifted storyteller with a penchant for creating vivid narratives such as Peter Pan, Layla and the Majnun, Lizzie Borden, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Nashville's favorite holiday tradition, Nashville's Nutcracker. Vasterling's choreographic credits extend beyond ballet to the recent Nashville Children's Theatre production Dragons Love Tacos. Beyond his own choreography, Mr. Vasterling has expanded the company's repertoire to include works by Salvatore Aiello, George Balanchine, James Canfield, Lew Christensen, Jirí Kylián, Twyla Tharp and Christopher Wheeldon, among many others. He has also edited and updated the classic productions Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake and has grown the company from a troupe of 12 to 25 professional dancers. With a commitment to cultivating an organization high on artistry and dramatic power, Vasterling has taken Nashville Ballet across the country and beyond--Nashville Ballet's company made its Kennedy Center debut in 2017 and has toured throughout the U.S. including performances in St. Louis, Charleston and an upcoming debut at the Chautauqua Institution in August 2018. The company has also toured internationally in South America and Europe, and many of Vasterling's original works have been staged by companies nationally and internationally. Vasterling graduated Magna Cum Laude from Loyola University. He is a Fulbright Scholar and has been awarded many prestigious fellowships--Vasterling is a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow, and was selected as one of the Fellows in residence for the 2017-18 academic year at The Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University.
Reviews
From BookSlut: "Lucy Negro, Redux is a proud rallying cry of freedom and delight in the sublime magic of Blackness. Randall Williams is keen on dismantling the trope of the Black woman as the Mule of the World, a voiceless pleasure thing. Combining history with honesty and the sting of personal memories, Lucy is no man's "exotic" land to claim. She rises above, radical mortal instrument of God's beauty." - Vanessa Willoughby. Full review: http: //www.bookslut.com/poetry/2015_09_021280.php
From Chapter 16: "While the premise of Lucy Negro, Redux might be academic, the collection couldn't be further from the kind of antique manuscripts that may only be touched with gloves. These poems are tangible, very much of our own turbulent world. As the first poem, "BlackLucyNegro I," explains, "she's become an Other / way to talk about skin." Williams pulls Lucy's story into this world, examining both historical and contemporary problems of racism. This is a vital book, at once capable of searing insight and complex emotion. The poems speak to our time while giving voice to a ghost." - Erica Wright Full review: https: //chapter16.org/not-a-partridge-or-a-ruby/
From Cider Press Review: "As radical as the integration of Sally Hemmings' descendants into Jefferson family reunions is Black Luce's integration into the poetic ideals of the sonnet. There is more than cursing in Black Luce's power. She manages to bless all her pan-African daughters. If "Lucy own her body/She run many other" as Williams reports, through Lucy, all young women of color embody the platonic ideal of Western Civilization's finest love elegies. Through Williams' reclamation of Shakespeare, African diasporic literature grows redolent with the possibility of being simply good literature without identity subdivisions, as worthy as Shakespeare, not other but Cleopatra to his Anthony, beloved for its narrative skill as Othello was to Desdemona, not separated, just elbow-to-elbow with the greats at the lunch counter, individual but never parenthetical. Buy this radical collection of poetry. Steal it if you must. Read it at all costs." - Ann Babson Full review: http: //ciderpressreview.com/reviews/a-welcome-bridge- lucy-negro-redux-by-carolyn-randall-williams-marches-on-shakespeare-for-black-southern-writers/#.WyAhxyMrKCg
From Chapter 16: "While the premise of Lucy Negro, Redux might be academic, the collection couldn't be further from the kind of antique manuscripts that may only be touched with gloves. These poems are tangible, very much of our own turbulent world. As the first poem, "BlackLucyNegro I," explains, "she's become an Other / way to talk about skin." Williams pulls Lucy's story into this world, examining both historical and contemporary problems of racism. This is a vital book, at once capable of searing insight and complex emotion. The poems speak to our time while giving voice to a ghost." - Erica Wright Full review: https: //chapter16.org/not-a-partridge-or-a-ruby/
From Cider Press Review: "As radical as the integration of Sally Hemmings' descendants into Jefferson family reunions is Black Luce's integration into the poetic ideals of the sonnet. There is more than cursing in Black Luce's power. She manages to bless all her pan-African daughters. If "Lucy own her body/She run many other" as Williams reports, through Lucy, all young women of color embody the platonic ideal of Western Civilization's finest love elegies. Through Williams' reclamation of Shakespeare, African diasporic literature grows redolent with the possibility of being simply good literature without identity subdivisions, as worthy as Shakespeare, not other but Cleopatra to his Anthony, beloved for its narrative skill as Othello was to Desdemona, not separated, just elbow-to-elbow with the greats at the lunch counter, individual but never parenthetical. Buy this radical collection of poetry. Steal it if you must. Read it at all costs." - Ann Babson Full review: http: //ciderpressreview.com/reviews/a-welcome-bridge- lucy-negro-redux-by-carolyn-randall-williams-marches-on-shakespeare-for-black-southern-writers/#.WyAhxyMrKCg
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