Current Event

Current Event #1 (all classes)

Pearl Cleages "Flyin' West" was performed at the auditorium inside the Martin Luther KIng building at Bowie State. The play ultimately has a statement about how race affects a relationship between Frank Charles, and Minnie Dove. The lives of Miss Leah, a former slave, who likes to tell stories about events she has seen in her life, Sophie Washington, who beleives in an successful all black town, and Fannie Dove, a single woman who runs a wheat farm with the other two, are shaken when Minnie Dove returns with her abusive husband Frank Charles.

Fannie Dove who has noticible effection with Will Parish, who is a friend of the family, tries to convince Minnie to work out her problems with her abusive husband Charles, who could care less about the problems of poor blacks. When Frank threatens to sell Minnie portion of their homestead, the family comes up with a deadly plan to stop him. Will and the women of the house gets Frank to try a some pie made with poison and take the deed to her land. Near the end of the play Minnie still has her child by the deceased Frank, and Miss Leah continues the tradition of telling stories to the child. Will Parish, the exact opposite of Frank plans to wed Fannie Dove.

Considering I have not heard of the play before seeing it that day, the actors did a good job of making the characters seem memorable and authentic. Apart from the scene where Frank is poisoned by the apple pie, the actors made the play made it seem as if they were in another world.

Current Event #2 (no handouts, last minute) (all classes)

Current Event

The senior artshow featured at the end of February featured artwork by Janis B. Pinkston, Ulysses Marshall, Stanley Squirewell, most of which are mixed media and seem to be based on the month of black history.

One of the pieces that stood out to me were "The Carbon Anomaly" by Stanly Squirewell. The piece made of acryllic on pigment paint, showed a man holding his neck with Acryllic paint representing blood. The realistic photo seem to work with the Acryllic paint which seemed to come out at the viewer. There was no general mood the picture portrayed.

"I'll Buy That For A Dollar (Triptych) by Stanley Squirewell was my second artwork in the show. This one was a realistic picture of a nude woman with a lime green background. The shading used on the women makes it stand out from the green background. The artwork to me dosen't seem good or bad, it justs seems like artwork that stands out.

The works in the show ranged from mixed media projects including materials such as newspaper and acryllic and projects including hand built cages. Another prop that interested me was a cage similar to a bird cage which locked away a bunch of two monkeys. As a tribute to Black History Month, or not this show succeded.

Current Event #3 (all classes except 396?)

Toe To Toe

4/05/10

On monday there was a film showing in D.C. called "Toe to Toe", set in D.C. It features the life of a girl named Natasha who lived in the projects and had the problems of maintaining "Princeton" level grades, while dealing with a family who seem to have accepted the lower class ghetto neighborhood and lifestyle except for the grandmother who was always strict with Natasha and her grades. Natasha always looked after a priviliged friend named Jessi who acts out because of the fact that her mother never spends time with her, all the while having to deal with the pressures that come with living in a poor black area. The characters in the movie did a good job with the material and making it seem real. The title of the movie seem to be named after the clash that happens between the two main characters during the middle of the movie, resulting over Rashid, the boy who they both have a crush over. During the high point of the movie, the stakes start to get high, causing everyone to want to find out what happens when Natasha's academic future lies in the hands of her friend Jessi.

The way the film was shot seemed to remind me of a documentary of teenage life, and sitcoms about teens in high school, with gogo music. It was nice how they incorporated the dancing related to gogo music considering the film took place in D.C. By the end of the film there is a positive feeling conveyed upon the audience. After the film the caucasion female who played Jessi from the movie was in the audience to answer questions which made me find out that she was an up and coming actress who lived in the area. My overall impression was that the film was wonderfully shot with characters that are good at pulling the audience into the material and creating tension over the intense parts of the play.

Current Event #4 (handout)

As You Like It had the theme of several people lusting for each other that ends in everyone being happy and getting the results that they want. The actors in the play did exceptionally well. Their performances made the Shakespeare-like dialogue worth listening to. Even though it is a love story with an ending that was not too hard to figure out, "As You Like It", was worth seeing. The setting was placed in front of the "Wisemen Center", which was very smart and creative. With a play set in France, its director was unsure of having a Shakespeare type play at Bowie State, and if people would support it. The director also commented on how one gender dressing as another gender would be given the consequence of punishment, among other subjects looked down upon in Shakespeare's time where shown in the play. The play is definitely one that I would go and see again.

Current Event #5 (handout)

Visual Rhetoric explored the topic of what thoughts or subject matter is given by images by the media. It was presented by Professor Stephanie D. Johnson. The film "Ethnic Notions" shown, chronicled racist images and characters made up to portray negative images of Blacks. Fictional characters such as Aunt Jemima, Minstrel show characters, and the people who played them were discussed. Surprisingly enough there were black actors who put on the same material that whites put on their skin to look black. This was the only way for them to make it out of poverty even though it meant furthering the negative portrayal of blacks. After the one hour film, Professor Johnson showed images of blacks in the media today, from the movie Tropic Thunder which featured Robert Downy Jr. wearing "black-face" to Erykah Badu's video, "Window Seat", and whether the images could be justified as something other than negative were debated. The event was very productive, and left me satisfied that I went.

Current Event #6

Senoir Art show feat. Bruce, Alonzo, John, Carren, Sherri

Current #7

Senoir Art show feat. Steve, Nicki, Britney, Mike &Stephanie

Current Event # 8

Bowie State Gospel Choir Senior Show

The Gospel did an hour performance of about seven songs. All of the performances were well done especially the solo performances. The performances that I liked the most were

Current #9

Spy Museum

Current #10

Torn

Torn was held in "The Arc" in S.E. D.C., even though the set up of the presentation took a while, It was mostly worth the wait. First an up-and -coming singer "Kyonte", who produced most of the films soundtrack, opened with about seven songs from his album. Finally, the movie "Torn" played to an audience with most of its actors in the seats. As I entered the theatre, I saw a red carpet which would later be the place where the actors got interviewed. At first I had no idea that these people were in the movie. I felt so out of place in my street clothes, as everyone else was dressed for a special occasion (which It was).

The movie was good but it stroke me as obviously not a hollywood produced movie (as it was independently made.) There were noticeable differences in sound quality. For example in one scene were two characters were walking outside, their voices were not nearly as loud as a from a scene with them talking in a club. Another complaint would be the used of a flashback effect. The effect they used looked like a wild west effect were the screen would be kind of brown-ish. I did not think that the flashback scenes were that far back as to use an effect like that. One more thing I did not agree with were the choices of music in certain parts of the music. An example is the scene where they play basketball, with the main character playing against the man that his wife cheated with. The song played talks about being "fly" and having "bling", and It kind of ruins the mood. The camera shots could have been arranged and shot better, but "Torn" was very entertaining.

The plot of the film follows Delroy Price, who finds out that his wife is cheating on him with their sons basketball coach. Why is she cheating on him? Its not as easy as you may think. He falls for a friend Jasmine Greene, who is faced with deciding if she fells the same way her boss feels about her. He ends up fighting between his wife who once tried to keep a secret from him and the girl he seems to have fallen for, Jasmine. What will the outcome be? Well you already know, but road to the resolution is pretty entertaining.

The director tackled the issues of the parents not wanting their separation to effect their son who idolizes the father so much, and women having a hard time deciding how they feel about men who show them affection. (**SPOILER**)More specifically the wife realizes that she never had a "spark", with her husband, unlike when she was with the basketball coach. Also Jasmine thinks she falls for her boss, after rejecting his declaration of love before, only to realize she wants to be with Delroy. (**SPOILER**).

Current #11

Paige in Full

his presentation held in "Flashpoint" in Northwest D.C. The performer Paige Hernandez and her brother who was the D.J. gave a performance which they said was in inspired by Eric B. and Rakim's "Paid In Full". The elements of dance, poetry and Hip-Hop, new and old-school were incorporated in the hour show that talked about why Paige loves hip-hop so much and how and why she incorporated it in her life. The setting was in a small room with a table decorated with old-school hip-hop albums and the materials on the table for the D.J.

Paige Hernandez discussed her life as a child mixed with black, cuban, and asian decent. Topics such as how the other kids treated her, stereotypes associated with each race, gang violence in her hometown of Baltimore and an abusive relationship were expressed through plenty of dancing, poetry, free styling. At one point she talks about having an identity crisis by performing dances associated with each race, and speaking in the language of each race. She spoke of living in Baltimore, and aspects of its culture that has affected her, such as the club music. Near the end of the play Paige speaks of how the death of Tupac affected her, considering they went to school and rapped together which certainly surprised everyone who did not know her age. Near the end of the play, it is assumed that she "met" hip-hop, which become her one love after an abusive relationship. And of course the DJ was an important part of the show. Besides playing the "soundtrack" to her life, he showed of the element of sampling records in hip-hop by playing some of the most sampled records.

Overall seeing Paige In Full was a good thing mostly because of Paige's spontaneous performance and dance moves. Paige's emotion during the dramatic parts made me relate to her story even more. From the hip-hop sampling section to free styled were all memorable parts to an excellent show. I was looking forward to a part where the audience got to answer questions but the performers abruptly left.

Current #12-14

Hirshhorn Exhibits