#Sekou Sundiata | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kemetic-dreams · 5 years

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A slave name is the personal name given by others to an enslaved person, or a name inherited from enslaved ancestors. The modern use of the term applies mostly to African Americans and West Indians who are descended from enslaved Africans who retain their name given to their ancestors by the enslavers.

Changing from a slave name to a name embodying an African identity became common after emancipation in the 1960s by those in the African diaspora in the Americas seeking a reconnection to their African cultural roots

A number of African-Americans and Afro-Caribbeans have changed their names out of the belief that the names they were given at birth were slave names. An individual's name change often coincides with a religious conversion (Muhammad Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay, Malcolm X from Malcolm Little, and Louis Farrakhan changed his from Louis Eugene Walcott, for example) or involvement with the black nationalist movement (e.g., Amiri Baraka and Assata Shakur).

Some organizations encourage African-Americans to abandon their slave names. The Nation of Islam is perhaps the best-known of them. In his book, Message to the Blackman in America, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad writes often of slave names. Some of his comments include:

"You must remember that slave-names will keep you a slave in the eyes of the civilized world today. You have seen, and recently, that Africa and Asia will not honor you or give you any respect as long as you are called by the white man's name."

"You are still called by your slave-masters' names. By rights, by international rights, you belong to the white man of America. He knows that. You have never gotten out of the shackles of slavery. You are still in them."

The black nationalist US Organization also advocates for African-Americans to change their slave names

Assata Olugbala Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Byron; July 16, 1947, sometimes referred to by her married surname Chesimard) is a former member of the Black Liberation Army, who was convicted of the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. Shakur was also the target of the FBI's COINTELPRO program, a counterintelligence program directed towards Black Liberation groups and activists

Afeni Shakur (born Alice Faye Williams; January 10, 1947 – May 2, 2016) was an American activist and businesswoman who was the mother of American rapper and actor Tupac Shakur.

Chaka Adunne Aduffe Yemoja Hodarhi Karifi Khan. Yvette Marie Stevens (born March 23, 1953), better known by her stage name Chaka Khan, is an American singer, songwriter and musician. Her career has spanned nearly five decades, beginning in the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. Khan received public attention for her vocals and image. Known as the Queen of Funk,Khan was the first R&B artist to have a crossover hit featuring a rapper, with "I Feel for You" in 1984. Khan has won ten Grammys and has sold an estimated 70 million records worldwide.

Mutulu Shakur (born Jeral Wayne Williams; August 8, 1950) is an American activist and former member of the Black Liberation Army, sentenced to sixty years in prison for his alleged involvement in a 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored truck in which a guard and two police officers were killed. Shakur was politically active as a teen with the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and later the black separatist movement the Republic of New Afrika. He was stepfather to the late rap artist Tupac Shakur.

Sekou Odinga (born Nathanial Burns) is an American activist who was imprisoned for actions with the Black Liberation Army in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1965, Sekou joined the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), founded by Malcolm X. After Malcolm's death the OAAU was not going in the direction he wanted and in 1967 he was looking at the Black Panther Party. In early 1968 he helped build the Bronx Black Panther Party. On January 17, 1969 two Panthers had been killed by members of Organization Us (a rival Black Nationalist group) and a fellow New York Panther who was in police custody was brutally beaten. Sekou was informed that police were searching for him in connection with a police shooting. At that point, Sekou joined the black underground with the Black Liberation Army.

Yafeu Akiyele Fula (October 9, 1977 – November 10, 1996), better known by his stage name Yaki Kadafi, was an American rapper, and a founder and member of the rap groups Outlawz and Dramacydal. Kadafi's parents, Yaasmyn Fula and Sekou Odinga, were both members of the Black Panther Party. Fula and Tupac Shakur's mother, Afeni Shakur, were close friends, and Kadafi and Tupac were friends until their deaths in 1996.

Louis Farrakhan Sr. ( born Louis Eugene Walcott; May 11, 1933), formerly known as Louis X, is an American minister who is the leader of the religious group Nation of Islam (NOI), which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a black nationalist group. Previously, he served as the minister of mosques in Boston and Harlem and had been appointed National Representative of the Nation of Islam by former NOI leader Elijah Muhammad.

Sundiata Acoli (born January 14, 1937, as Clark Edward Squire) is a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1974 for murdering a New Jersey state trooper

Prince. Abdul-Rahman ibn Ibrahima Sori (Arabic: عبد الرحمن ابن ابراهيم سوري‎) (1762–1829) was a Fula nobleman and Amir (commander or governor) who was captured in the Fouta Jallon region of Guinea, West Africa, and sold to slave traders in the United States in 1788.[1] Upon discovering his noble lineage, his owner Thomas Foster began referring to him as "Prince",[2] a title he kept until his final days. After spending 40 years in slavery, he was freed in 1828 by order of U.S. President John Quincy Adams and Secretary of State Henry Clay, after the Sultan of Morocco requested his release.

Omowale or Malcolm X (May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement. He is best known for his controversial advocacy for the rights of blacks; some consider him a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans, while others accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.

Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, he spent his teenage years living in a series of foster homes following his father's death and his mother's hospitalization. Little engaged in several illicit activities, and was eventually sentenced to ten years in prison in 1946 for larceny and breaking and entering. In prison, he joined the Nation of Islam (NOI) and changed his name to Malcolm X because, he later wrote, Little was the name that "the white slavemaster ... had imposed upon [his] paternal forebears". After being paroled in 1952, he quickly became one of the organization's most influential leaders.

Expressing many regrets about his time with them, which he had come to regard as largely wasted, he instead embraced Sunni Islam. Malcolm X then began to advocate for racial integration and disavowed racism after completing Hajj, whereby he also became known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz

Tupac Amaru Shakur; born Lesane Parish Crooks, June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), also known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor.He is considered by many to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Much of Shakur's work has been noted for addressing contemporary social issues that plagued inner cities, and he is considered a symbol of resistance and activism against inequality

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.; April 16, 1947) is an American retired professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. In 1996, he was honored as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving have called him the greatest basketball player of all time

Muhammad Ali (/ɑːˈliː/; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.;January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist. Nicknamed "The Greatest," he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century and as one of the greatest boxers of all time.

Kwame Ture (/ˈkwɑːmeɪ ˈtʊəreɪ/; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael, June 29, 1941 – November 15, 1998) was a prominent American socialist organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global Pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad, he grew up in the United States from the age of 11 and became an activist while attending Howard University. He eventually developed the Black Power movement, first while leading the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), later serving as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and lastly as a leader of the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).

Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award, in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone

As long as you around here wearing the white men’s name bragging about this so called democracy, you will always be looked down up, by the rest of the world-Malcom X

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blackkudos · 4 years

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Carl Hancock Rux

Carl Hancock Rux (born March 24, 1975) is an American poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, actor, director, singer/ songwriter. He is the author of several books including the Village Voice Literary Prize-winning "Pagan Operetta," the novel, Asphalt, and the Obie Award-winning play, Talk. Rux is also a singer/songwriter with four CDs to his credit, as well as a frequent collaborator in the fields of dance, theater, film, and contemporary art . Notable collaborators include Nona Hendryx, Toshi Reagon, Bill T. Jones, Ronald K. Brown, Nick Cave, Anne Bogart, Robert Wilson, Kenny Leon, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Jonathan Demme, Stanley Nelson Jr., Carrie Mae Weems, Glenn Ligon and others. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Doris Duke Award for New Works, the Doris Duke Charitable Fund, the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Prize, the Bessie Award and the Alpert Award in the Arts, and a 2019 Global Change Maker award by WeMakeChange.Org. . His archives are housed at the Billy Rose Theater Division of the New York Public Library, the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution as well as the Film and Video/Theater and Dance Library of the California Institute of the Arts.

Early life

Rux was born Carl Stephen Hancock in Harlem, New York. His biological mother, Carol Jean Hancock, suffered from chronic mental illness, was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, and was institutionalized shortly after the birth of his older brother. Rux was born the result of an illegitimate pregnancy (while his mother was under the care of a New York City psychiatric institution) and the identity of Rux's biological father is unknown. Rux was placed under the guardianship of his maternal grandmother, Geneva Hancock (née Rux), until her death of cirrhosis of the liver due to alcoholism. At four years of age he entered the New York City foster care system where he remained until he was eventually placed under the legal guardianship of his great uncle (grandmother's brother) James Henry Rux and his wife Arsula (née Cottrell) and raised on a step street in the Highbridge section of the Bronx, later used as the filming location for the stairway dance scene in the 2019 film Joker.

Rux attended PS 73, Roberto Clemente Junior High School and received a scholarship to the Horace Mann School, an independent Ivy college preparatory school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx before transferring to the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts where he studied visual art. Exposed to jazz music by his legal guardians, including the work of Oscar Brown Jr., John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, Rux eventually double-majored in music/voice, and sang with the Boys Choir of Harlem. He also became a member of the Harlem Writers Workshop, a summer journalism training program for inner-city youth founded by African-American journalists, sponsored by Columbia University and The Xerox Corporation. At the age of 15, Rux was legally adopted by his guardians and his surname changed to Rux. Upon graduation from high school he entered Columbia College where he studied in the Creative Writing Program; took private acting classes at both HB studios; and trained with Gertrude Jeanette's Hadley Players as well as actor Robert Earl Jones (father of actor James Earl Jones). Rux continued his studies at Columbia University, American University of Paris, as well as the University of Ghana at Legon.

Career

Working as a Social Work Trainer while moonlighting as a freelance art and music critic, Rux became a founding member of Hezekiah Walker's Love Fellowship gospel choir and later found himself influenced by the Lower East Side poetry and experimental theater scene, collaborating with poets Miguel Algarin, Bob Holman, Jayne Cortez, Sekou Sundiata, Ntozake Shange; experimental musicians David Murray, Mal Waldron, Butch Morris, Craig Harris, Jeanne Lee, Leroy Jenkins as well as experimental theater artists Laurie Carlos, Robbie McCauley, Ruth Maleczech, Lee Breuer, Reza Abdoh and others.

He is one of several poets (including Paul Beatty, Tracie Morris, Dael Orlandersmith, Willie Perdomo, Kevin Powell, Maggie Estep, Reg E. Gaines, Edwin Torres and Saul Williams) to emerge from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, most of whom were included in the poetry anthology Aloud, Voices From the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, winner of the 1994 American Book Award. His first book of poetry, Pagan Operetta, received the Village Voice Literary prize and was featured on the weekly's cover story: "Eight Writers on the Verge of (Impacting) the Literary Landscape". Rux is the author of the novel Asphalt and the author of several plays. His first play, Song of Sad Young Men (written in response to his older brother's death from AIDS), was directed by Trazana Beverly and starred actor Isaiah Washington. The play received eleven AUDELCO nominations. His most notable play is the OBIE Award-winning Talk, first produced at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in 2002. Directed by Marion McClinton and starring actor Anthony Mackie, the play won seven OBIE awards.

Rux is also a recording artist, first featured on Reg E. Gaines CD Sweeper Don't Clean My Streets (Polygram). As a musician, his work is known to encompass an eclectic mixture of blues, rock, vintage R&B, classical music, futuristic pop, soul, poetry, folk, psychedelic music and jazz. His debut CD, Cornbread, Cognac & Collard Green Revolution (unreleased) was produced by Nona Hendryx and Mark Batson, featuring musicians Craig Harris, Ronnie Drayton and Lonnie Plaxico. His CD Rux Revue was recorded and produced in Los Angeles by the Dust Brothers, Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf. Rux recorded a follow up album, Apothecary Rx, (selected by French writer Phillippe Robert for his 2008 publication "Great Black Music": an exhaustive tribute of 110 albums including 1954's "Lady Sings The Blues" by Billie Holiday, the work of Jazz artists Oliver Nelson, Max Roach, John Coltrane, rhythm and blues artists Otis Redding, Ike & Tina Turner, Curtis Mayfield, George Clinton; as well as individual impressions of Fela Kuti, Jimi Hendrix, and Mos Def.) His fourth studio CD, Good Bread Alley, was released by Thirsty Ear Records, and his fifth "Homeostasis" (CD Baby) was released in May 2013. Rux has written and performed (or contributed music) to a proportionate number of dance companies including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company; Jane Comfort & Co. and Ronald K. Brown's "Evidence" among others.

Literature

Books by author

Elmina Blues (poetry)

Pagan Operetta (poetry/Short Fiction/SemioText)

Asphalt (novel/Simon & Schuster)

Talk (drama/TCG Press)

Literary fiction

Asphalt (novel) (Atria, Simon & Schuster)

The Exalted (novel) forthcoming

Selected plays

Song of Sad Young Men

Talk

Geneva Cottrell, Waiting for the Dog to Die

Smoke, Lilies and Jade

Song of Sad Young Men

Chapter & Verse

Pipe

Pork Dream in the American House of Image

Not the Flesh of Others

Singing In the Womb of Angels

Better Dayz Jones (Harlem Stage)

"Stranger On Earth" (Harlem Stage)

The (No) Black Male Show

Mycenaean

Asphalt (directed by Talvin Wilkes)

Etudes for the Sleep of Other Sleepers (directed by Laurie Carlos)

Steel Hammer (co-written by Will Power, Kia Cothran and Regina Taylor for the SITI company, directed by Anne Bogart).

The Exalted (directed by Anne Bogart)

NPR Presents WATER ± (co-written by Arthur Yorinks, directed by Kenny Leon)

Selected essays

"Eminem: The New White Negro

"Dream Work and the Mimesis of Carrie Mae Weems"

"Belief and the Invisible Playwright"

"In Memoriam: Ruby Dee (1922–2014)"

"Up From The Mississippi Delta"

"Democratic Vistas of Space and Light"

"A Rage In Harlem"

Selected anthologies

Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project University of Texas Press

Soul: Black Power, Politics, and Pleasure NYU Press

Heights of the Marvelous NYU Press

Juncture: 25 Very Good Stories and 12 Excellent Drawings Soft Skull Press

Da Capo Best Music Writing 2004: The Year's Finest Writing on Rock, Hip-hop, Jazz, Pop, Country, and More, DeCapo Press

Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, Counterpoint Press

Humana Festival 2014: The Complete Plays, Playscripts, Incorporated

Action: The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Theatre, Simon & Schuster

Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Three Rivers Press

The African American Male, Writing, and Difference: A Polycentric Approach to African American Literature, Criticism, and History, State University of New York Press

Meditations and Ascensions: Black Writers on Writing, Third World Press

Plays from the Boom Box Galaxy: Theater from the Hip-hop Generation, Theatre Communications Group

Bad Behavior, Random House

Verse: An Introduction to Prosody, John Wiley & Sons Press

Significations of Blackness: American Cinema and the Idea of a Black Film, UMI Press

So Much Things to Say: 100 Poets from the First Ten Years of the Calabash International Literary Festival, Akashic Books

Black Men In Their Own Words, Crown Publishers

Bulletproof Diva, Knopf Doubleday

Race Manners: Navigating the Minefield Between Black and White Americans, Skyhorse Publishing

In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights, Umbrage Press

Listen Again: a Momentary History of Pop Music, Duke University Press

Journalism

Rux has been published as a contributing writer in numerous journals, catalogs, anthologies, and magazines including Interview magazine, Essence magazine, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, aRude Magazine, Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art (founded by fellow art critics Okwui Enwezor, Chika Okeke-Agulu and Salah Hassan) and American Theater Magazine.

Libretti

Makandal (music by Yosvaney Terry, stage design and costumes by Edouard Duval Carrie, directed by Lars Jan) Harlem Stage

Blackamoor Angel (music by Deidre Murray; directed by Karin Coonrod) Bard Spiegeltent/Joseph Papp Public Theater

Kingmaker (music by Toshi Reagon) BRIC Arts Media

Perfect Beauty" (music by Tamar Muskal)

Music

Solo albums

Cornbread, Cognac, Collard Green Revolution

Rux Revue Sony/550 Music

Apothecary Rx Giant Step

Good Bread Alley Thirsty Ear

Homeostasis CD Baby

Singles

"Miguel" (Sony) 1999

"Wasted Seed" (Sony) 1999

"Fall Down" (Sony) 1999

"No Black Male Show" (Sony) 1999

"Good Bread Alley" (Thirsty Ear) 2006

"Thadius Star" (Thirsty Ear) 2006

"Living Room" (Thirsty Ear) 2006

"Disrupted Dreams" (Giant Step) 2010

"Eleven More Days" (Giant Step) 2010

"I Got A Name" (Giant Step) 2010

"Living Room" (Kevin Shields Remix) (Mercury) 2013

12-inch singles

"Lamentations (You, Son)" Giant Step Records

Carl Hancock Rux Live at Joe's Pub (forthcoming)

Collaborations

Sweeper Don't Clean My Streets Reg E. Gaines Polygram

Eargasms Vol. 1

70 Years Coming R. L. Burnside Bongload/Acid Blues Records

Our Souls Have Grown Deep Like the Rivers: Black Poets Read Their Works, Rhino

Bow Down to the Exit Sign David Holmes Go! Beat

Love Each Other Yukihiro Fukutomi Sony/ Japan

Optometry DJ Spooky Thirsty Ear Recordings

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (Studio Cast Recording)

Inradio 5 Morningwatch 2004

Thirsty Ear Presents: Blue Series Sampler (Thirsty Ear)

Poetry on Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work, 1888-2006 Box Set Shout! Factory (2006)

More Than Posthuman-Rise of the Mojosexual Cotillion Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber, TruGROID

The Dogs Are Parading David Holmes Universal

Life Forum Gerald Clayton Concord Jazz

Tributary Tales Gerald Clayton

Tomorrow Comes The Harvest Jeff Mills Tony Allen Decca Records

Humanist Rob Marshall Ignition Records

Songwriter

Mckay Stephanie McKay Universal Music

Contemporary Dance (text & music)

Movin' Spirits Dance Co.

Kick The Boot, Raise the Dust An' Fly; A Recipe for Buckin (chor: Marlies Yearby, co-authors: Sekou Sundiata, Laurie Carlos, music: Craig Harris ) Performance Space 122, Maison des arts de Créteil (France)

Totin' Business & Carryin' Bones (chor. Marlies Yearby), Performance Space 122, Maison des arts de Créteil (France)

The Beautiful (chor: Marlies Yearby, co-author:Laurie Carlos), Judson Church, Tribeca Performing Arts Center

Of Urban Intimacies (chor: Marlies Yearby), Lincoln Center Serious Fun!, Central Park Summerstage, National Tour

That Was Like This/ This Was Like That(chor: Marlies Yearby, music: Grisha Coleman), Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Central Park Summerstage, National Tour

Anita Gonzalez

Yanga, (chor: Anita Gonzalez, music: Cooper-Moore, composer), Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Montclair State College

Jane Comfort & Co.

Asphalt (dir/chor: Jane Comfort; vocal score: Toshi Reagon, music: DJ Spooky, David Pleasant, Foosh, dramaturgy: Morgan Jenness, costumes: Liz Prince, lighting design: David Ferri ), Joyce Theater, National Tour

Urban Bush Women

Soul Deep (chor: Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, composer: David Murray), Walker Arts Center, National Tour

Shelter (chor: Jawole Willo Jo Zollar, music: Junior Gabbu Wedderburn) International Tour

Hair Stories (chor: Jawole Willa jo Zollar) BAM Theater/Esplanade Theater (Singapore) Hong Kong Arts Festival

Jubilation! Dance Co.

Sweet In The Morning (chor: Kevin Iega Jeff)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Shelter (chor: Jawole Willo Jo Zollar, music: Junior Gabbu Wedderburn) City Center, International Tour

Uptown (chor: Matthew Rushing) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Four Corners (chor: Ronald K. Brown) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater 2014

Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble (Ailey II)

Seeds (chor: Kevin Iega Jeff) Aaron Davis Hall, Apollo Theater, National Tour

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Theater

The Artificial Nigger (chor: Bill T. Jones) Arnie Zane Bill T. Jones Dance Co; music: Daniel Bernard Roumain National Tour

Roberta Garrison Co.

Certo! (chor: Roberta Garrison, music: Mathew Garrison) Scuola di Danza Mimma Testa in Trastevere (Rome, Italy) Teatro de natal infantil Raffaelly Beligni (Naples, Italy)

M'Zawa Dance Co.

Seeking Pyramidic Balance/Flipmode (chor: Maia Claire Garrison) 651 Arts

Robert Moses Kin

Helen (chor: Robert Moses) Yerba Buena Performing Arts Center

Nevabawarldapece (chor: Robert Moses) Yerba Buena Performing Arts Center

Topaz Arts Dance

Dreamfield (chor: Paz Tanjuaquio) Hudson River Park NY

Actor

Theater

Rux studied acting at the Hagen Institute (under Uta Hagen); the Luleå National Theatre School (Luleå, Sweden) and at the National Theater of Ghana (Accra). Rux has appeared in several theater projects, most notably originating the title role in the folk opera production of The Temptation of St. Anthony, based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, directed by Robert Wilson with book, libretto and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon and costumes by Geoffrey Holder. The production debuted as part of the Ruhr Triennale festival in Duisburg Germany with subsequent performances at the Greek Theater in Siracusa, Italy; the Festival di Peralada in Peralada, Spain; the Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria in Santander, Spain; Sadler's Wells in London, Great Britain; the Teatro Piccinni in Bari, Italy; the Het Muziektheater in Amsterdam, Netherlands; the Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao and the Teatro Espanol in Madrid, Spain. The opera made its American premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music / BAM Next Wave Festival in October 2004 and official "world premiere" at the Paris Opera, becoming the first all-African-American opera to perform on its stage since the inauguration of the Académie Nationale de Musique - Théâtre de l'Opéra. Combining both his dramatic training and dance movement into his performance, Rux's performance was described by the American press as having "phenomenal charisma and supreme physical expressiveness...(achieving) a near-iconic power, equally evoking El Greco's saints in extremis and images of civil rights protesters besieged by fire hoses." Rux has also appeared in several plays and performance works for theater, as well as in his own work.

Film/Television

Radio

Carl Hancock Rux was the host and artistic programming director of the WBAI radio show, Live from The Nuyorican Poets Cafe; contributing correspondent for XM radio's The Bob Edwards Show and frequent guest host on WNYC as well as NPR and co-wrote and performed in the national touring production of NPR Presents Water±, directed by Kenny Leon.

Performance Art Exhibitions/Curator

The Whitney Museum "Beat Culture and the New America, 1950-1965"

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum "Carrie Mae Weems: Live"

Thread Waxing Space "Sacred Music"

The Foundry Theater "Roundtable on Hope"

The Kitchen "Sapphire: Black Wings & Blind Angels"

Harlem Stage "We Da People Cabaret"

The New School "Comrades and Lovers" Glenn Ligon

Mass MoCA "Until" Nick Cave

Kennedy Center/Spoleto Festival "Grace Notes"; Carrie Mae Weems

Grace Farms "Past Tense"; Carrie Mae Weems

Selected Directorial Credits

"Chapter & Verse" by Carl Hancock Rux /Dixon Place; Nuyorican Poets Cafe

"Mycenaean" by Carl Hancock Rux CalArts/BAM Next Wave Festival

"Third Ward" by Tish Benson/Nuyorican Poets Cafe

"Girl Group" by Tish Benson, Latasha Nevada Diggs, Sarah Jones/Aaron Davis Hall

"Stranger On Earth" by Carl Hancock Rux/ Live Arts; Harlem Stage

"Poesia Negra" by Carl Hancock Rux /RedCat; Lincoln Center; Aaron Davis Hall; BAM Next Wave. *"Who 'Dat Who Killed Better Days Jones?" by (Various Artists)/ Aaron Davis Hall

"blu" by Virginia Grise/ New York Theatre Workshop

"Welcome to Wandaland" by Ifa Bayeza/ Rights & Reasons Theater/Brown University

"String Theory" by Ifa Bayeza/ Rights & Reasons Theater, Brown University

"Bunky Johnson Out of The Shadows" by Ifa Bayeza/Shadows on the Teche

Academia

Rux is formally the Head of the MFA Writing for Performance Program at the California Institute of Arts and has taught and or been an artist in residence at Brown University, Hollins University, UMass at Amhurst, Duke University, Stanford University, University of Iowa, University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Eugene Lang New School for Drama, among others.

He has mentored award-winning writers including recipients of the Yale Drama Prize, Whiting Writers Award, Princess Grace Award, and BBC African Performance Playwriting Award.

Personal life

Rux's great uncle, Rev. Marcellus Carlyle Rux (January 8, 1882 - January 5, 1948) was a graduate of Virginia Union University, and principal of The Keysville Mission Industrial School (later changed to The Bluestone Harmony Academic and Industrial School), a private school founded in 1898 by several African-American Baptist churches in Keysville Virginia at a time when education for African-Americans was scarce to non-existent. For about 50 years the school had the largest enrollment of any black boarding school in the east and sent a large number of graduates on to college. For the first five years, Marcellus Carlyle Rux was a teacher in the institution. Such was the record he made that he was promoted to the principalship in 1917. Under his administration, the school reached its highest enrollment and had its greatest period of prosperity. The post-Civil war school was one of the first of its kind in the nation and was permanently closed in 1950. The school's still existent structure once featured a girl's and boy's dormitory and President's dwelling and is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Marcellus Carlyle Rux is listed in History of the American Negro and his Institutions.

Rux's younger brother is a New York City Public School Teacher and his cousin a New York City middle school principal. Rux's older brother died of AIDS-related complications.

Rux's home, a Victorian Brownstone in the Fort Greene Brooklyn section of New York City, has been photographed by Stefani Georgani and frequently featured in home decor magazines and coffee table books internationally, including Elle Decor UK.

Activism

Rux joined New Yorkers Against Fracking, organized by singer Natalie Merchant, calling for a fracking ban on natural gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing. A concert featuring Rux, Merchant, actors Mark Ruffalo and Melissa Leo and musicians Joan Osborne, Tracy Bonham, Toshi Reagon, Citizen Cope, Meshell Ndegeocello and numerous others was held in Albany, N.Y., and resulted in public protests.

Rux was a co-producer (through a partnership between MAPP International and Harlem Stage) and curator of WeDaPeoples Cabaret, an annual event regarding citizens without borders in a globally interdependent world. A longtime resident and homeowner in Fort Greene Brooklyn, Carl Rux worked with the Fort Greene association and New York philanthropist Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel to erect a cultural medallion at the Carlton Avenue home where novelist Richard Wright lived and penned his seminal work, Native Son. Rux is a member of Take Back the Night, a foundation seeking to end sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual abuse and all other forms of sexual violence.

Honors, awards, and grants

Rux was featured in Interview Magazine's "One To Watch" and New York Times Magazine's "Thirty Under Thirty". His essay Eminem: The New White Negro was selected for Da Capo's Best Music Writing 2004. Rux's radio documentary "Walt Whitman: Songs of Myself" was awarded the New York Press Club Journalism award for Entertainment News.

#03/24

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