Month: June 2020

As Art Basel opens online, African-American galleries are glaringly absent. More…

Over the last several weeks in response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and Ahmaud Arbery, two groups of employees inside two separate Boston theaters have sent their employers demands. In each case, the aim is to hold theaters accountable and ask them to do more than utter Black Lives Matter and place George Floyd’s name on their marquee and social media. They’re asking for pay equity, changes to workplace culture, and an acknowledgment of how cultural organizations have been complicit in creating an environment that can make BIPOC (Black, indigenous, people of color) feel unwelcome at best and hinder their careers at worst. Nearly a dozen Black artists in Boston spoke to WBUR about how they’ve managed to navigate the rampant systemic racism that has existed for decades. More…

By Heathcliff Saunders

Theatrical storytelling is all about using bodies onstage. Representation among those bodies is a noble effort, an effort that I believe has already begun, and even before this particular moment of American upheaval. Musicals are using Black bodies in their storytelling more often every day, which bodes well for representation, and I applaud and support these efforts. Theatrical producers and directors and writers and composers are all being called to hire more Black bodies, cast more Black bodies, listen to more Black bodies, use more Black bodies. See more Black bodies.

But Black bodies are not Black lives, and Black lives are not Black bodies. More bodies alone will not change the story of Blackness we’ve been telling. To think that it will is to believe the story of Blackness we’ve been telling. More…

Kaisha S. Johnson, Founding Director of Women of Color in the Arts: I’ve gone from awe to agony to anger in the course of three days. According to my spiritual goddess guide Audre Lorde, those uses of anger can be a powerful source of energy in serving progress and change. I’d say that my anger is more than a valid emotion in this moment. But actually, my ire hasn’t manifested from the state-sponsored murder of yet another Black man and the social unrest that has ensued since. That elicits its own rage. I’m angry at the arts field’s response to it. More…

As the protests against police brutality following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor spread around the country, several black actors, writers, and others working in the New York theater have come forward to share the stories of the racism embedded in the industry. Many of them described hearing subtly or overtly racist language from powerful white people within the industry and described their frustration with producers and theater owners currently issuing boilerplate statements (like many brands) about the Black Lives Matter movement. More…

Over the past few years, calls for the ballet world to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive have become a regular rallying cry. Most of the public complaints, however, have been about general, systemic problems throughout the field. But this week, as our entire country is reckoning with the devastating effects of racial injustice on the Black community, a handful of dancers have taken to Instagram to directly call out the problems they’ve seen in their own companies. More…

On June 10th, 11th, and 12th, the Broadway Advocacy Coalition is hosting a three-part forum for the Broadway community to heal, listen, and hold itself accountable to its history of white supremacy. More…