Hi, My name is Cecey and welcome to my podcast. I will be talking about Ntozake Shange’s For colored girls choreopem in relation to Joyce Scott, Faith Ringgold and a few themes from the course thus far. In Shange’s For Colored Girls only, there is a scene in which a black woman is coerced into marrying a man named Beau Willie who is verbally and physically abusive. He asks her to marry him and when she refuses, he ends up murdering her children by dropping them from a window of what seems to be a tall high rise apartment. Joyce Scott, an artist who makes art out of beads has a piece called “The sneak.” This piece is of a woman’s head detached from her and on her neck, bodies of men that are not her husband. This piece portrays a domestic violent situation in which a man kills his wife because he thinks she was sneaking around with other men. Both artists produce work that brings awareness to domestic violence by black men. They control their art and in doing so control what side of black women they want to show. In these specific pieces of art, they showcase the situations black women go through with their partners who you’d think would have their back but sometimes it turns out that black women suffer within their own communities and not just outside of their race which is why intersectionality is important. Intersectionality allows us to understand the struggles of black women in both aspects of gender and race. As you may recall from the group presentation, we talked about how Shange’s For Colored Girls choreopoem was not accepted as theatre because it was not made in the same style as other theatre material. This is ironic because the choreopoem is about giving voice to black women and their struggles. Faith Rinngold is another artist who made paintings inspired by the struggles and achievements she and other black women specifically black activists and leaders in her work experienced. She drew from various arts but one important thing she made use of was political texts inspired by Chinese art. She used political texts to confront issues that she and other black women went through one of them being lack of inclusion of political arts by black women at a political documenta in Europe As you can conclude, both artists use their platforms and works to give a voice to black women and both went through similar situations with lack of recognition of their works. As I briefly mentioned earlier, Shange’s For Colored Girls addresses issues of both racism and sexism in her work. From the scene where a woman is getting harassed in Harlem by black men to the scene where a black woman is sitting in an abortion chair uncomfortably with a white doctor, the theme of intersectionality is addressed throughout this choreopoem. The crooked room theme is also prevalent as Shange uses this choreopoem to highlight how black women are trying to find their upright. One of those uprights in the choreopoem is how the women are happy after making friends and companionship with other black women through similar experiences. Another is the women finding happiness within themselves. Note that she does not make an upright revolve around a man. The last theme I want to point out is the complexities of black women. By creating this choreopoem how she does, she allows for the audience to see the different types of black women and their struggles. She shows the women as lovers, mothers, friends and workers. She shows them happy, sad, angry, heartbroken and healing.

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Ntozake Shange