I’m taking a break from my thesis to share a few thoughts I had this week; they are a bit random and may not be related to each other, so I hope any of them make sense. I’m also writing this before looking at others’ responses, so I hope I don’t repeat someone too much. I guess if I do, there’s some common ground:
--I’ve been talking to one of my mentors, Tisch Jones, about her research: Antebellum Theatres of Free People of Color in
New Orleans; her article is coming out later this fall.
She discovered that some of the first theatres in
America were in
New Orleans, including two African American theatres (French-speaking) before the Civil War.
In fact, one of the first Spanish-speaking theatres were located where one of the local bars reside now (Pat O’Briens??)
The interesting thing is that there are few to no theatres left in
New Orleans; so why does a place with so much theatrical history have a dearth of theatres?
Some blame it (economically) on Mardi Gras, probably the most theatrical thing left in N.O.
I can get access to more information about her research, if interested.
--Speaking of Mardi Gras, one of the attractions of the event is the appearance of the Black Indians, or Mardi Gras Indians, of New Orleans. These are real Indians who wear full authentic garb and perform ritual dances. One of the professors at Iowa, Richard Turner, wrote a book about them, and actually tried to get one of the members, Chief Montana, to speak at a symposium at Iowa; problem is, many local groups were offended by the idea of this person coming in his Indian garb—maybe not realizing that he was truly of American Indian heritage himself. I should be able to contact Prof. Turner about getting contact information for Chief Montana and the Mardi Gras Indians, if we’re interested in doing something with the group.
--On the current theatre front, I learned more about a donation project that a few Iowa theatres started to help Dillard University. Dillard lost much of their theatre, including all of their costumes. Professors from a few colleges in Iowa, who worked with Dillard as guest artists in the past, decided to help by cleaning out their excess costume storage and donating costumes to Dillard. The group plans to take the costumes to Dillard in mid-May; by that time, they will know how much more the college needs in terms of costumes or other resources, based on their storage capacity. The rep from Iowa told me that she would let me know if I should ask this group or others for donation assistance after they drop off what they have in May.
But this brings up a larger topic: the effect of the hurricanes on the theatre programs. While my mentor has contacts at Dillard, we’re not sure what’s going on with other schools in the area, including U. of New Orleans, Tulane, and Loyola. The unfortunate situation for theatres especially at many historical black colleges is their department does not get as much support from the college as does the music department or other fields of study. In fact, the theatre space is not respected as a practical space for theatre as a lab room would be for science; instead, the college will use the space for almost every administrative function or admission event—thus affecting the quality of the space. All this, before the hurricanes hit. This obviously could be a common occurrence at other smaller schools, but it’s important to maintain a legacy of quality in theatre departments in all colleges.
One of us suggested working with and helping out an organization or school in the area, so I thought we should also consider any of the many colleges that are trying to their legs up. We could easily incorporate a music component to any project with them..
--Which leads to my final idea: jazz. I mentioned this in the past, but I’m just curious about what happened to the musicians who were displaced by the storm—did they come back? Also, did any of them stay around and weather the storm? I have a colleague who said that when she recently went to N.O., the sound and tone of jazz and music was much different than it was before the hurricanes. That’s quite a statement, and I can only imagine what that means and sounds like. It’s something else to consider.
So that’s what I have; I just hope any of them complement yours or can serve our purpose.
I welcome any comments or thoughts.
Thanks for you time.
--bryan moore
