African American Ballet
by Donald Cnote Hooker
Title
African American Ballet
Artist
Donald Cnote Hooker
Medium
Drawing - Works On Paper
Description
African American Ballet (2018)
9 in. x 12 in. (23 x 30 cm)
Graphite on paper
Donald "C-Note" Hooker
African American Ballet is a work by California prison artist C-Note, the world's most prolific prison artist. It should not go unnoticed the importance of the work in the lexicon of American Black life.
Ballet is over 500 years old, women weren’t allowed into the ballet until 1681, and professional Tutus can take 60-90 hours to make.
In 1955, Raven Wilkinson became the first African American woman to receive a contract to dance full-time with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo of New York City. She was promoted to soloist during her second season.
In 1957, Arthur Mitchell became the first African American principal dancer in the history of New York City Ballet. Together with his white partner Diana Adams, they danced the central pas de deux in Balanchine’s Agon. The interracial pairing sparked controversy and backlash.
In 1958, African American Alvin Alley founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Ailey was introduced to dance in Los Angeles by performances of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. His choreographic masterpiece Revelations is recognized as one of the most popular and most performed ballets in the world.
Since the days of Reconstruction, African Americans always desired integration into American life, and when white supremacy prevented it, Blacks created parallel institutions, such as the Negro League in baseball, Historical Black Colleges & University in higher learning, and Negro ballet troupes in ballet.
African American Ballet was inspired by a photo of the Dance Theatre of Harlem that featured ballet performers Eddie J. Shellman and Judy Tyrus in Le Corsaire Pas De Deux.
The photo was published in the 1989 book, Black Tradition in American Dance by Richard A. Long, with photographs selected and annotated by Joe Nash, published in 1989, by Smithmark Publishers Inc., p. 155.
In the realm of figurative art, the subject's background is all important. C-Note makes use of the complementary monochrome of black and white to create the illusion of 3D on the surface of his two dimensional paper.
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August 9th, 2018
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