Date: Saturday, February 11, 2012
Time: 7-9pm
Venue: Laughing Lotus Yoga NY (59 West 19th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10011)
Ticket: $15
Genre: dance and music

DANCE CLASS is a movement meditation that feels like the best dance party EVER. 2 hours of nonstop grooves in the Dance Hall at Laughing Lotus: bangin system, floors built for bare feet, and an arsenal of beats from dance maven/bass freak Natasha Blank.

This is your invitation to LET GO, surrender your head to the intelligence of your breath, shake out everything that holds you back, and sweat out your week with a family of crazy dancers.

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Text by Kim Smith

Just couldn’t help myself – had to send this performance from Jan 5, 2012 through to you. So inspiring. Just a glimpse of what Meshell has been getting into + a nice way to go through her latest gift to us, the album, WEATHER. Hope you enjoy as much as I did. – Love, Kim

Recommended post: Special women around us: Meditations on Meshell Ndegeocello by Dawoud Kringle

Date: Thursday, January 5, 2012
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (NY)

Review by Matt Cole

On Thursday, 5 January 2012, the Jessica Lurie Ensemble opened up a 4-band pre-2012 NY Winter Jazzfest concert at La Poisson Rouge with a very strong set, which was dominated by selections from her upcoming album, Megaphone Heart. Naturally, this band is led by multi-instrumentalist Jessica Lurie, who is known for her saxophone pyrotechnics in Living Daylights and The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet. In addition to Ms. Lurie on the saxophone, flute, and vocals, the band consisted of longtime JLE stalwarts Allison Miller on drums, Erik Deutsch on keyboards, along with frequent collaborator Will Bernard on guitar and a (so far) rare appearance by Chris Lightcap on double bass.

It is very hard to pin down the JLE with regards to genre or style. The band can go from Balkan sounds, to avant jazz, to rock, to gentle ballads and back again in the space of a set (and sometimes within the space of one song). All of the musicians are virtuoso players on their respective instruments, and have excellent listening and communication skills.

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Azam Ali and (most of) the members of Niyaz played two shows in Philadelphia on Thanksgiving week. I left from my home in Maryland on Sunday the 20th and travelled to the northeast suburbs of Philly to visit with family. Monday afternoon I headed into the city and found the venue, Ibrahim Theatre, at International House on Chestnut St. Having a few hours to spare, I sought out the Occupy Philadelphia site to get a first-person view of the encampment, and perhaps some perspective that the media was not presenting.

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Text by by Dawoud Kringle

Last night (as if this writing, on November 17th, 2011), I attended a performance by Meshell Ndegeocello at Highline Ballroom in New York City. If memory serves me, this is the fifth time I have heard her live. The group played mostly music from her newest release Weather. Meshell almost never plays her old catalog. The night’s exception was when she offered a ballad – like reworking of her classic “Shooting Up and Getting High.”

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11/22/2011, Tue
New York, NY
The Graduate Center Elebash Hall 
365 Fifth Ave.
Tix: $25/$20 for members & students, Show: 7:00 pm
Ph: 212.817.8215

DooBeeDoo is planning to review her concert and also interviewing her backstage. Khosh amadi Azam jun!

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Clips from the upcoming documentary exploring the deep-seated biases and attitudes about skin color—particularly dark skinned women, outside of and within the Black American culture.
This film will be released in Fall/Winter 2011. Check out the Dark Girls page on Facebook for updates and information.

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Directed by Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry
Produced by Bill Duke for Duke Media
and D. Channsin Berry for Urban Winter Entertainment
Co-Produced by Bradinn French
Line Produced by Cheryl L. Bedford
Edited by Bradinn French

Text by Flavorpill/Judy Berman
Kathryn Bigelow may have been the first female filmmaker to win a Best Director Oscar for 2009′s The Hurt Locker. But did you happen to notice that for the most recent Academy Awards, the nominees in the same category were all men — in a year when two movies directed by women, Winter’s Bone and The Kids Are All Right, were up for Best Picture? Gender inequalities exist throughout the arts, but they’re especially pronounced in the rarefied world of film directing. We all know a few big-name women filmmakers: Bigelow, Sofia Coppola, Susan Seidelman, Catherine Hardwicke, Nora Ephron, Julie Taymor. In honor of International Women’s Day, we present ten great, contemporary female directors who you may not know but should definitely check out.

Nicole Holofcener

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Text by Anika Lani

Video interviews by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

In Vodou Brooklyn, Five Ceremonies with Marie Carmel, photographer Stephanie Keith captures the frenetic and sometimes severe essence of what Haitians practicing Vodou call the lwa or spirits.  Each lwa represents a tunnel of darkness alight with an internal divine/human adventure of the unknown.  Stephanie Keith earned a Master’s degree in photography from New York University and a certificate in Photojournalism from the International Center of Photography.  While embossing her professional career with photos and articles published in the New York Times, Rolling Stone and the Christian Science Monitor, she was called to explore local themes of religious adherence and popular culture.Three years ago she was invited to a party in a Brooklyn basement. Ms. Keith’s first attendance to a Haitian ceremony was no ordinary jam, but one replete with and women and men proffering themselves, beaming hubris peacock-style, as potential mates.  Ms. Keith entered an uncharted dimension and became a puzzle piece to a larger specific ritual of drumming from an ethereal reservoir of elements that descend into experienced human forms. The spirits are sought for their cosmic powers as political and social stars of improvement and placation in Haitian life.

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Date: March 3, 2011 
Venue: Brooklyn Public Library’s the Dweck Center

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Reviewd by Matt Cole

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