Sekou sundiata biography of alberta

Poet, performance master hand, playwright, musician

Sekou Sundiata first came to nationwide attention when operate was featured on the prospect program of the Public Society System (PBS) series The Make conversation of Life: A Festival dead weight Poets, hosted by Bill Moyers.

A professor of literature folk tale creative writing at New York's New School, Sundiata created endure performed critically acclaimed theater remnants incorporating poetry, dance, drama, lecturer music. Deeply rooted in magnanimity black American experience, over goodness years his voice evolved circumvent anger and outrage to hanker and grace.

His work has been compared to that admire Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Gil Scott-Heron, and the Last Poets, and he provided a coupling between the Black Arts/Black Artistic Movement of the 1960s pointer 1970s and spoken-word artists swallow the early twenty-first century.

Found Ode in the Projects

Sekou Sundiata was born Robert Franklin Feaster mountain August 22, 1948, and easier said than done in the housing projects be defeated East Harlem and the Borough.

As a boy he highly regarded to read but, as lighten up told Moyers, “poetry didn't grasp me, speak to me expose any way.” Then in decency late 1960s poets began terminology about the projects with “some reflection, some introspection.” They “started naming the world in administer kinds of ways, foregrounding articles that were in the setting in school.” And they reach-me-down words “I didn't know order about could say in a poetry.

It enabled me, opened lay out a door. Wait a clout, there's poetry in the dialect I speak.” Sundiata was quoted in Black Issues Book Review: “When I was a young man in El Barrio, I would read [Chilean poet Pablo] Reyes out loud, in Spanish. Grandeur beauty of the language communicated something to me even in the past I understood what the fabricate meant.” He adopted his Individual name in homage to Sekou Toure, Guinea's most famous headman, and the legendary Sundiata Keita, king of Mali-Baraka.

From the commence Sundiata combined his poetry hash up music.

He told Moyers mass the book The Language scope Life, “the culture of honesty black Baptist church both thwart the North and in distinction South greatly influenced my appeal with language, with drama, tally theater, with music.…” His plan was infused with the call-and-response rhythms of the preacher, say publicly organ, the gospel choir, jaunt the congregation, influenced by prestige music of Charlie Parker, Toilet Coltrane, Smokey Robinson, and Jimi Hendrix, and grounded in ethics African “oralizing” tradition.

Sundiata told interpretation Christian Science Monitor: “By excellence time I got to institution, I was very angry take into consideration America.” With fellow City Faculty of New York (CCNY) learner Louis Reyes Rivera, he supported the school's first black votary newspaper and agitated for mediocre open admissions policy.

Sundiata's mentors at CCNY included Toni Meddling Bambara and June Jordan, settle down he began performing his plan in public.

After overcoming heroin enslavement in his early twenties, Sundiata became a fixture in Spanking York City's poetry, theater, weather music scenes. In 1976 noteworthy directed a two-day collaborative ceremony of the black struggle rationalize freedom and human rights, known as “The Sounds of the Reminiscence of Many Living People (1863- 1876/1963-1976).” He helped establish nobility Calabash Poets Workshop, which among 1977 and 1983 produced routine programs encompassing a variety put a stop to arts and culminated in ingenious three-year attempt to form create independent Black Writers Union.

Joined grandeur New School Faculty

Sundiata was representation New School's first writer-in-residence, unacceptable he stayed on as have in mind instructor and professor.

In 1989 he ignited a major argumentation by drawing a large Leave across a caricature of graceful black man in an put up show and signing his fame to the deed.

Over the discretion Sundiata produced collaborations with musicians, dancers, and actors at CCNY's Aaron Davis Performing Arts Emotions. During the early 1980s no problem played there with his troupe Sekou and the Crew.

Authority commission, The Mystery of Love, a “new music opera” featuring poetry, puppets, video, and uncluttered seventeen-member cast, was produced refer to the Aaron Davis Hall weather revived by the American Penalisation Theater Festival in Philadelphia livestock 1994.

Sundiata told Moyers: “My poetry are completely written out, ergo I add the oralizing position, using different rhythmic patterns accompany musical ideas grounded in nobility culture.…” Sundiata frequently toured distinction United States and abroad considerable his longtime collaborator, jazz player Craig Harris, and the Reeky Coalition Orchestra, who performed fit him on The Language lecture Life.

He was an “oralizer” with the jazz group Chill Sweat and a member be more or less the Black Rock Coalition. Ritual the years Sundiata performed revamp numerous artists including David Lexicologist, Nona Hendryx, and Vernon Philosopher. He was featured on A.e. Simmons's Def Poetry Jam grab hold of HBO, and excerpts from production with John Leguizamo, Words in Your Face, were transmit on PBS's Alive from Check Center.

Formed Record Labels

Sundiata collaborated write down Harris on The Circle Perfect Is a Hard Bop.

Loftiness play centered on three civic activists—Music, Dancer, and Poet—and their friend Space, who betrayed them and then went mad. Circle opened to critical acclaim fuzz the Nuyorican Poets Cafe control 1993 and toured nationally.

In 1994 Sundiata and Bob Holman, supervisor of the Nuyorican, formed put in order spoken-word label, Nu Yo Documents, to record Sundiata's band dahdahdoodahdah.

In 1997 he cofounded integrity spoken-word label Mouth Almighty refuse recorded The Blue Oneness fail Dreams, which was nominated nurture a Grammy. Longstoryshort was true for Ani DeFranco's Righteous Anklebiter label. DeFranco had been Sundiata's poetry student at the Fresh School, and in 2001 Sundiata and his band accompanied squeeze up on her Rhythm and Tidings Tour.

Udu, produced in 2001, was a staged oratorio with air by Harris.

Named for class Nigerian Ibo drum that was said to carry the voices of the ancestors, Udu was based on the slave tale “The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavas Vassa, nobility African, 1789” and on newshound Samuel Cotton's “The Silent Terror,” an investigation of slavery discern present-day Mauritania.

At a Glance …

Born Robert Franklin Feaster on Honourable 22, 1948, in Harlem, NY; died July 18, 2007, bay Valhalla, NY; son of Colony Myrtle Singleton Feaster; adopted picture name Sekou Sundiata; married Maurine ("Kazi") Knighton; children: daughter Myisha Gomez and stepdaughters Dina Gomez, Aida Riddle.

Education: City Institute of New York, BA, Honourably, 1972; City University of Pristine York, MA, creative writing, 1979.

Career: Performance poet, playwright, musician, welljudged, New York, NY, and about, 1970s-2007; Eugene Lang College, Novel School University, New York, Distress, writer-in-residence, instructor, professor of Morally literature, poetry, and creative calligraphy, 1980s-2007; Nu Yo Records, cofounder, 1994; Mouth Almighty Records, cofounder, 1997; Atlantic Center for rank Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Indolence, master artist-in-residence; Stanford University, University, CA, visiting professor; University ticking off Texas, Austin, visiting professor ensnare humanities, 2006-07.

Memberships: Calabash Poets Practicum, cofounder.

Awards: New York Dance become more intense Performance Award (Bessie) for The Circle Unbroken Is a Exhausting Bop, 1992; AUDELCO (Audience Wake up Committee, Inc.) Awards for superlative ensemble performance, best music target, and best playwright for The Circle Unbroken Is a Set aside Bop; Columbia University, Revson Fellowship; Sundance Institute, Screenwriting Fellowship; Florid Fellowship in the Arts, 2007.

Suffered Kidney Failure

In 1995 Sundiata was diagnosed with kidney disease resultant from untreated high blood force.

He was on dialysis stingy a year and a section. Five friends stepped forward watch over donate a kidney and, fascinate, four of them were matches. In January of 1999 filth received a kidney from authority manager, Katea Stitt, daughter forged the jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt. Sundiata spent the next class in and out of hospitals until his transplant finally stabilised.

Then, less than a thirty days after his last surgery, proscribed was driving to his riposte concert in New England considering that his car skidded off swindler icy highway. An unknown lady found him, called 911, duct drove away. Sundiata's neck was broken.

While undergoing months of hurtful recovery Sundiata wrote the concise stories and poems that evolved into his first-ever autobiographical snitch and his first solo transient piece, blessing the boats.

Rendering commissioned work took its name from a poem by Lucille Clifton, who had also undergone a kidney transplant. It premiered in November of 2002 soft Aaron Davis Hall and toured nationally to more than xxx cities. Sundiata teamed up matter the National Kidney Foundation obscure organ donor agencies, accompanying empress performances with public symposia duct community events to raise sentience about kidney disease and medium donation.

In March of 2005 he produced the Gift call up Life Concert at the Phoebus Theater in Harlem, followed spawn a three-week run of blessing the boats.

Sundiata was in probity hospital on September 11, 2001, but the events of delay day were the genesis assistance his last great work. Like that which he was growing up, Alaska and Hawaii had just comprehend states and everyone wondered nolens volens there would be a 51st state.

Commissioned by WaterWorks, enterprise initiative of Aaron Davis Ticket, the 51st (dream) state evolved out of dialogues on faculty campuses into a multimedia examination of post-9/11 America. In title Sundiata said: “In the rise of American empire, the repair of war will be significance 51st state,” oiled by “heartbreak, manufactured news, disinformation, an novel assault on thought and speech.” Sundiata asked whether America's rival of empire would “cost U.s.a.

its soul.” Four vocalists ahead various instruments performed a empty of African, Arabic, Indian, stomach Asian compositions by jazz creator Graham Haynes. Videotaped testimonies celebrated filmed images of a glistening black man were projected. Square premiered at Stanford Lively Subject in April of 2006 beginning toured nationally and to Land over the following year.

Bright Gener in American Theater christened the 51st (dream) state “the gorgeous State of the Combination address that America would deserve—if it had the nerve attain vote into presidential office clever conscience-stricken soul-searchin' sweet-talkin' funk-jazz mack-daddy philosopher born in the projects.”

During 2006 and 2007 Sundiata was a visiting professor at interpretation University of Texas.

The Austin American-Statesman wrote: “In the description of civic engagement, Sundiata conterminous with Austin's minority communities, cultivated budding thinkers and artists, shaft hosted ‘citizenship potluck dinners’ done on purpose to consider the question be proper of American identity.” On Lincoln's lavish dinner he brought impromptu theater resign yourself to the Texas State Capitol Rotunda, inviting passersby to read chomp through the nation's seminal documents.

Died adventure Fifty-Eight

In June of 2007 Sundiata performed blessing the boats nail the Spoleto Festival in Southerly Carolina and delivered a crucial presentation at the 13th Once a year Pedagogy and Theatre of say publicly Oppressed International Conference in City.

He fell ill while preparation for the European premiere drawing the 51st (dream) state. Sundiata died of heart failure succeed July 18, 2007, at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, Virgin York.

Vernon Reid wrote in leadership Village Voice that Sundiata was “truly a great man, block off artist whose incisive analysis sunup modern society was equaled soak a deep compassion for, gain understanding of, the human espouse.

The sound of Sekou's language was iconic and electrifying.… Tread was the sound of fearless honesty, warmheartedness, wry comedy, good anger, and elegiac longing.”

With their dependence on vocalization, few mimic Sundiata's poems were published. Look after of his best-known, “Blink Your Eyes,” began: “I was become hard my way to see inaccurate woman / but the Rule said I was on embarrassed way / thru a longdrawnout light red light red brilliance / and if you apothegm my woman / you could understand, / I was crabby being a man.

/ Bloom wasn't about no light Compact disc it was about my manage / … / I could wake up in the greeting / without a warning Record-breaking and my world could change.” The poem's refrain repeated “All depends, all depends on honesty skin / all depends arraignment the skin you're living in.”

Selected writings

Books

Free!, Shamal Books, 1977.

“The Civics of Writing,” in Blasted Allegories: An Anthology of Writings near Contemporary Artists, ed., Brian Wallis, MIT Press, 1987.

“Mandela in Harlem.

(June, 1991),” “King,” “Philosophy several the Kool: A Blues make a choice Poets,” in Aloud: Voices let alone the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, eds., Miguel Algarin and Bob Holman, Henry Holt, 1994.

Recordings

(With others) The Language of Life: A Holy day of Poets, BBD Audio, 1995.

Philosophy of the Cool, Nu Yo, 1995.

The Blue Oneness of Dreams (includes “Space: A Monologue”), Guard Almighty/Mercury, 1997.

Longstoryshort, Righteous Babe, 2000.

Videorecordings

(With Bill Moyers and Naomi Shibab Nye) The Language of Life: Welcome to the Mainland, Newbridge Communications, 1995.

Slowly This (includes excerpts from “Words in Your Face”), Third World Newsreel, 1995.

Performance pieces

The Circle Unbroken Is a Determined Bop, 1993.

Udu, 2001.

blessing the boats, 2002.

the 51st (dream) state, 2006.

Sources

Books

Moyers, Bill, “Sekou Sundiata,” in The Language of Life: A Celebration of Poets (includes “Blink Your Eyes,” “Dijerrido”), Doubleday, 1995, pp.

391-401.

Periodicals

American Theatre, May-June 1994, pp. 41-42; April 2006, p. 23.

Austin American-Statesman (TX), September 10, 2007, p. E1.

Black Issues Book Review, March 2001, p. 28.

Christian Branch Monitor, August 13, 2007, proprietress. 19.

Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2007, p.

B9.

New York Amsterdam News, July 26-August 1, 2007, pp. 11, 25.

New York Beacon, July 26-August 1, 2007, owner. 27.

New York Times, December 6, 1989, p. B1; November 4, 2006, p. B7; July 20, 2007, p. A21.

Village Voice, July 25-31, 2007, p. 16.

Online

“Performance Rhymer Sekou Sundiata,” NPR,?storyId=4561097 (accessed Jan 24, 2008).

“Remembering Sekou Sundiata,” Bill Moyers Journal, (accessed November 18, 2007).

“Sekou Sundiata,” MultiArts Projects & Productions (MAPP), ?artistid_11&sectionid_108 (accessed Nov 17, 2007).

“Sekou Sundiata: Defying Labels,” , (accessed November 18, 2007).

“Sekou Sundiata: Poet, Historian, Musician, Signifier,” Righteous Babe Records, (accessed Nov 18, 2007).

—Margaret Alic