INFEMNITY™ Arts and Culture News

  Women took over the Great Hall at The Cooper Union March 18th as part of the Women's History Month celebrations in New York City. Women's Rights icon Gloria Steinem engaged in a fascinating conversation with Salamishah Tillet, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and scholar. The event was part of The Gardiner Foundation Great Hall Forum series and a day of Cooper Union programming, including an exhibition on view in the Foundation Building's colonnade windows, dedicated to lifting up and celebrating Great Women Live from the Great Hall. Gloria Steinem Steinem and Tillet were introduced by Laura Sparks, the first female president of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Hundreds of women and friends stood in line outside of Cooper Union to enter the Great Hall Saturday afternoon. We were invited to return that evening for stellar performances by Tiler Peck, principal ballet dancer for the New York City Ballet; Grammy nominated songstress Melissa Manchester

Two years ago I was the only African-American Lammy Finalist in the Lesbian Memoir/Biography category for Practicing for Love . This year there is NOT ONE African-American finalist. WTF!  While there are no African Americans, there are some women of color represented in the category: an Asian-American, a Hispanic/Latina, and a Cambodian immigrant. The two white women represented are a butch dominatrix from West Virginia, and a Jewish woman who falls in love and loses her father to a heart condition around the same time. These were some heavy-hitting publications from major publishing houses. Kathryn Schulz is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Her book Lost & Found is Longlisted for the National Book Award, is a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and is Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. It is also one of People Magazine's Ten Best Books of the Year, and is listed as one of the Best Books of the Year in Time , NPR, Oprah Daily , Th

  As part of the International Women's Day celebrations at the United Nations, the Permanent Mission of Italy to the U.N. and U.N. Women, among other Member States, presented a screening of a project titled Tell It Like A Woman in the U.N. General Assembly Hall on March 3rd. The film was created by the non-profit organization "We Do It Together" founded by Italian film producer Chiara Tilesi. Before the screening, opening remarks were given by the Permanent Representative of Italy Ambassador Maurizio Massari, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming, the Executive Director of U.N. Women Sima Bahous, Permanent Representative of Argentina Ambassador Maria del Carmen Squeff, and Chiara Tilesi. Tell It Like A Woman is a compilation of short films directed by eight women. The opening piece, directed by Taraji P. Henson, starred Jennifer  Hudson in the role of a mentally ill, drug-addicted prisoner. Eva Longoria also starred in one of the segments as

JEB (aka Joan E. Biren) For the first time in 39 years, JEB (aka Joan E. Biren) gave a live presentation of the restored version of her original epic slide show titled The Dyke Show , with a new introduction and epilogue. The event was presented at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City in partnership with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art on February 9th. In her own words:  "Being Seen Makes A Movement Possible - that is and always has been [my] ethos. For more than 50 years, I have extensively documented lesbian lives, from intimate at-home shots, to front-lines, grassroots organizing and movement work animated by a fierce and loving commitment to breaking down hierarchy and power. This is evident not only in my photographic practice, which questions and queries photographic ideas of 'capture' and 'subject,' but also in my commitment to making these images as public and accessible as possible."     JEB During the 1970s a

It was a long time coming, but the 2022 International Conference on James Baldwin took place in Nice and Saint-Paul de Vence June 16th through 18th. I was excited to be able to participate as a panelist in the session titled "James Baldwin and the Internal Closet" with co-panelist Diane Harriford of Vassar College. Nearly 200 attendees came from all over the globe to sit in on panels, and to view items that had belonged to Baldwin that were on display. As Saint-Paul de Vence was Baldwin's adopted home, being in the medieval village took on an air of pilgrimage as the conference director Shannon Cain took us on a walking tour of the area where Baldwin lived for 17 years, to the spot where his house stood. Shannon lead a one-woman campaign to keep Baldwin's house from being demolished when investors wanted to build on the property. Unfortunately, she lost that battle, but her efforts to keep Baldwin's legacy alive, in spite of objections from Baldwin's family, c

  Pianist/author Nina Kennedy and sociology professor Diane Harriford will share the stage in a discussion titled "James Baldwin and the Internal Closet" at the 2022 International Conference on James Baldwin in Nice, France June 18th. During this discussion, a clip from Renée   Baker's opera BALDWIN CHRONICLES: The Art of Being Black  will be screened. Originally scheduled to take place in 2020, the Baldwin Conference was planned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of James Baldwin's arrival in the South of France. The conference was postponed twice because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, but is finally happening June 16-18 at the Centre Universitaire Mediterranean. Nina Kennedy* Pianist and conductor Nina Kennedy is the author of  Practicing for Love: A Memoir  and  Practice What You Preach . Her portion of the discussion will focus on Baldwin's closetedness in his public life, and his very public "friendships" with Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, and Nina Simone

  Last night I happened to walk into Henrietta Hudson in Manhattan for a well-deserved cocktail, and found a fundraiser in progress benefitting the onePULSE Foundation. As we all remember, the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was the scene of a horrific massacre in 2016 in which 49 people were murdered and 53 more were wounded. The majority of the victims were LBGTQ, and as it was Latin Night, most were Latino and Latina. The club's owner, Barbara Poma, has begun a campaign to erect a memorial and museum on the site of the nightclub.  Barbara Poma "No one can dance there anymore," said Poma to the crowd at Henrietta's, as she shared the story of being invited to the White House to witness President Biden's signing of a bill naming the location of the massacre as a national memorial. Here is the  Statement by President Joe Biden on the 5th Anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting . You can contribute by texting Hudson to 50155, or by scanning the QR code abo

On Saturday March 19th, Chadra Pittman, founder and executive director of The Sankofa Projects , and Michelle Brown, founder and host of the weekly podcast Collections by Michelle Brown , presented a Zoom Event called "A Conversation with World Renowned Pianist, Filmmaker and Conductor NINA KENNEDY as she launches her 2nd book and talks about the women who shaped her life." People from all over the country joined the Zoom meeting, during which Nina read from her two books Practicing for Love  and Practice What You Preach . After a screening of the video of Nina's performance of Schumann's "Widmung,"  the discussion opened with an homage to Ella Sheppard, matriarch of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers founded in 1871. The Singers toured to raise money for the fledgling Fisk Free Colored School, known today as Fisk University. Nina's parents met when they were students at Fisk, and she stated that she probably would not be here today had it not been for Fi

  Polish Ambassador Marek Magierowski The other night I was watching Amanpour and Company , and happened to see the Polish ambassador to the United States being interviewed. Behind him were the Polish and European Union flags prominently placed, and the keyboard of a Steinway grand piano. It reminded me that one of Poland's greatest heroes was pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin. Frédéric  Chopin in 1849 During the interview, Christiane Amanpour repeatedly asked the ambassador what he thought about the United States' refusal to assist the Ukrainians by replacing Polish war planes sent to Ukraine with American planes, and flying them from NATO air space. The ambassador was as diplomatic as he could be, without directly accusing the United States of contributing to the death toll in Ukraine. Looking at history, Poland had rebelled against Russia in the November Uprising of 1830-31. Chopin was out of the country when the rebellion began, and wrote in his letters about being worri

James Baldwin As we are nearing the end of Black History Month, I find myself reading and listening to the words of James Baldwin. He became one of the most articulate voices of the Civil Rights Movement, yet it is hard to find any description or discussion - in his own words - of his life as a gay man. One could guess that he describes some of his gay life in the novel Giovanni's Room , which can easily be dismissed as a work of fiction. We know that he met the man who became the love of his life, Lucien Happersberger, in Paris in 1949, when Lucien was 17 and James was 25. The fact that Lucien was white could have served as proof that, at least in Baldwin's mind, black men and white men could love each other. But unfortunately, Baldwin chose to remain in the closet, using references to "... my wife" and "... my woman, my children..." in his interviews. The truth is, the most significant woman in his life was his mother, and the children he referred to were

  Nina and Matthew Kennedy On February 24th, the Church of the Holy Spirit of Lake Forest, Illinois presented a panel discussion on "The History and Evolution of the Negro Spiritual." Panelists included former Fisk Jubilee Singers Delano O'Banion, George Cooper, Robert Denson, and E.J. Murray. Nina Kennedy was the only non-Jubilee Singer panelist, as her father served as director of the group from 1957 to 1986. The Reverend Mother Jihan Murray-Smith, Associate Rector at the Church of the Holy Spirit, - and also a former Fisk Jubilee Singer - served as moderator. The conversation included much history of the Negro Spiritual starting with its origins on American plantations during slavery, and the importation of African melodies during the Middle Passage. Several recordings were heard including those of Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson. Delano O'Banion While the famous portrait of the Fisk Jubilee Singers commissioned by Queen Victoria was on the screen, Nina Kennedy sh

In 1871, Verdi’s groundbreaking opera Aida had its world premiere in Cairo. October 6th of that same year, a group of formerly enslaved African Americans set out on their first fundraising tour to save the Free Fisk Colored School in Nashville, which had been established by the American Missionary Association in the aftermath of the Civil War. Within three years, this group primarily made up of teenagers would find themselves singing in the royal courts of Europe, eventually singing before Queen Victoria who reportedly stated, “These young people sing so beautifully they must be from the Music City of the United States.” This group of singers became internationally known as the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The Fisk Jubilee Singers Queen Victoria commissioned a larger-than-life-sized painting of the group that hangs in Jubilee Hall today. Built from the proceeds from those first concert tours, Jubilee Hall was the first permanent structure built in the United States specifically for the purpo