"Narcissister Organ Player" at the Film Forum

By

Last Saturday evening, A&N Salon regular Liz Margolies, visual artist Julie Lindell, April and I attended a screening of Narcissister Organ Player at the Film Forum in Manhattan. I had not heard of Narcissister before seeing the film, but Julie had attended one of her live performances a few years ago and sang her praises. I must admit I was very impressed. Narcissister had received national fame after her appearance on America's Got Talent, and publicized rumors of a brief tryst with Marilyn Manson. 
Narcissister with Marilyn Manson
Her skills as an artist are multi-faceted - a trained professional dancer, she has a perfect body and uses it to display hand-sewn costumes which morph into multiple puppets via layering of the fabric. She also constructs stage sets representing the female body, upon which she climbs and displays her gymnastic abilities.

Scene from Narcissister Organ Player
The words "Organ Player" in the title refer to the representations of various bodily organs which appear on the stage sets, and in her own cartoons in which she travels through the body. On stage she falls out of an anus amid pillows of hand-sewn fabric poop. During the show she also pulls objects from her vagina (i.e., rubber masks, paper signs, etc.) and displays them to the audience.

Narcissister speaking at the Q&A following the screening

As you can see from the images, Narcissister keeps her face hidden behind masks and under wigs. The film shared personal details about her relationship with her parents, and her upbringing in white, suburban California as a mixed-race child. Her search for her identity is very much a part of her story.



Catch Narcissister Organ Player if you can. I am looking forward to news of her future projects and continued success.



Nina Kennedy is a concert pianist, orchestral conductor, and award-winning filmmaker. She holds a master’s degree from the Juilliard School. Her memoir, "Practicing for Love," is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Khatia Buniatishvili: Beyoncé of Piano?

By
Image
Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili April Gibson and Nina Kennedy both contributed to this article to share their respective insights and opinions. April grew up listening to Hip Hop, Pop,  R&B,  and Hair Bands. Nina, herself a classical pianist, grew up listening to jazz and R&B, as well as symphonies and opera. Nina: While living in Paris I got in the habit of watching the news channel “France24,” and was delighted to find that I continued having access to France24 here in Manhattan. Now that most American news channels have become The Trump Show, I became more dependent on France24 to be able to hear some authentic international news. One day this summer while going about my business with the TV on, I heard the news anchor announce a feature story on “The Beyonc é  of the Piano.” I stopped what I was doing to sit down and watch. The subject of this segment was world-renowned Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, who has been referred to as "The B
Read more

Where Was James Baldwin's Boyfriend?

By
Image
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
Read more

Don Shirley, "Green Book," and Me

By
Image
I finally got the chance to sit down and watch the Oscar-winning film Green Book , on the life of African American concert pianist Don Shirley . As I had written in an earlier blog ( "Ebony and Ivory: A Dissonant Truth" ), I had visited with Dr. Shirley in his apartment above Carnegie Hall when my parents were in New York with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The film gave a very accurate depiction of his home and the extravagant, ostentatious décor. The Real Don Shirley in his home Don Shirley was praised early in his life as a genius, a wunderkind whose forte was the traditional classical repertoire. Composer Igor Stravinsky said of him: "His virtuosity is worthy of Gods." But his record label forced him to play jazz, and sent him on tour with a jazz trio. In an interview, Shirley said that his record label wanted him to appear in overalls with a red bandana around his neck on the album cover. He refused. In my own book I have written about facing racism as an African Am
Read more

Anne Gamble Kennedy (Not to be found on Wikipedia!)

By
Image
Since Wikipedia refuses to publish this article because they claim, "The subject's references do not adequately show the subject's notability," I am publishing it myself. I'd like to see any of those editors try to survive as a Black female in the American South during the 1940s and 50s. Anne Gamble's accomplishments are notable as HELL! Anne Gamble Kennedy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Anne Gamble Kennedy  (25 September 1920 – 11 June 2001) was an American classical  pianist , piano professor, and accompanist for the  Fisk Jubilee Singers  of  Nashville, Tennessee . Anne Gamble Kennedy Contents      1 Early life 2 Career 3 Selected discography 4 Notes Early life Anne Lucille Gamble was born in  Charleston, West Virginia  to Dr.  Henry Floyd Gamble  and the former Nina Hortense Clinton of Zanesville, Ohio. She was the younger of two children born to that union. She also had two older step-siblings, Katherine Lee
Read more

Bradley Cooper's "Maestro": Ho-Hum! Another Movie About White People

By
Image
  Granted, most Hollywood films about American celebrities of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s are going to be about white people. But in a film about Leonard Bernstein, there were several opportunities to tell the story about Lenny marching with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama, or Lenny introducing young André  Watts to the world concert stage, or even Lenny conducting Marian Anderson with the Israel Philharmonic. But no. The producers of Maestro chose to ignore the existence of African Americans, except when Bernstein's wife, Felicia (portrayed by Carey Mulligan), needed a nurse more than an hour and forty-five minutes into the film. At the very end, Bernstein directs his drunken, romantic attention toward a young black male conducting student, whom he had just instructed in a conducting master class. I suppose this young conducting student represented the future of classical music. But for a people who had been so discriminated against after the Second World War that young Bernstei
Read more

Juilliard Covers Its Ass

By
Image
On April 23rd, I received an email from the Juilliard Alumni Association director. In it was an email from the president of the school addressing an issue concerning a workshop conducted by the Drama Division. Evidently, the Drama Division invited a guest lecturer who conducted a workshop on the African American experience during slavery. In the words of President Woetzel to students, faculty, and staff:       "I write to you to address a September 2020 Drama Division workshop that has impacted our school community. While I am s haring a message below that was sent to the drama community by Evan Yionoulis, dean and director of the Drama Division, I believe it is important for our school community to hear directly from me.      To live our values requires an acknowledgment of mistakes we have made. To that end, I want to state unequivocally that this workshop was ill-conceived and should not have occurred in the manner that it did. I extend a heartfelt apology to the individuals wh
Read more

Love, Like Music: A Review of Nina Kennedy's "Practicing for Love: A Memoir" by Dean and Petra Aldrich

By
Image
Love, Like Music A joint review by Dean and Petra Aldrich of Practicing for Love , Nina Kennedy’s richly detailed and frank memoir. “For those in the world of classical music, Kennedy’s book is a winner. Her musical talent and technical achievements are obvious to anyone familiar with the works in her repertoire. Moreover, her descriptions of the challenges she faced as a Black woman in classical music provide essential, timely, and pointed critiques of the field. Musicians, composers, conductors – take note!” - Dean Aldrich, father, trained concert pianist, teacher of music and history, and graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in piano performance and music education (Bachelor and Master degrees). “Kennedy’s memoir provides fascinating and essential insights into lesbian history and the experiences of lesbians in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s. Truly, the value of this opportunity to see such a pivotal period in LGBTQ+ history through Black and lesbian
Read more

The Fisk Jubilee Singers at the Kennedy Center

By
Image
Matthew Kennedy directing the Fisk Jubilee Singers of 1971-72 Again for posterity (since all of the articles appearing in this blog can be found online in perpetuity), here is the review of the Fisk Jubilee Singers' concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. as it appeared in Down Beat Magazine in 1972. It is listed in the Down Beat magazine archives . 
Read more