‘No blacks on the cats’: Fashion‘s diversity problem
Megan K. Scott
NEW YORK — “What happened to all the black people on the runway?” asked model Tyson Beckford, who attended several shows at New York Fashion Week. “There are no blacks on the cats.”
Naomi Campbell put it another way: “Women of color are not a trend. That’s the bottom line.”
And while Campbell wasn’t invited to the shows last week and didn’t attend, the supermodel may have been on to something. It seems that while the fashion industry was worrying about how skinny models were, it was neglecting another problem: how white they were. There were drops of color here and there, but with the exception of a couple of shows, the runways were lined with pallid, bony bodies. Full story
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Jones’ ‘Chapel’ seeks sense behind headlines
Erin Washington
“Chapel/Chapter” — the latest work by African American choreographer Bill T. Jones, which had its Boston premiere last night at the Institute of Contemporary Art and runs through Feb. 16 — is what you might call a physical research project.
The assignment is two-fold: examine the connection between the masses and the media, and determine how media viewers relate to, and attempt to make sense of, the often confusing and troubling stories they see in the daily news.
This sort of social commentary is nothing new for the New York City-based Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, which last year celebrated a quarter-century as one of the most innovative and respected outfits in contemporary dance.
Over the past 25 years, the company has presented works like 1990’s “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land,” which used the physical medium to examine traditional attitudes toward race, sexuality and fear, and the recent touring piece “Blind Date,” a meditation on foundational American ideals like patriotism, honor and service that John Rockwell of The New York Times called “a source of both deeply considered drama and visceral dance excitement.” Full story
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