Louis Armstrong was in Washington on January 29, 1971 to perform at the Inauguration against the advice of his doctors of then incoming National Press Club President Vernon Louviere, a fellow native of New Orleans.
Carl Van Vechten was a white man with a passion for blackness who played a crucial role in helping the Harlem Renaissance, a black movement, come to understand itself.
By Walter Rutledge Francesca Harper’s new work in progress Fractured Beauty will receive the final studio showing on Thursday January 12 at 6:30 at the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
By Walter Rutledge Kwanzaa has become a nationally recognized celebration since it’s in inception in 1966. The concepts embodied in the seven principles known as the Nguzo Saba are universal in today’s society, but were extremely relevant to the civil rights era Americans of African decent; who were rekindling the concepts of self-determination, economic empowerment…
By Walter Rutledge I know for many of you the arts and related arts events are a minor, if not trivial part of your day. With all the real defining moments happening around us hearing about a dance concert, or musical, or art exhibit is just one of life’s frivolities. What is amazing is how…
The United Palace Theater, originally known as Loew’s 175th Street Theatre, is a church and live music venue located at 175th Street and Broadway in Washington Heights in New York City.
By Walter Rutledge The Bearden Project In honor of the centennial celebration of Romare Bearden‘s birth, the Studio Museum in Harlem is inviting one hundred artists to create new works of art inspired, influenced, or informed by the life, work, and legacy of one of the most important artists of the twentieth Century.
By Walter Rutledge Lillias White at Aaron Davis Hall Broadway star and Tony Award-winning singer and actress Lillias White will perform in concert, for the first time, at Aaron Davis Hall 7 p.m. Friday, November 4.
By Walter Rutledge On Saturday October 29, 2011 the Staten Island Jazz Festival returns to the Snug Harbor Cultural Center located at 1000 Richmond Terrace.
The second restaurant in Harlem I wanted to review for this summer’s NYC Restaurant Week is Ristorante Settepani.
Eighty years ago this month on August 17, 1931–after a lovely day at the beach celebrating a friend’s birthday– A’Lelia Walker, my great-grandmother and namesake, died in Long Branch, New Jersey.
By Walter Rutledge The ArtCrawl Harlem 2011 was such a resounding success that an additional tour has been planned for Saturday September 10th, which will precede the September 2nd 100th Birthday of Romare Bearden.
Harlemites have had enough of a local pastor posting signs at his prominently-located church spewing hateful messages about President Obama.
The July 7th ArtCrawl Harlem fund raising performance of an excerpt from On The Block was a very special and rewarding evening. The excerpt entitled Intimate Strangers was the first sections choreographed for what would evolve into an eighty-minute one-act production. When Artistic Director Sheila Rohan and I embarked on the production for the Nanette…
By Walter Rutledge The Nanette Bearden Contemporary Dance Theatre will perform an excerpt of its full-length story ballet On The Block, on Thursday July 7, at 7pm in the Oberia Dempsey Center located at 127 West 127 Street in Harlem.