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A review by swilliamsj
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
5.0
I am blessed to have seen for colored girls live at the VCU Singleton Center. The girl’s casted in the play gave a performance of a lifetime. I laughed, cried, and cheered to see Black girlhood on full display.
This choreopoem sticks out for a variety of reasons. First, it relies on Black vernacular spelling, performance, an rhetoric which builds a world straight from my neighborhood and childhood: There are girls who talk in ebonics and act in a grandiose way to take up space we’ve been long denied (I’m one of those girls!) and I appreciate Shange’s lyrical pen when writing these detailed scenes of love, lust, hurt, anguish, clarity, joy, and meditation.
Each of the poems flow together into one continuous piece but each verse contemplates a different part of Black girlhood. This play resonated with me and left a lasting impact. So much so that I ended up including many of its insights and passages into my Masters thesis. Overall, this is one of those texts that I must own and will come back to periodically for years to come.
This choreopoem sticks out for a variety of reasons. First, it relies on Black vernacular spelling, performance, an rhetoric which builds a world straight from my neighborhood and childhood: There are girls who talk in ebonics and act in a grandiose way to take up space we’ve been long denied (I’m one of those girls!) and I appreciate Shange’s lyrical pen when writing these detailed scenes of love, lust, hurt, anguish, clarity, joy, and meditation.
Each of the poems flow together into one continuous piece but each verse contemplates a different part of Black girlhood. This play resonated with me and left a lasting impact. So much so that I ended up including many of its insights and passages into my Masters thesis. Overall, this is one of those texts that I must own and will come back to periodically for years to come.