Introduction: "sing a black girl's song… sing a song of her life": Ntozake Shange

2 CLA JOURNAL INTRODUCTION “sing a black girl’s song … sing a song of her life”: Ntozake Shange Trimiko Melancon In her seminal choreopoem, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, Ntozake Shange writes, “somebody/anybody / sing a black girl’s song / bring her out […] / sing a song of life.” Exquisite, brilliant, and arresting in their poeticism as much as in their centering of black women, these words, these poetic intonations, reflect the essence of Shange’s work. In a similar fashion, they also embody the precise intention of this special issue of the CLA Journal as it foregrounds, elevates, and pays homage— in ways that “sing a song of life”—to the epic work, artistic genius, creative visions, feminist and racial politics, formidable accomplishments, and indelible legacy of the incomparable Ntozake Shange. Given the magnitude of Shange’s enormous and diverse body of work, it is fitting that this special issue constitutes a double issue, a two-volume reflection, of the sheer, voluminous grandeur and expansive nature of Shange, her legacies, and her work. Born Paulette Williams, Shange joined the ancestors in October 2018, nearly two years before the 45th anniversary of her benchmark choreopoem, for colored girls. The time is both right and long past due to celebrate this seminal figure, her legacy and work: a masterful mixed arts enterprise that changed not only how the world saw black women, but that also simultaneously altered arts and letters, the creative and intellectual, while impacting platforms ranging from the stage to the classroom. Creatives from Ava DuVernay, Suzan-Lori Parks, Terry McMillan and dream hampton to Lynn Nottage and Imani Perry are just a few among a host of other influential filmmakers, playwrights, journalists, artists, writers, and intellectuals who have reflected on Shange’s mark on their individual lives and the world. “The word that best describes Shange’s works, which are not plays in the traditional sense,” as one writer eloquently notes, “is power.” No one category or genre encapsulates Shange’s impressive, masterful body of work. An acclaimed poet, playwright, novelist, educator, performer, director, dancer and creative visionary,Shange’s expansive artwork ranges from earlier materials in photography and visual culture, dance, and performance to commemorative and novelistic works, as a few of her titles attest: A Photograph: A Study of Cruelty (1977), Boogie Woogie Landscapes (1977) Nappy Edges (1978), Spell No. 7 (1979) and her first fulllength novel Sassafras, Cypress & Indigo (1982) to Betsey Brown (1985), Liliane: CLA JOURNAL 3 “ ‘sing a black girl’s song … sing a song of her life’: Ntozake Shange” Resurrection of the Daughter (1995), If I Can Cook You Know God Can (1999), as well as her more recent 2017 poetry collection, Wild Beauty: New and Selected Poems, among many others. This commemorative and groundbreaking special issue pays tribute through its cover art and artistic renderings, scholarly articles, personal reflections, critical think pieces, poetry, intersectional case study, and interview, among others. It brings together an intergenerational cadre of folks who—whether scholars or choreographers, artists or activists—have a single fundamental common denominator: Ntozake Shange has in some form or fashion informed, influenced, or impacted the tapestries of our individual and collective existences as well as trajectories of our careers and lives. Ranging from astute analyses to arresting reflections, then, this special issue captures Ntozake Shange and her work, illuminating how each has served as precursors as well as has shaped and continue to transform interdisciplinary fields that range from visual culture, performance, race studies and Black/African diaspora studies, women’s and gender studies, sexuality and (Black) queer and LGBTQ studies to Black feminist studies as well as “third world” feminisms and movements and Afro-Asian alliances, among others. The critical and artistic rigor of Shange’s oeuvre is thus matched in this double issue with a similar intellectual and creative acumen. In “When Art Devolves into Horniness and Pimping: Reflections upon Questionable Creativity in Ntozake Shange’s ‘a photograph: lovers in motion,’” Trudier Harris explores the intersections of sex and art—not so much as concrete aesthetic manifestations or achievements in the text but, rather, as illusive declarations that situate sex as a substitute...