Performance: Aisha Tandiwe Bell

Bear with me folks. I'm going to try really hard to describe what defies description. Artist Aisha Tandiwe Bell's performance at Brooklyn's Corridor Gallery was mesmerizing and soul-stirring. I've never seen anything like it.
Aisha is a multimedia artist. She works in performance, sculpture, and painting, so I arrived at Corridor not knowing what to expect. I found a space that was alive with her installations of Black girls gracing the walls.
When viewing Bell's visual works, I was struck by the skilled rendering of her figures. The Black girls were drawn with sullen expressions on their faces, and had hollow white ceramic faces attached to their heads. I loved the fact that the ceramic faces cast shadows onto the girls' heads.
Other figures incorporated fabric and more of her beautiful sculptural pieces. The repetition of faces and forms, with some emerging out of bodies suggest connections to ancestry. And for people of African descent, ancestry can be fraught with pain and mysteries to unravel. Bell's characters appear to carry around ghostly weights. Aisha says her work "is about our individual burdens, insecurities, and self-prescribed traps, walls, armor, masks, stereotypes, that we wear/carry out of habit, comfort, fear, sloth, and shame. However, my work also explores our ability to transform, resist and escape these traps." In the center of the room was a tin tub filled with blue water and surrounded by rows of ceramic faces. When the performance began, she handed each member of the audience 2 faces and instructed us to bang them together in a particular rhythm. As we beat the faces together, Aisha donned a white skirt and top, and a belt with the ceramic faces hanging from it. She began to wind her waist in time to the beat, and the faces began to clatter and crash together. The sound it created was otherworldly. Bell danced until the faces broke in pieces and fell to the floor. When all the faces had broken and fallen off, Aisha got into the tin tub and began bathing herself in the blue water. By this time the energy in the room was so heightened that the rhythm the audience had started beating with the faces sped up to a feverish pace.
The performance and installation were so powerful. It was the finale of Bell's month-long residency at Corridor Gallery, and what a finish it was! Aisha Tandiwe Bell is definitely an artist to watch. Expect to see much more of her here on Black Butterfly. For more on Bell and her work, check out her website:
http://www.superhueman.com

And for more info. on the Corridor Gallery:
http://www.corridorgallerybrooklyn.org

And check out this amazing video of one of Aisha's past performances:

Performance: Aisha Tandiwe Bell

Bear with me folks. I'm going to try really hard to describe what defies description. Artist Aisha Tandiwe Bell's performance at Brooklyn's Corridor Gallery was mesmerizing and soul-stirring. I've never seen anything like it.
Aisha is a multimedia artist. She works in performance, sculpture, and painting, so I arrived at Corridor not knowing what to expect. I found a space that was alive with her installations of Black girls gracing the walls.
When viewing Bell's visual works, I was struck by the skilled rendering of her figures. The Black girls were drawn with sullen expressions on their faces, and had hollow white ceramic faces attached to their heads. I loved the fact that the ceramic faces cast shadows onto the girls' heads.
Other figures incorporated fabric and more of her beautiful sculptural pieces. The repetition of faces and forms, with some emerging out of bodies suggest connections to ancestry. And for people of African descent, ancestry can be fraught with pain and mysteries to unravel. Bell's characters appear to carry around ghostly weights. Aisha says her work "is about our individual burdens, insecurities, and self-prescribed traps, walls, armor, masks, stereotypes, that we wear/carry out of habit, comfort, fear, sloth, and shame. However, my work also explores our ability to transform, resist and escape these traps." In the center of the room was a tin tub filled with blue water and surrounded by rows of ceramic faces. When the performance began, she handed each member of the audience 2 faces and instructed us to bang them together in a particular rhythm. As we beat the faces together, Aisha donned a white skirt and top, and a belt with the ceramic faces hanging from it. She began to wind her waist in time to the beat, and the faces began to clatter and crash together. The sound it created was otherworldly. Bell danced until the faces broke in pieces and fell to the floor. When all the faces had broken and fallen off, Aisha got into the tin tub and began bathing herself in the blue water. By this time the energy in the room was so heightened that the rhythm the audience had started beating with the faces sped up to a feverish pace.
The performance and installation were so powerful. It was the finale of Bell's month-long residency at Corridor Gallery, and what a finish it was! Aisha Tandiwe Bell is definitely an artist to watch. Expect to see much more of her here on Black Butterfly. For more on Bell and her work, check out her website:
http://www.superhueman.com

And for more info. on the Corridor Gallery:
http://www.corridorgallerybrooklyn.org

And check out this amazing video of one of Aisha's past performances:

Brooklyn Loves Michael Jackson

As the whole world probably knows by now, yesterday would have been Michael Jackson's 51st Birthday. Folks in New York were doing it big, there were parties galore, MJ flash mobs, and all kinds of events. And Spike Lee put together a very special gathering at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The buzz on Spike Lee's big free MJ dance party in the park had been growing for weeks. The event was even moved from Fort Greene Park to the much larger Prospect Park because about 10,000 people were expected to show up. The music was provided by DJ Spinna, and he dug deep in the crates, pulling out gems like "Enjoy Yourself", "Got To Be There", as well as anthems like "Thriller" and "Beat It".

The huge gathering was not only peaceful but entirely positive. People of all ages sang and danced together, with the lyrics to some of Jackson's songs projected on big jumbo-trons so everybody could sing along. There were also cameramen who moved throughout the crowd and projected wonderful shots of people dancing, and folks in costume. One highlight was a little body who couldn't have been more than four (he was tiny!) jumped out in a fedora and white glove, and started moonwalking, hit all of Michael's signature moves, and then he went up on his toes! The crowd went nuts.
Legendary director Spike Lee also doubled as hype man, commanding the crowd to sing and put their hands in the air. He, Tracy Morgan, and Taraji P. Henson lead the crowd through rounds of "Mama se mama sa mama koo sa" on "Wanna Be Starting Something." The Reverend Al Sharpton also spoke about how Michael broke down barriers and changed the face of music, and tied Michael Jackson's legacy to that of Ted Kennedy's and other pioneers. He also reminded us that this weekend marked 4 years since the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and it meant we still had a long way to go. DJ Spinna played a perfect mix of dance tunes and ballads, and gets props for busting out sister Rebbie Jackson's classic hit "Centipede". He knows his stuff.


A huge part of what made this event so positive and special was the wonderful people of Brooklyn. There is truly no place like BK, and folks bring a communal vibe and high spirits whenever they come together. The energy of the crowd was electric, and also felt like one big neighborhood block party. We woke up to steady rainfall in New York that morning, and at first I worried the event would get rained out. Everyone showed up in their boots and armed with umbrellas just in case. But the rain held throughout the event, and towards the end as we all sang "Man In The Mirror", the sun came out. It was beautiful. Here are some of my favorite shots of people in the crowd. Props to the guy who got real creative and showed up as Mars, Spike Lee's character in She's Gotta Have It. And the brotha knew how to pose. Fierce!! Thank you Michael Jackson for all the wonderful music, and thank you Spike Lee for throwing one helluva party in his honor.

Brooklyn Loves Michael Jackson

As the whole world probably knows by now, yesterday would have been Michael Jackson's 51st Birthday. Folks in New York were doing it big, there were parties galore, MJ flash mobs, and all kinds of events. And Spike Lee put together a very special gathering at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The buzz on Spike Lee's big free MJ dance party in the park had been growing for weeks. The event was even moved from Fort Greene Park to the much larger Prospect Park because about 10,000 people were expected to show up. The music was provided by DJ Spinna, and he dug deep in the crates, pulling out gems like "Enjoy Yourself", "Got To Be There", as well as anthems like "Thriller" and "Beat It".

The huge gathering was not only peaceful but entirely positive. People of all ages sang and danced together, with the lyrics to some of Jackson's songs projected on big jumbo-trons so everybody could sing along. There were also cameramen who moved throughout the crowd and projected wonderful shots of people dancing, and folks in costume. One highlight was a little body who couldn't have been more than four (he was tiny!) jumped out in a fedora and white glove, and started moonwalking, hit all of Michael's signature moves, and then he went up on his toes! The crowd went nuts.
Legendary director Spike Lee also doubled as hype man, commanding the crowd to sing and put their hands in the air. He, Tracy Morgan, and Taraji P. Henson lead the crowd through rounds of "Mama se mama sa mama koo sa" on "Wanna Be Starting Something." The Reverend Al Sharpton also spoke about how Michael broke down barriers and changed the face of music, and tied Michael Jackson's legacy to that of Ted Kennedy's and other pioneers. He also reminded us that this weekend marked 4 years since the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and it meant we still had a long way to go. DJ Spinna played a perfect mix of dance tunes and ballads, and gets props for busting out sister Rebbie Jackson's classic hit "Centipede". He knows his stuff.


A huge part of what made this event so positive and special was the wonderful people of Brooklyn. There is truly no place like BK, and folks bring a communal vibe and high spirits whenever they come together. The energy of the crowd was electric, and also felt like one big neighborhood block party. We woke up to steady rainfall in New York that morning, and at first I worried the event would get rained out. Everyone showed up in their boots and armed with umbrellas just in case. But the rain held throughout the event, and towards the end as we all sang "Man In The Mirror", the sun came out. It was beautiful. Here are some of my favorite shots of people in the crowd. Props to the guy who got real creative and showed up as Mars, Spike Lee's character in She's Gotta Have It. And the brotha knew how to pose. Fierce!! Thank you Michael Jackson for all the wonderful music, and thank you Spike Lee for throwing one helluva party in his honor.