Replete with stunning dances, emotive poetry, and inspired musicianship, Jubilee once again closed out Black History Month with a bang. The annual showcase, which premiered Feb. 13, sold out Crowell Concert Hall and filled its high windows with ticket-less students eagerly peering in.
“This is the most performances that have ever been in Jubilee,” said Jubilee coordinator Anna Steed ’05. “It was a really full show.”
After hosts Kofo Asuni ’04, Devonne Miggins ’04, Heter Myers ’04, and Abdullah Wright ’04 warmed up the crowd, Xtacy the Collective opened the show with “Throwback.” It was a performance realized despite some hardships.
“Xtacy had two dancers in neck braces, Tara [Taylor ’06] and myself,” Steed said. “Since we were unable to perform, the spacing order of the performers had to be adjusted.”
Mirembe Nutt-Birigwa ’05, who performs spoken word poetry under the name Lalibella, unfurled her piece “An Excerpt” on an eagerly awaiting audience. The poem was influenced by the battery egg debates that overtook on campus during the fall of 2002. She returned in the second half of the show to collaborate with Rahwa Yebio ’05, whose stage name is Ancient Thought, to perform one of the evening’s most striking pieces.
Isis dance troupe stormed onto the stage with “Torn,” an original, student-choreographed composition by Kristen Glasgow ’04 that included Naja Alvarado ’05, Alison Moy ’07, Oni Tongo ’07 and Khalia Frazier ’07. Junior Melissa Rosario sang “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,” a stunning tribute to blues singer Nina Simone. Simone, who died last year, was also recently honored in the Ronald K. Brown dance troupe’s show “EVIDENCE”. Technical difficulties almost kept a photomontage of Nina Simone from being included in Rosario’s piece.
“We didn’t know until five minutes before she went on [if the montage would work]. The timing worked out well,” Steed said.
Westepp, the University’s 24-member step dance team, got the crowd on its feet stomping out original dance moves to hip-hop tracks. Sampling from Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, and Lil’ John and the Eastside Boyz, troupe choreographers Rhoda Tamakloe ’05, Shelissa Newball ’05 and Normel Jean-Pierre ’05 choreographed different steps for each song. Fitting the moves with the music and keeping the dance flowing throughout were the choreographer’s main challenges.
“We started working on this performance about a month before the show,” Jean-Pierre said. “The troupe met about six to eight hours a week. We [the coaches] met even more aside from that. We are definitely pleased. We worked really hard and, most importantly, everyone had fun.”
Westepp has been a Jubilee staple since the troupe’s formation in the early 1990s.
After the troupe’s dancers made their way off stage, Freshman Class Dean Vancenia Rutherford presented the Damain Reeves Memorial Book Prize, awarded each year during Jubilee. The prize honors two first-year students for academic excellence in the memory of Damain Reeves ’00. This year’s recipients, Samira Abdul-Karim and Jason Lalor, each received $100 gift certificates to Broadstreet Books Bookstore.
About winning the award, Lalor said, “Renee [Johnson-Thornton, Associate Coordinator of the Mellon-Mays Fellowship] called me a few days before [the show] and told me. To be honest, I wasn’t going to apply. I don’t feel as if I have done much compared to others.”
“I didn’t find out until that morning,” Abdul-Karim said. “I was really surprised.”
In addition to receiving the Reeves prize, Lalor demonstrated his spoken word talent through his poem, “The Sound,” which discussed the denigration of legitimate hip-hop into radio-friendly rap. Zakia Henderson-Brown ’06, Ahkai Franklin ’04 and Jennifer Celestin ’07 also stirred the audience with their poetry skills performing original work on both personal and political themes.
The musical talents of pianist Tecla Esposito ’05 were showcased alongside those of Iris Lee ’06, Jon Souza ’04, Sam Han ’05, Kieran Krug-Meadows ’04, Sascha Weiss ’04 and Rosario. Udochukwu Njoku ’04 performed “Never Gonna Let You Go” by Faith Evans and Nyasha Foy ’06 sang “Love Me In A Special Way” by Eldra Debarge.
In perhaps the night’s most dynamic performance, Slam poets Ancient Thought and Lalibella spat their powerful poetry to the background of drums (Krug-Meadows), guitar (Han), piano (Bay Love ’05) and three backup singers (Atiyyah Abdur-Rahman ’04, Joyce Smith ’06, Weiss). A Bob Marley reggae beat commenced, followed by a brief introductory poem by Lalibella.
“I love everyone/ cuz I love humankind/ don’t judge me/ open up your mind,” she said, establishing the anti-Bush, anti-war theme of the poetry.
“We were just trying to show how the government is exploiting brown people all over the world, not just in Iraq but also here,” Yebio explained after the performance.
After a song dedicated to exposing the Bush Administration, Ancient Thought wove together disparate violence throughout the world to form one condemnatory poem about the ties between the war in Iraq, the terrorist attacks on New York City, and the gentrification of her neighborhood, Harlem.
“Who would ever think/ the New York City subways scenes/ would be dominated/ by M-16s and army fatigues?” she asked during her piece.
“I was just trying to show how it’s all connected in every which way…the whole concept of human life not mattering in this type of system,” Yebio said. “Money comes first. It doesn’t matter that people are dying and getting their arms chopped off in Sierra Leone, as long as your getting diamonds so that rich people can look cute…American people as a whole need to understand that we’re being fed propaganda by the government.”
Though the execution and energy of their piece moved the house, Lalibella and Ancient Thought had begun practicing together only a week before the event, according to Yebio.
Jubilee not only entertained but also served as a venue to artistically express both pride and frustration. The audience responded positively to the messages conveyed.
“I think it was the best it has been since I’ve been here,” said Michelle Grier ’05, who has seen Jubilee each of her three years at the University. “The acts were all great; we have a lot of talent at our school. I just felt like it was well-done and well-rehearsed.”
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