Carla Blank
Carla Blank | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Education | Mills College, M.A. |
Occupation(s) | Writer, editor, educator, choreographer, dramaturge, and director |
Years active | 1960s–present |
Spouse | Ishmael Reed (m. 1970) |
Website | www |
Carla Blank is an American writer, editor, educator, choreographer, and dramaturge.[1] Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, for more than four decades she has been a performer, director, and teacher of dance and theater, particularly involved with youth and community arts projects.[2]
Blank is editorial director of the
She has written and edited a number of books, including Rediscovering America: The Making of Multicultural America, 1900–2000 (2003), Pow-Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience, Short Fiction, From Then to Now (2009), Storming the Old Boys’ Citadel: Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America (2014), and Bigotry on Broadway (2021).Background
Education and early career
Carla Blank grew up in
Collaborations
She collaborated for many years with
From 2003 to 2011, Blank was involved with developing
In 2013, Blank directed an
Blank directed and choreographed The Slave Who Loved Caviar by Ishmael Reed, which premiered at Theater for the New City in New York on December 23, 2021, running until January 9, 2022.[18][20] Most recently, she directed two showcase productions of Reed's Living Newspaper styled play, The Conductor, at Theater for the New City, in March and August/September, 2023,[21] and a staged reading of his newest play, The Shine Challenge 2024, available virtually through April 15, 2024 at nuyorican.org .[22]
Performance art teaching
Blank has taught Performance Art at
In 1977 she formed Roberts + Blank Dance Theater Inc. with Jody Roberts, whom she met while they were graduate students in the
Based upon her experiences of teaching and directing young artists, Blank co-authored a performance arts handbook, Live On Stage!,
Writing and editing
Blank has written or been the editor of several other books, including in 2003 Rediscovering America: The Making of Multicultural America, 1900–2000, which "explores the lost history of America, highlighting and reintegrating the complex contributions of women, African, Asian, Hispanic, and Native Americans, immigrants, artists, renegades, rebels, rogues, and others normally cast to the margins of history books, but without whom there is no honest accounting of American history."[4] Among her other published titles are Storming the Old Boys' Citadel: Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America (Baraka Books, 2014),[28] co-authored with architectural historian Tania Martin, which chronicles the careers of Louise Blanchard Bethune and Mother Joseph du Sacré-Coeur – a work about which The Montreal Review of Books said: "Books like this one are vital in highlighting what our history notes have left out. They remind us to redefine our views and question our records. If we need to redefine the history of architecture today, let it include women."[29][30]
Anthologies that Blank has co-edited with Ishmael Reed include Bigotry on Broadway,[31] released by Baraka Books of Montreal in September 2021, and PowWow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience, Short Fiction, From Then to Now (2009), described by the Los Angeles Times as "big, diverse, messy, all over the place -- just like American literature itself."[32] According to Publishers Weekly, it is "a captivating, multifarious look at the American experience through its short fiction",[33] while January Magazine called it "an important book ... a collection intended to mark our consciousness and our hearts."[34]
Over the years, she has been a contributor to such publications as
Ishmael Reed Publishing
As editorial director of Ishmael Reed Publishing, she has had charge of poetry and prose projects including 25 New Nigerian Poets (2000, edited by
In 2011, the press published New and Selected Yuri, a collection of poetry and fiction by Japan-based writer Yuri Kageyama; in 2013 a new collection of poetry, Paper Gods and Rebels, by San Francisco-based writer Genny Lim;[41] and in 2015 and 2017 published the first and second collections of poetry by Alaska-based Tlingit/Iñupiaq writer Ishmael Hope, Courtesans of Flounder Hill and Rock Piles Along the Eddy.[42] In 2018, the press released King Comus, a formerly unpublished novel by the late William Demby,[43] which the HuffPost designated "Rediscovered Novel of the Year".[44] In 2023, the press released Guayacán, a new poetry collection by Victor Hernández Cruz.[45]</ref>[46]
Personal life
Blank has been married since 1970 to Ishmael Reed, whom she met in 1965.[47] She has worked with Reed on a range of projects and books, in addition to her independent career. With Reed in the roles of jazz pianist and bandleader, she plays violin in the Ishmael Reed Quintet, having begun studying the violin as a child, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with Mihail Stolarevsky,[48] making her recording debut on the CD For All We Know.[49][50][51][52] She lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and their daughter, Tennessee Reed, who is also a writer.[3][53][54][55]
Selected bibliography
Non-fiction
- With ISBN 978-1572323742
- Rediscovering America: The Making of Multicultural America, 1900–2000, ISBN 0-609-80784-6.[35]
- With Tania Martin, Storming the Old Boys’ Citadel: Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America, Baraka Books, 2014, ISBN 978-1771860130.[35]
As contributing editor
- With Ishmael Reed, Califia, The California Poetry, Yardbird Publishing Company, 1979, ISBN 978-0931676031.
- With Ishmael Reed, MultiAmerica, Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace, Viking, 1997 ISBN 978-0670867530.
- With Ishmael Reed, From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900–2002, ISBN 978-1560255000
As editor
- With Ishmael Reed, Pow-Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience, Short Fiction, From Then to Now, ISBN 978-1-56858-342-6.
- With Ishmael Reed, Bigotry on Broadway Baraka Books, 2021, ISBN 978-1-77186-256-1.
Film and video documentation of Blank's work, and interviews with Blank
- (2021) The Making of The Domestic Crusaders,[56] 28:05-minute documentary includes interview with playwright Wajahat Ali, director Carla Blank, producers Ishmael Reed and Rome Neal of the 2009 Nuyorican Poets Cafe production.
- (2018) News From Fukushima: Meditation on an Under-Reported Catastrophe by a Poet.[57] 1 hour, 15 minutes. Yoshiaki Tago's documentation of Yuri Kageyama's multidisciplinary live performance work at Z Space in San Francisco, directed by Carla Blank.
- (2011) The Space in Back of You. 68-minute documentary. Premiered at the 2012 Lincoln Center film festival, Dance on Camera, New York. Directed and with principal cinematography by Richard Rutkowski. Produced by Hisami Kuroiwa and Richard Rutkowski. Principal film editor, Keiku Deguchi. Dramaturge: Carla Blank. Includes interviews with David Byrne, musician; Molly Davies, filmmaker; Anna Halprin, choreographer; Simone Forti, choreographer; Hans Peter Kuhn, composer; Yoshio Yabara, designer; Yachiyo Inoue V, the granddaughter of Ms. Hanayagi's master teacher, Yachiyo Inoue IV, and Carla Blank, choreographer, dramaturge.
- (2009) KOOL, Dancing in My Mind. 30-minute documentary. Directed by Richard Rutkowski and Robert Wilson. Produced by Jorn Weisbrodt, Rutkowski and Hisami Kuroiwa. Co-produced by ARTE and INA. Editing by Keiko Deguchi and Brendan Russell. Based upon documentation of a 2009 performance work of the same name, which premiered at NYC's Guggenheim Museum, which was a collaboration by Wilson, Rutkowski and Blank.
- (2007) Sally Gross - The Pleasure of Stillness, 60-minute documentary. Albert Maysles and Kristen Nutile, directors; Tanja Meding, producer. Includes interview with Carla Blank. [58]
- (1992) The Only Language She Knows, 20-minute kitchen drama by Genny Lim. Performed by Genny Lim and A. J. Lee. Videography by Allen Willis. Music by Francis Wong. Directed by Carla Blank. Produced by Ishmael Reed.[59]
References
- ^ "Carla Blank biography". Black Past.
- ^ a b c d e "The Domestic Crusaders". Beyond Borders. November 19, 2005.
- ^ a b "Biography". Carla Blank.
- ^ a b "Foundation Media". Beyond Columbus Foundation.
- ^ a b Banes, Sally (1993). Democracy's Body: Judson Dance Theater, 1962–1964. Duke University Press. p. 175.
- ^ Dunning, Jennifer (July 28, 1981). "The Dance: Carla Blank". The New York Times.
- ^ La Rocco, Claudia (April 20, 2009). "Choreographers Reveal a 'Last Collaboration'". The New York Times.
- ^ Jowitt, Deborah (April 22, 2009). "Robert Wilson Pays Homage to Suzushi Hanayagi at the Guggenheim". The Village Voice. Retrieved October 12, 2022.
- ^ "The Space in Back of You (2011)", IMDb.
- ^ "Under the Influence of Ishmael Reed, Maysles Cinema". Brown Paper Tickets. February 2015.
- ^ "BAC Flicks: The Space in Back of You". Dance Films Association. October 23, 2012.
- ^ Bullock, Ken (July 8, 2005). "Play Explores Post-9/11 Tensions in Family Portrait". The Berkeley Daily Planet.
- ^ Goodstein, Laurie (September 8, 2009). "A Pakistani-American Family Is Caught in Some Cultural Cross-Fire". The New York Times.
- ^ Boulder NewsTeam (January 11, 2013). "The Domestic Crusaders and Q&A with Playwright Wajahat Ali". YouTube.
- ^ "Wajahat Ali". The Kennedy Center.
- ^ "The Domestic Crusaders". The 9/11 Performance Project. September 2011.
- The New York Review.
- ^ Broadway World. Retrieved December 31, 2021.
- ^ a b "News From Fukushima: Meditations on an Under-Reported Catastrophe by a Poet". Yuri Kageyama.
- ^ "The Slave Who Loved Caviar". Theater for the New City. November 25, 2021. Retrieved December 31, 2021.
- ^ https://theaterforthenewcity.net/shows/the-conductor-august-2023/
- ^ https://www.broadwayworld.com/off-off-broadway/regional/THE-SHINE-CHALLENGE2024-3858263
- ^ Lentjes, Rebecca (April 5, 2015). "Voices, voices in space, and spaces: Thoughts on 50 years of Meredith Monk". bachtrack.
- ^ "Three Heavens and Hells". Boosey & Hawkes.
- ^ Ulrich, Allan (May 1, 1982). "The performers and choreographers of Berkeley's unusual Children's Troupe are 11-15 years old". The San Francisco Examiner.
- ^ a b "Live On Stage!". Carla Blank.
- ISBN 9781564785510.
- ^ "Carla Blank – Coming soon: Storming the Oldboys' Citadel, Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America". Baraka Books. September 22, 2014.
- ^ Jordan, Robin (April 10, 2015). "Carla Blank To Present Storming The Old Boys' Citadel: Two Pioneer Women Architects Of Nineteenth Century North America". Buffalo Rising.
- ^ Petrovic, Branka (Spring 2015). "De architectura". mRb.
- ISBN 978-1771862561.
- ^ Ulin, David (March 8, 2009). "'Pow-Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience -- Two Centuries of Short Fiction,' co-edited by Ishmael Reed and Carla Blank". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "POW-Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience - Short Fiction from Then to Now". Publishers Weekly. January 26, 2009.
- ^ "Pow Wow edited by Ishmael Reed with Carla Blank". January Magazine. April 7, 2009.
- ^ a b c "My Works". Carla Blank.
- ^ Staff (March 10, 2012). "Thelma Reed, wrote 'Black Girl from Tannery Flats'; June 2, 1917 -- March 6, 2012". The Buffalo News.
- ^ Reed, Ishmael (2019). "The Mind Is An Orisha". In Grace Wales Bonner (ed.). A Time For New Dreams (PDF). Serpentine Galleries. p. 28.
- ^ "Karla Brundage". karlabrundage.com.
- ^ "Biography". tennesseereed.com.
- ^ "Neli Moody". phren-z.org.
- ^ "Genny Lim". Poetry Foundation. January 24, 2022.
- ^ "Ishmael Angaluuk Hope". Poetry Foundation. January 24, 2022.
- ^ Hudson, Renee (November 30, 2017). ""King Comus" and the Elasticity of the Neo-Slave Narrative". Los Angeles Review of Books.
- ^ Biggers, Jeff (December 14, 2017). "King Comus: Rediscovered Novel Of The Year". Huff Post.
- ^ Morales, Ed (June 9, 2023). "Victor Hernández Cruz's Tropicalizing, Circular Migration". The Latinx Project. Retrieved September 19, 2023.
- ^ "Guayacán", thestorygraph.com.
- ISBN 9780878058150.
- ^ "2008 American Book Awards Program" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on September 14, 2014. Retrieved April 10, 2020.
- ^ "Ishmael Reed - For All We Know". FYE.
- ^ "The Black Literary Imagination: Social Consciousness in Black Literature". NPR. August 6, 2007.
- ^ Sehgal, Parul (March 14, 2011). "Native Son: A Profile of Ishmael Reed". Publishers Weekly.
- ^ Bamberger, W. C. (April 2010). "Ishmael Reed – Neo-HooDoo, in Words and Music". Perfect Sound Forever.
- ^ Streitfeld, David (August 10, 1997). "Book Report". The Washington Post.
- ^ Jackson, Chris (Fall 2016). "Ishmael Reed, The Art of Poetry No. 100". The Paris Review. Fall 2016 (218).
- ^ "Carla Blank | Alum 2006", The Mesa Refuge.
- ^ "The Domestic Crusaders". YouTube.
- ^ "News from Fukushima: Meditation on an Under-Reported Catastrophe by a Poet". IMDb.
- ^ "Sally Gross – the Pleasure of Stillness". February 18, 2014.
- ^ "Under the influence of Ishmael Reed". Brown Paper Tickets.
External links
- Carla Blank official website