Throughout the 1970s and until the 1990s, the Apollo Theater in Harlem repeatedly fell on hard times and then bounced back to life again. But recent changes suggest that that is in the past and that the world-famous venue is now thriving.
On Thursday, the Apollo announced a large-scale initiative to present a series of commissioned projects by artists. Supported by a $2 million grant from the Ford Foundation and a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, “Apollo New Works” includes dance, theater and musical performances, as well as projects by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who became the Apollo’s inaugural master artist-in-residence in September.
Among the other participating artists are the dance organization Ballet Hispánico, the storytelling project Black Gotham Experience and the playwright and screenwriter Keith Josef Adkins.
“We felt like we had to take a more forward-looking stance,” Kamilah Forbes, the executive producer of the Apollo, said in an interview. The goal is for the venue to not only present new pieces, she said, but “to be a home for these artists to build and cultivate their work.”
“Apollo New Works” is also an effort to “make a major shift in equity” and commission more black artists, Ms. Forbes said.
The program follows two recent commissions at the Apollo: the stage adaptation of Coates’s acclaimed book “Between the World and Me,” and the opera “We Shall Not Be Moved,” a co-commission with Opera Philadelphia that was created by the composer Daniel Bernard Roumain and the librettist Marc Bamuthi Joseph.
“Apollo New Works” is “an opportunity to put a much larger stake in the ground,” Ms. Forbes said.
The Apollo will showcase many of the projects at two new black box theaters at the Victoria, a former movie theater on West 125th Street that is being redeveloped, and is scheduled to open in the fall.
Source: Music - nytimes.com
