Dancer, singer … spy: France’s Panthéon to honour Josephine Baker

Posted on November 28, 2021 by Admin

The performer will be the first Black woman to enter the mausoleum, in recognition of her wartime work

In November 1940, two passengers boarded a train in Toulouse headed for Madrid, then onward to Lisbon. One was a striking Black woman in expensive furs; the other purportedly her secretary, a blonde Frenchman with moustache and thick glasses.

Josephine Baker, toast of Paris, the world’s first Black female superstar, one of its most photographed women and Europe’s highest-paid entertainer, was travelling, openly and in her habitual style, as herself – but she was playing a brand new role.

Josephine Baker to become first Black woman to enter France’s Pantheon

Posted on August 22, 2021 by Admin

Performer who became part of the French resistance will be moved to the mausoleum in November

The remains of Josephine Baker, a famed French-American dancer, singer and actor who also worked with the French resistance during the second world war, will be moved to the Panthéon mausoleum in November, according to an aide to President Emmanuel Macron.

It will make Baker, who was born in Missouri in 1906 and buried in Monaco in 1975, the first Black woman to be laid to rest in the hallowed Parisian monument.

Indigenous Contemporary Scene review – resistance, revenge and jolly cabaret

Posted on August 3, 2019 by Admin

Songs in the Key of Cree, Deer Woman and Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools, three shows by Canada’s Indigenous artists, are presented at the Edinburgh festival

This summer, Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls revealed “staggering” rates of violence and lay the blame at “persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses” . For decades, Indigenous women have been murdered or gone missing and, for decades, the problem has been ignored.

The scandal is shocking in its own terms, but for many of those affected, it stands for an even broader malaise. They see the abuse as an expression of colonialism and link it not only to the excesses of capitalism but also the resultant climate emergency; all are about taking what doesn’t belong to you.

The joy that comes from embracing trans identity shouldn’t be so rare | Andy Connor

Posted on January 25, 2019 by Admin

‘Gender euphoria’ is a concept whose time has come, and at this year’s Midsumma festival we got a chance to see it in full flight

As the chorus of voices lifted in the final kaleidoscopic song of Gender Euphoria, the first mainstage all-transgender show in Australian history, something rare and vital was communicated. So many trans stories are tragedies; it’s easy to miss the triumphs. So much of the world is still so stigmatising and cruel to trans people that it’s easy to overlook the joy. More than just relief at having escaped something, the show tells us, being trans is also about having found something. “Goodbye gender dysphoria,” proclaimed cabaret star Mama Alto, “Hello gender euphoria!”