Author: tourist_yp6g7u

Beyoncé dressed to the nines in an all-white pantsuit and matching cowboy hat when she did a surprise in-store appearance last week at Innersleeve Records in the Hamptons village of Amagansett to promote her “Country Carter” album. The megastar signed copies of the album cover for her elated fans. The visit was part of her Record Store tour. In addition to the Hamptons, Queen Bey will be making stops in Austin, Texas, her hometown of Houston, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia. There was chatter flying around last week that the 32-time Grammy award winner had plans to do a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas. However, the New York Post reported that the talks fell apart because the venue didn’t want to close for two weeks for Beyoncé to rehearse. Now, tongues are wagging that she is reportedly talking to the MGM Grand to do a residency there of 100 shows over four years……..

The fourth annual Kool Kids Foundation Celebrity Golf Tournament took place on July 16 at the Cedar Hill Golf & Country Club in Livingston, New Jersey. The Kool Kids Foundation was created by Robert “Kool” Bell, co-founder/leader of the Grammy winning, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees Kool & The Gang, and his late wife, Sakinah Bell. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the foundation’s goal is to support music education in schools and communities across the country. Last year, the Kool Kids Foundation awarded grants to schools and youth marching bands to help further music education. “We are instrumentally influencing children to find their rhythm and melody in music and life so we can all live in harmony,” said Robert Bell…….

Philanthropist and author Jean Shafiroff hosted her Annual Bastille Day Luncheon at the elegant Maison Barnes restaurant in New York City. The luncheon was held in honor of the French Heritage Society, a charity on whose board Shafiroff has served since 2012. This year, the luncheon was attended by 56 distinguished guests including three fashion designers of color, B Michael, Frederick Anderson and Ese Azenabor, additional designers Victor de Souza, Nicole Miller and Taiwan Ambassador Malan Breton. A regular on best dressed lists, Shafiroff began the luncheon wearing a dress by Oscar de la Renta, then changed into a flowing pajama pantsuit by Alexander McQueen. Other guests who attended included Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia and NYS Assembly member Rebecca Seawright………

Grammy winner Stephanie Mills has returned to Broadway as Hermes in “Hadestown.” The eight-time Tony Award winning musical, which also stars Phillip Boykin as Hades and Jordan Fisher as Orpheus, continues to be in performances at the Walter Kerr Theatre on W. 48th Street in New York. Celebrating five epic years, “Hadestown” intertwines two mythical tales: young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and Queen Persephone…..Go With The Flo

The post Go With The Flo: Beyoncé, Kool Kids Foundation Celebrity Golf Tournament and Stephanie Mills appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

The dance performance maker, dancer, educator, and consultant Kayla Hamilton can’t seem to stop doing good for the community; she is getting recognition for her work on and off the stage. The Texas-born, Bronx-based Hamilton holds many accolades: a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, a 2023-2024 Pina Bausch Foundation Fellow, a 2024 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant recipient, a 2023-2024 Bronx Cultural Visions Fund recipient, and a 2024 BAM Resident Artist. Her dancing has been described as “an undercurrent of freedom that is palpable and intoxicating.” And now, Hamilton announced the establishment of Circle O, a new cultural organization created by and for Black disabled and other multiply marginalized creatives. Circle O is based in the Bronx and centers access as creative innovation, from process to outcome, operating in three different wings: performance, education, and consultation. 

Hamilton responded to some questions about Circle O exclusively for AmNews. 

AmNews: What drew you to forming Circle O?

Hamilton: Circle O is really about putting a container or umbrella around the things I’ve already been doing (performing, educating, consulting); now I can put them into one container and all these things can speak to and be with each other. It’s about having a holistic space to be working towards a dance world where Black disabled and other multiply marginalized creatives are central, and everybody is worthy of care. 

AmNews:  Why now?

Hamilton: I was fortunate enough to receive financial support and that support gave me the means and the audacity to dream larger and to dream outside of myself. I think it’s important that we name that: what resources can do for dreams.

AmNews: How did you land on these “Circle O Wings”: Performance, education and consultation?

Hamilton: These are the things I had already been doing for a certain amount of time and so these wings made sense. Sometimes we look at one thing [one methodology, or way of thinking] to be the answer, but there’s a collection of things that can come together to make it feel more complete or whole. Rather than tackling an idea or a challenge from only one direction, sometimes you need more. All facets of the work are creative endeavors, not just performance making. The teaching, for example, is also performance, is also creative, is also choreography. 

AmNews: Does anything about this ambitious project scare you? 

Hamilton: Of course. But the things that I’m afraid of are not me, the ideas I’m afraid of are not mine. For example, I’m clear that Circle O is about movement making and collectivizing, rather than it being only about me—but hopefully other people won’t get it twisted or misunderstand. It’s not about me, it’s about what we’re doing together. I know mess-ups will happen. I’m learning, I’m learning a lot, all the way around; what’s scary is that I must be in a practice of reminding myself of my own humanity while I’m also making space for other people’s humanity. To give myself what I’m trying to give others. So, it’s not fear, rather it’s awareness, or maybe it’s just reality. So, scare…no. I think I would call it more like: you dreamed up a thing, you named the thing, you made the thing, and now it’s time to do the thing. It’s about the doing. The reality of here it is, it’s go time.

AmNews: What are you most looking forward to in realizing with Circle O?

Hamilton: I’m most looking forward to being with other people and collaborating with people, meeting new people, connecting people.  

The dance community has also come together to support Hamilton’s initiative.  She has been presented and supported by BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance; Dance/NYC; Danspace Project; Gibney Dance; Jacob’s Pillow; New York Live Arts; NYC Department of Education; Performance Space New York; River to River Festival; The Shed; UCLA Disability Studies Inclusion Labs; and the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

Hamilton will offer the world premiere of “How to Bend Down/How to Pick it Up” (HTBD/HTPU) at The Shed, August 15-17. HTBD/HTPU is an immersive, community specific, multidisciplinary dance performance exploring lineages of Black disabled imagination and alternative world building. The work utilizes an elaborate multimedia design, multiple audio descriptions, ASL, a multi vantage-point performance space, and a performance structure that can reconfigure every night based on the performers’ changing needs.  To find out more about Hamilton, the performance at The Shed, visit https://www.theshed.org/program/402-open-call-kayla-hamilton

And to find out more about Circle O visit https://www.circleo.org/

The post Dancer Kayla Hamilton establishes new cultural organization  appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Last Wednesday (July 10), Councilmember Shaun Abreu and the David Dinkins family invited dignitaries and community leaders to Riverside Church to celebrate what would have been the 97th birthday of the city’s first Black mayor. As the world knows, Dinkins joined the ancestors in 2020 after distinguishing himself in a variety of services to the nation. Those memorable moments were invoked by a coterie of relatives, colleagues, and close associates. 

The actual renaming of the street at the intersection of 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue to David N. Dinkins Way occurred earlier, but his birthday was another tribute to his historic contributions to the city. One table near the podium, where Robin Bell-Stevens emceed the event, was emblematic of Dinkins’s power and renown: former Rep. Charles Rangel, the Honorable Hazel Dukes, former Governor David Paterson, and Harlem’s political icon Assemblywoman Inez Dickens—were often saluted and given several rounds of applause.

“I thank you so much for allowing me to share my memories of your father with this role in this room of amazing people, of leaders and friends and mentors whose shoulders I stand on,” said Mayor Eric Adams, summarizing what others had said earlier. He recounted how children had told him that Dinkins had allowed them to come inside and experience what it was like to govern the city. “I just love him so much…his picture is on my desk,” Adams concluded.

“My grandad loved the city,” Jamaal Hoggard said of Dinkins. “More importantly, he loved the people who make the city.”

Attorney General Letitia James, City Council President Adrienne Adams, and Abreu were among the speakers, all of whom extended their gratitude to a man who always hoped he had left nothing in arrears on his departure. Some of his majesty and hallmarks were captured in a proclamation read by Keisha Sutton-James, the granddaughter of Percy E. Sutton, one of the legendary Gang of Four iof Rangel, Basil Paterson, and—of course—Dinkins.

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* This article was originally published here