The current exhibition at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is titled, i found god in myself: The 40th Anniversary of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls. Though on its face this weighty title sounds empowering, ultimately it belies the exhibition and the original play that engendered and shapes it. In Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf — really a collection of poetic monologues accompanied by dance movements and music that the author calls a “choreopoem” — the moment of dramatic consummation occurs towards the end, as the women come together in a circle to reify an emotional and supportive sisterhood. The power of the play, which has to date been turned into two films and a book, is in its solidarity, something undercut by the Schomburg exhibition’s solipsistic title. Fortunately the body of the show shadows the original conceit by being a collaboration between art makers and the play’s characters.
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