Jeffrey Wright and Mos Def first performed together in the 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway production of Topdog/Underdog, then followed that success with the film Cadillac Records, in 2008. Now they’re together again in playwright John Guare’s A Free Man of Color, which opened Thursday at the Lincoln Center Theater in New York City. It runs…

Garth Fagan has been delighting audiences for more than 50 years. Called by critics “a true original,” “a genuine leader” and “one of the great reformers of modern dance,” he is founder and artistic director of the acclaimed Garth Fagan Dance, now in its 40th-anniversary season. His numerous honors include winning the 1998 Tony Award…

Few episodes of racism in our country resonate like that of the trial of the Scottsboro boys. In 1931, white youths attacked nine young black men riding the rails from Memphis to Chattanooga, Tenn., to look for work. When the police arrived and held the black men responsible, two white women from Alabama at the…

Few people in the performing arts can match the accomplishments of the supremely elegant Carmen de Lavallade. Over her 50-plus-year career, Alvin Ailey’s first muse has starred in ballets, contemporary dance works, plays, films, Broadway musicals and television programs. The New Orleans-born, Los Angeles-bred dancer has directed dance and opera and taught and performed at…

MADRID — Buika wends her way toward a dimly lit corner of the funky bar in the Hotel de las Letras off the boisterous Gran Via, her pretty face lighting up when people stop to compliment her on her recent concerts. On tour now for more than half the year, she cherishes her time at…

Well settled in the basement of the slightly dilapidated Brooklyn, N.Y., brownstone of their band member Mike McGinnis, Stew and Heidi Rodewald looked like two happy, overgrown kids allowed to let loose and make music. They’d just started writing songs for their new show, Brooklyn Omnibus, which will be performed with their band, the Negro…

Black theaters are flourishing all across the country, offering communities access to excellent plays and musicals that touch on the African-American experience. In these tough economic times, they search for creative ways to keep going while maintaining their standards. A few recently experienced the toughest years in their history; others enjoyed some of their best.…

President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, recently added some color to the White House art collection, and African-American art collectors were thrilled. While there are only a few black artists numbered among the Obamas’ selections, they did choose works by relative unknowns from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: Glenn Ligon, a conceptual artist,…

You can find thrilling black dance companies in every part of the country, a fantastic improvement over the situation 50 years ago when dancers of color could hardly find a professional troupe to join. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Dance Theatre of Harlem started the revolution, the first was the triumph of…

You can find thrilling black dance companies in every part of the country, a fantastic improvement over the situation 50 years ago when dancers of color could hardly find a professional troupe to join. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Dance Theatre of Harlem started the revolution: The first was the triumph of…