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Hanif Abdurraqib, the American poet and essayist, has written a book in praise of black performance challenging stereotypes and recovering figures including the magician Ellen Armstrong who performed along the Atlantic seaboard in the 1900s, the dancer William Henry Lane described by Dickens and Merry Clayton, the gospel singer who performed on the Rolling Stones song Gimme Shelter. He joins New Generation Thinker Adjoa Osei and Dawn Walton, founder of Eclipse Theatre Company for a conversation with Matthew Sweet looking at how attitudes towards black performance have changed - or not.

Producer: Caitlin Benedict
Hanif Abdurraqib's book is called A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance
Dawn Walton is directing The Death of a Black Man by Alfred Fagon at the Hampstead Theatre 28 May – 10 July. It premiered at that theatre in 1975.
Adjoa Osei is a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to make radio from academic research.
She researches at the University of Liverpool and her postcard looks at the Brazilian TV series on Netflix Coisa Mais Linda or Girls from Ipanema.

You can find a playlist on the Free Thinking website exploring identity from speakers including Eddie Glaude Jr and Nadia Owusu on James Baldwin; the writers JJ Bola and Derek Owusu in an episode about masculinity; novelist Paul Mendez in a discussion about Queer Bloomsbury; a quartet of artists on the Black British Art movement, Le Gateau Chocolat in a discussion about the subversion of Cabaret and Suzan-Lori Parks on her play Father Comes Â鶹ԼÅÄ from the Wars /programmes/p06jngzt
and a second playlist offers other discussions exploring Black History /programmes/p08t2qbp

The Lights Up festival of performance is running across Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 3 and 4 and Â鶹ԼÅÄ TV. The opening drama Giles Terera's The Meaning of Zong is available now on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Sounds /sounds/play/m000tdk4