Director
Rockland Palace hosted the largest of the drag balls in not only Harlem but New York City during the Roaring Twenties. This stylized reimagining of the ball contextualizes snippets of conversation actually heard at the drag and published in the scandalous gay novel, The Young and Evil, in 1933.
Co-Writer
Harlem, 1926. A “sweetman” Zeddy, living off a woman, brings a country girl he’s trying to impress to a gay-owned cabaret. There he meets a friend, Jake, whose girlfriend, Congo Rose, is the singer there. Drama swirls around the characters as Zeddy confronts the cabaret owner, about his sexuality. Congo Rose, seeking to reignite her man’s fading interest, puts on a performance, with her Pansy Dancer, of a Bessie Smith song that seduces the whole room, especially Zeddy.
Director
A documentary about the jazz standard and it's roots in Jewish and African-American culture/
Director
Meet LaMott Atkins: closeted football star, closeted disco singer, closeted model, actor, son and lover. And he’s African-American… and now lives as a yogi and single parent in the world’s gayest neighborhood.
Director
The 1920s saw a revolution in technology, the advent of the recording industry, that created the first class of African-American women to sing their way to fame and fortune. Blues divas such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter created and promoted a working-class vision of blues life that provided an alternative to the Victorian gentility of middle-class manners. In their lives and music, blues women presented themselves as strong, independent women who lived hard lives and were unapologetic about their unconventional choices in clothes, recreational activities, and bed partners. Blues singers disseminated a Black feminism that celebrated emotional resilience and sexual pleasure, no matter the source.
Director
Contemporary cover of a 1928 blues song written and performed by Ma Rainey with explicitly lesbian lyrics.
