Tag: Melvin Van Peebles

  • Burnt Sugar with Vernon Reid & Melvin VanPeebles Rocks Bryant Park!

    Burnt Sugar with Vernon Reid & Melvin VanPeebles Rocks Bryant Park!

    Burnt Sugar w/Vernon Reid & Melvin Van Peebles Rocks Bryant Park!

    Friday, September 16th @ 6p SHARP, The Black Rock Coalition, in conjunction with the Bryant Park Fall Festival, is proud to kick off the NYC Cultural Season with a live performance by Burnt Sugar featuring Special Guests Vernon Reid & Melvin Van Peebles as they freak the songbooks of James Brown, Ashford & Simpson, Melvin Van Peebles & David Bowie!
    FREE SHOW!!!
    Bryant Park is located behind the New York Public Library between 40th and 42nd Streets between 5th and 6th Avenues.
    The Bryant Park Fall Festival is presented by Bank of America.

    Go to www.bryantpark.org for more info!

    Find this event on Facebook here

  • Sweetback Caught in the Act on Brooklyn Independent Television

    Many thanks and a HUGE shout out to Brooklyn Independent Television, a community media program of BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn !

    Check them out here

  • Ben Sisario profiles Melvin Van Peebles at The NY Times

    “ASK Melvin Van Peebles about his legacy, and you get a snort, a grimace, a wave of the hand, a game-show error buzz and a finely punctuated “come on.” “I didn’t even know I had a legacy,” he said between rehearsals for his latest project, a musical-theater adaptation of his 1971 film “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.” “I do what I want to do.”

    The story includes audio excerpts of the interview.

    Check it out here at  NY Times Online

  • Late Night at Joe’s Pub, with special guest, Melvin Van Peebles

    As the story goes …from a humble beginning of only two theaters and a torrent of negative reviews, “Sweet Sweetback’s Baasasssss Song” eventually mushroomed to domestic box office receipts of $10,000,000.00 and landed on Daily Variety’s list of top-grossing films for the year 1971.  Incidentally Sweet Sweetback was the largest grossing independent film up to that time with it’s success kick-starting what became known as the Blaxplotation film movement.

    BS-JOES-MVP2Not as well documented is that Earth Wind and Fire performed the musical soundtrack on Sweetback.  Here, thirty-nine years later, Mr. Melvin Van Peebles, the producer, writer, director, composer, editor and star of Sweet Sweetback has chosen Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber to be his 23rd-century Earth Wind and Fire.

    The Arkestra Chamber will perform the soundtrack live, on-stage, for the theatrical world premiere of  “Sweet Sweetback’s Baddass Song (The Hood Opera)” at the Sons d’hiver Festival in Paris, France on February 19th and 20th, 2010.
    Want a taste and can’t go to Paris in February?  Joe’s Pub has you covered!

    On Sunday, January 10th, 2010, Joe’s Pub Late Night will present Burnt Sugar for a baadasssss time of tunes from the soundtrack; an appearance by Mr. Melvin Van Peebles himself; and of course the conducted-improvisational mash-ups conductor Greg Tate and the Burnt Sugar crew are world-famous for.

    Get your tickets early as the last Burnt Sugar/Joe’s Pub performance in August stranded a bus-load of music lovers in the Public Theater lobby. The time is now, Be a witness!

  • “Sweet Sweetback’s Baddass Song: A Hood Opera” Open Rehearsals at BRICstudio

    Two Nights! Feb 3 & 4

    Melvin Van Peebles
    & Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber
    in residence at BRICstudio

    8:00 PM Work-In-Progress (rehearsal) View­ing
    9:45 PM Dis­cus­sion w/ Melvin Van Pee­bles
    10:00 PM Book Sign­ing & Mer­chan­dise Sales

    Doors Open @ 7:45 PM
    Tick­ets Details Com­ing Soon!

    Join us for an unfor­get­table evening with leg­endary artist and direc­tor Melvin Van Pee­bles as he directs Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Cham­ber and a large cast of actors and singers in a musi­cal stage adap­ta­tion of his ground­break­ing 1971 film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song. Expe­ri­ence a work-in-progress pre­view of the piece, ahead of its inter­na­tional pre­miere at the 2010 Sons d’hiver Fes­ti­val in Paris, fol­lowed by a post-performance dis­cus­sion with the artists.

    Don’t miss this unique oppor­tu­nity to wit­ness the inti­mate process of artis­tic col­lab­o­ra­tion and cre­ative fusion that will bring to the stage one of the most influ­en­tial movies of the African-American cinema!

    Melvin Van Pee­bles financed, wrote, directed, scored, and starred in the orig­i­nal film ver­sion of Sweet Sweet­back, paving the way for the suc­cess of future inde­pen­dent black films to fol­low. It tells the story of a deprived African-American man on his flight from white author­ity in satir­i­cal, real­is­tic and often humor­ous detail.