Black History Saluted on a Minor Scale

Black History Month is back, and the story on the local arts scene is pretty much the same as last year: recognition of the event by the county’s PBS station and some of the colleges and universities, but not so much as a nod from most of the bigger arts organizations.

One unusual aspect this year is the opening this month of several exhibits featuring African art, primarily traditional but also contemporary. Whether the timing in respect to Black History Month is planned or merely fortuitous is a somewhat muddy question; officials at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, for one, say they had hoped to open a new exhibit of African art from the Tishman collection earlier in the month (it opens Feb. 27).

Open to debate is whether displaying art from Africa is true to the spirit of a month established to salute African-American contributions to U.S. history and culture, but in Orange County at least, beggars can’t be choosers.

First up is “The African Art Show,” opening Feb. 8 at Chapman University’s Guggenheim Gallery, which will feature the work of two contemporary artists: painter Joseph Bertiers of Kenya and Kana Kwei, a carpenter from Ghana who built “representational coffins” designed to reflect the lives of the specific people they were made for. Kwei died last year.

“An African Legacy” at the Orange Coast College Art Gallery will showcase pieces of traditional African art and artifacts from private collections in the county. A slide show designed to help put the pieces into a cultural context will also be shown in the gallery. The exhibit will run Feb. 18 through March 23; OCC instructor and art historian Gene Isaacson will offer a lecture on African art Feb. 18 at 7 p.m.

Finally, the recently revamped Bowers Museum will open on Feb. 27 an exhibit of works from the Paul and Ruth Tishman Collection of African Art. The large private collection was assembled for a planned but never completed African hall at Florida’s Epcot Center. At Bowers, the Tishman works will take the place of African works from the museum’s permanent collection now on display.

Fullerton Museum Center’s offering for Black History Month is “Haiti: Symbols de Mystere,” opening Feb. 20 and running through March 28. It is a combination of two separate traveling exhibits focusing on the island nation: “Haitian Voodoo Flags” and Haitian Religious Folk Art.”

A spokesman for the Orange County Performing Arts Center noted that most of February is taken up with setup and presentation of two Opera Pacific productions, “Romeo et Juliette” and “Le Nozze di Figaro.” The center has not marked Black History Month in past years. (Singer Shirley Horn’s appearance at the center Feb. 7 is part of the jazz series and is not related to Black History Month.)

“We don’t create any new programs or events for those sort of salutes,” said a spokesman for South Coast Repertory. Rather, he said, the company tries to address African-American concerns and to hire black cast members “on a year-round basis.”

(Black cast members appear in both current SCR productions, but no specifically black-themed plays are on the schedule this season at the theater, which is better known for promoting Latino playwrights. Last year during Black History Month, the theater was featuring Jon Bastian’s “Noah Johnson Had a Whore . . .,” whose title character is black.)

The goal of year-round representation is also the oft-stated aim at UC Irvine. One promising exhibit that will attempt to explore critical and curatorial issues facing African-American artists is “The Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Mainstream Criticism” at the UC Irvine Fine Arts Gallery.

That the exhibit doesn’t open until April 8, long after Black History Month, is in keeping with a criticism that has been voiced in the past by several members of the university’s faculty: Having a special “month” dedicated to black history, rather than incorporating it throughout the year, essentially ghettoizes it and reduces it to a footnote.

Some institutions, however, have opted to put a special emphasis on black issues during February. Cal State Fullerton is one, with a heavy calendar of lectures, performances, discussion groups and other activities from Feb. 3 to 25.

Highlights include: a “Black Artists Exhibit” Feb. 8 to 12 in the East Gallery of the Visual Arts Center; “Color Me Black,” a one-man show by Randy Saint Martin at 7 p.m. Feb. 10 in the University Center Theater; “1001 Black Inventions,” a play performed by the Pin Points ensemble at 6 p.m. Feb. 22 in Titan Pavilion.

Rancho Santiago College, likewise, has booked numerous performances, lectures and other events. “Creative Images,” an exhibit of works on paper by African-American artists, will be shown in the college’s Nealley Library Wednesday to Feb. 17. Other events (held in the college amphitheater): a gospel music performance by Marla Reid, Thursday at 12:30 p.m.; the Black History Choir, Feb. 9 at 12:30 p.m.; a performance and lecture illustrating the history of the blues, Feb. 17 at 1 p.m.

Huntington Beach-based KOCE-TV (Channel 50) celebrates Black History Month with a variety of programming, along with a series of 10 60-second informational spots starring Morgan Freeman, titled “The Fight for Civil Rights.”

Scheduled programming includes: a “Great Performances” installment tonight at 9 titled “Dance in America/Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater,” featuring two works by the company, “For Bird--With Love” and “Episodes”; another “Great Performances” Feb. 22 at 9 p.m., this one featuring the Tony-winning jazz and blues revue, “Black and Blue”; “Black to School,” Feb. 22 at 11 p.m., a documentary on a program teaching “Afrocentrism” to black schoolchildren as a way of boosting their self-esteem.

Here are the details:

* “The African Art Show,” Feb. 8 to March 10 at Chapman University’s Guggenheim Gallery, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange. Gallery open weekdays, noon to 5 p.m. Admission free. Information: (714) 997-6729.

* “An African Legacy,” Feb. 18 to March 23 at the Orange Coast College Art Gallery, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Gallery open Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (also 7 to 8:30 p.m. on the first and third Monday and the second and fourth Tuesday). Gene Isaacson will speak about African art at 7 p.m. Feb. 18 in Fine Arts Lecture Hall 119. Admission: free to gallery and lecture. Information: (714) 432-5039.

* Works from the Paul and Ruth Tishman Collection of African Art, opening Feb. 27 and running indefinitely at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana. Museum open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (until 9 p.m. on Thursday). Admission: $1.50 to $4.50 (children under 5 free). Information: (714) 567-3600.

* “Haiti: Symbols de Mystere,” Feb. 20 to March 28 at the Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave. Museum hours are noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, and noon to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Admission is $1 to $2 (free to members and children under 12; free to all visitors Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m.). Information: (714) 738-6545.

At Cal State Fullerton (selected events). All events free of charge unless otherwise noted. Information: (714) 773-3211:

* Opening ceremonies, Thursday, noon to 1 p.m. in Becker Auditorium.

* “Black Artists Exhibit” Feb. 8-12 in the East Gallery of the Visual Arts Center. Open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

* “Color Me Black,” a one-man show by Randy Saint Martin at 7 p.m. Feb. 10 in the University Center Theater.

* “Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in WWII,” a film about black battalions that helped liberate concentration camps, Feb. 11 at 2 p.m. in University Center Theater.

* A “Comedy Jam” from 7 to 9 p.m. Feb. 13 in the University Center’s Titan Pavilion.

* “1001 Black Inventions,” a play performed by the Pin Points ensemble at 6 p.m. Feb. 22 in Titan Pavilion.

At Rancho Santiago College, 17th and Bristol streets, Santa Ana (selected events). All events free of charge unless otherwise noted. Information: (714) 564-6295:

* Opening ceremonies Wednesday at 11:45 a.m. in the college amphitheater. At 1 p.m. Wednesday, 13th- and 14th-Century West African song, dance, costumes and history presented by Leon Mobley.

* “Creative Images” will be shown in the college’s Nealley Library Wednesday to Feb. 17. Hours are Monday to Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday 7:30 a.m. to noon.

* A gospel music performance by Marla Reid, Thursday at 12:30 p.m. in the college amphitheater.

* The Black History Choir, Feb. 9 at 12:30 p.m. in the college amphitheater.

* A performance and lecture illustrating the history of the blues, Feb. 17 at 1 p.m. in the college amphitheater.

* “Western Heritage: The Image of Blacks, Mexicans and Native Americans in 19th and 20th Century America,” an event offering ethnic food sales, speakers and rodeo performers, Feb. 25 from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the college amphitheater.

* A concert by the Blues Constituents and a one-woman performance by Cornelia McDonald of poetry, prose and song, 6 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Southwest Senior Citizen Center, 2201 W. McFadden Ave. in Santa Ana. Admission is $10 to $12 (includes dinner).

On KOCE-TV (Channel 50):

* “Great Performances,” tonight at 9, “Dance in America/Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater.”

* “Legacy of Maggie’s American Dream,” Tuesday at 8 p.m., a tribute to educator James P. Comer.

* “Freedom Rider,” Tuesday at 9 p.m., about civil rights activists in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

* “Great Performances,” Feb. 22 at 9 p.m., “Black and Blue.”

* “Black to School,” Feb. 22 at 11 p.m.

If It’s Ideas That They Lack, Here Are a Few

Outside of the colleges and universities, arts institutions in Orange County traditionally have done little to mark Black History Month. If it’s ideas that are in short order, here are a few rough suggestions:

* The Orange County Performing Arts Center has managed to find room for an annual (if short) jazz series (Shirley Horn will be at the center Sunday) but so far has turned up its nose at that other great black American music, the blues.

How about a two-day festival at the center with everything from solo country blues to big city bands a la Gatemouth Brown, Johnny Copeland and Johnny Adams? Several of the greats have died in recent years--Memphis Slim and Champion Jack Dupree, to name just two--but there still is time to mount a broad survey that would do the blues justice. (Black History Month or not, the center’s continuing failure to book blues smacks of elitism at best and indicates a woeful ignorance of significant American art forms).

* For the Irvine Barclay Theatre, how about a double bill of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans and Sun Ra and his Arkestra? It could prove an interesting contrast of jazz’s distant past and remote future. (The Preservation Hall band will be at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Feb. 27).

* Black History Month could be a good time for South Coast Repertory to make up for overlooking one of the most acclaimed theatrical voices of the past decade, August Wilson. The theater could launch a series of readings of Wilson’s cycle of plays dealing with the black experience in this century--”Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” “Fences,” “The Piano Lesson”--highlighted by a Mainstage production of one of the works.

* The Edwards family seems to control a bigger share of Orange County’s movie screens with each passing week. How about cutting loose one of the myriad South Coast Plaza-area screens for a festival of important black films?

Titles could include Spike Lee’s breakthrough “Do the Right Thing”; “The Learning Tree” (1969), about a young black growing up in Kansas; “Cotton Comes to Harlem” (1970), an action comedy starring Ossie Davis and Godfrey Cambridge; “A Raisin in the Sun” (1961) starring Sidney Poitier, an adaptation of the Lorraine Hansberry play; and “Cabin in the Sky” (1943), a musical fable set in the old South.

Finally, for curio value if nothing else, how about pairing the two film versions of Richard Wright’s novel “Native Son,” the 1986 version and a little-seen 1950 version, made in Argentina on a limited budget, with the author himself playing Bigger Thomas?

Suggestions from the Times Orange County Calendar staff.