NTOZAKE SHANGE’S HOLISTIC VISION OF ART
NTOZAKE SHANGE’S HOLISTIC VISION OF ART

Summary/Abstract: Ntozake Shange’s Holistic Vision of Art deals with an African American writer of entirely different nature – a surprising combination between a professional dancer, a poet and a playwright, and a novelist – to which two other qualities should be added, those of a mother and a black woman. Ntozake Shange explores life’s “nappy edges,” the metaphoric terrain just beyond neatly fixed social definitions. There, the sweat of pursuing an intimate, humane connection with the world as well as with one’s innermost selves is manifested as a dynamic, affirmative rawness. Hers is a holistic vision within which language, music, movement, icon, and time and space are manipulated so that poetry becomes drama and dance; the political is simultaneously the aesthetic and the personal; and spirituality offers insights which ultimately empower one to grapple with a problematic social world.

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