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Posts tagged as “Debbie Allen Dance Academy”

Celebrating Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen on #NationalSiblingsDay (LISTEN)

Celebrating Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen on #NationalSiblingsDay (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 10, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

On #NationalSiblingsDay, we celebrate Tony and Emmy award-winning sisters Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen in today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast.

To read about them, read on. To hear about them, press PLAY:

[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, April 10, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing, also known as Palm Sunday and in the United States as National Siblings Day.

As the daughters of poet Vivian Ayers Allen (who was featured in April 8th’s Daily Drop), sisters Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen likely grew up believing the sky was the limit. Both are Howard University graduates and award-winning stars of stage and screen.

Phylicia won the Tony Award for Lead Actress in a Play for the 2004 revival of A Raisin in the Sun, and Debbie won Emmys in 1982, 1983 and 1991 for her choreography on Fame and Motown 30: What’s Goin’ On!

https://youtu.be/ObGtzzLLjlA

In 2001 Allen opened the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles, and in 2008 she directed the all-African American Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starring big sis Rashad as Big Mama.

In 2020, Debbie Allen became a Kennedy Center Honoree and in 2021, they kept the sister love going with Phylicia’s guest appearance in a Debbie-directed episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

That same year, Rashad was appointed Dean of Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts.

And just this week in 2022, Allen was honored by the Dance Theater of Harlem with the Arthur Mitchell Vision Award.

To learn more about these talented sisters, check out the siblings’ conversation from 2020 where they share stories, their history together and life lessons on IG live, posted on the True Exclusives channel on YouTube and check out the links to more sources provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

Debbie Allen Champions Arts Education for Youth, Kicks Off National Tour of "Brothers of the Knight"

Debbie Allen Champions Arts Education for Youth, Kicks Off National Tour of "Brothers of the Knight"

By goodblacknews on June 20, 2014

DEBBIE_ALLEN_HEADSHOT_tOscar, Emmy and Tony Award-winning choreographer and director Debbie Allen premiered her new theatrical production Brothers of the Knight at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills last night, kicking off a five-city summer tour.  Turning out to support Allen and her passion for training today’s youth in the arts were actors Jenifer Lewis, Clifton Powell, “Grey’s Anatomy” star Ellen Pompeo, Darrin Hewitt Henson, New Kids on the Block singer Joey McIntyre and WNBA All-Star Lisa Leslie, among others. (Click here to see GBN’s Instagram photos from the event.)
Grammy-winning musician James Ingram wrote the music to this modern adaptation of the classic Brothers Grimm tale, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, where twelve brothers steal away to a magical ballroom and dance every night away unbeknownst to their strict preacher father.
Allen, who produced the show with husband and former NBA All-Star Norm Nixon, went on a five-city tour to find the best young talent possible, then trained and worked closely with them to bring the production to life.
“I opened this audition to kids who are not just in dance schools,” Allen said, but “to people who simply love to dance.”
1391112260644Allen is passionate about arts education for youth and mounts productions like this every year to shed light on its importance as more and more public schools drop arts, music and theatre programs.
“It’s a battle right now. Arts education is disappearing without a trace from the public schools. If you don’t have arts as part of the core of your curriculum, you are not going to be well educated,” Allen recently told WGBH in Boston.
Allen has been fighting to keep dance and the arts available for youth for quite some time.  In 2001, Allen opened the Debbie Allen Dance Academy (DADA), a non-profit organization which offers classes in various dance disciplines for youth and teens.
Brothers of the Knight runs until June 22 in Los Angeles, then moves to Boston from June 27-29, Philadelphia July 3-6, Washington DC July 10-13 and Charlotte July 17-20.  To order tickets, go to brothersoftheknight.com.  To sponsor or donate to this show, click here.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)