"This isn’t just about the rich legacy of Black entertainers in America, but the everyday performance of being a minority—the code-switching and nerve-coddling"
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I wonder if Davis' decision to act as her own director was in her best interests; another, more critical eye might have given this piece a stronger, more consistently engaging profile.
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"There is very little anger on display in The Essentialisn't, a piece dominated by its graceful poetics, sardonic humor and, most significantly, encouragement of self-celebration that sends the audience out with a melodic message of love."
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"the show stays entertaining and interesting off the back of Davis’ force of personality"
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"For a piece that’s incisively and plainly wrangling with a legacy of trauma and slavery, there’s also a lot of simple joy."
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"performance art, concert, art exhibition, riff about Black female identity, memoir"
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Astounding, useful, and vitally important.
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