Black Chorus Girls: A Panel Conversation
6:30–7:30pm
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Join Poster House for an engaging conversation on the style and presentation of Black chorus girls during the early 20th century, as well as their influence on Black women in theater and film, presented in connection with Act Black: Posters of Black American Stage and Screen. Moderated by curator Es-pranza Humphrey, the panel will feature fashion historian Kimberly Jenkins, historian Jonathan Michael Square, and performer and scholar Chicava HoneyChild. The discussion will span the history of Black women’s performance from enslavement to the 20th century performance, exploring costumed movement, industry limitations, and the way fashion evolved once chorus girls reclaimed their femininity
An audience Q&A will follow.
Doors will open at 6:15pm. A cash bar will be available.
Kimberly Jenkins is a fashion studies scholar and educator, founder of The Fashion and Race Database®—a globally licensed fashion education platform—and CEO of Artis Solomon. A former professor at Parsons and Pratt as well as a TEDx speaker and trusted media voice, her work has been featured in The New York Times, Vogue Business, and PBS’s American Experience.
Dr. Jonathan Michael Square is the Assistant Professor of Black Visual Culture at Parsons School of Design. He previously taught at Harvard University and was a fellow in the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His recent curatorial projects include Past Is Present: Black Artists Respond to the Complicated Histories of Slavery and Almost Unknown: The Afric-American Picture Gallery. He also leads the digital humanities project Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom.
Chicava HoneyChild is a burlesque artist, actor, and producer, as well as the leading scholar on Black women in burlesque. For 15 years she served as creative producer of NYC’s Brown Girls Burlesque, creating political and theatrical performances across the U.S. and internationally. She holds an MFA from Goddard College, where her work focused on Black burlesque history, Taoism, and sacred sexuality. She is currently developing Black Bombshells, a docu-series on Black women in burlesque and pinup history
Es‑pranza Humphrey is the Assistant Curator of Collections at Poster House, where her research centers on Black performance, fashion, and visual culture. Her work has been featured in the New Yorker, NPR, ABC Here and Now, and the Fashion and Race Database, and her scholarship on the graphic language of the Black Panther Party has appeared in several international publications. In Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage and Screen, she investigates Black American theater and film posters from the 1870s to the 1940s.
Accessibility Note: Masks and clear masks are available free of charge at the museum. Assistive listening devices and stools are available. ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or a CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) is also available upon request. Please contact access@posterhouse.org or (914) 295-2387 to request interpretation services and to address any other accessibility needs. For other event-related questions, please contact events@posterhouse.org.