![Ntozake Shange in 1977.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/untcsid/20140911231450im_/http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2014/09/08/theater/08shange/08shange-articleInline.jpg)
Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” an audacious, feminist cry from the heart, started life in 1974 in a women’s bar in California, landed on Broadway shortly thereafter and by 2010 had morphed into a Tyler Perry film. Now, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Manhattan is mounting a visual arts exhibition entitled “I found god in myself: The 40th anniversary of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls,” an exploration and interpretation of the now-classic work.
Opening on Sept. 19 and running through Jan. 3, the fresh look at Ms. Shange’s self-described choreopoem, or spoken-word drama, will be represented through 20 commissioned pieces that correspond to 20 poems in the text. The work, by artists who include Margaret Rose Vendryes, Kimberly Mayhorn and Renee Cox , is meant to interpret issues faced by the women in “Colored Girls,” whose challenges included rape and slain children. The exhibition also includes archival material, like Ms. Shange’s papers, and the playbill and photos from the original Broadway production.
“For me, ‘For Colored Girls’ has had a long life because of the universal themes in the text,” Peter Wright, the exhibition curator who is known as Souleo, said in a telephone interview on Monday. “It’s called ‘for colored girls,” but it has messages about strength and perseverance and beauty for everyone. The issues include abortion, post-traumatic stress disorder, domestic violence. This lets us see how far we’ve come and how far we have to go.”
The Schomburg will also host two public programs in connection with the exhibition, an Oct. 15 panel discussion and question-and-answer session featuring Ms. Shange and a Nov. 20 “Talks at the Schomburg” program with “For Colored Girls” as the topic.
In conjunction with the Schomburg exhibition, at at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard, visual art related to “For Colored Girls” is also on display now through Oct. 25 at La Maison d’Art, at 259 W. 132nd Street, and at the Sol Studio, 2073 Seventh Avenue. These two satellite exhibitions feature what Souleo described as “existing work that felt connected to Shange’s work.”