A choreopoem is a work of art that combines dance, music, and poetry. Because the medium focuses as much on nonverbal communication as the written word, choreopoems are performance pieces. Ntozake Shange originated this format in 1974, when for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf debuted in San Francisco, California. Later, the choreopoem made its Broadway debut in December 1976, a move that Shange describes as “either too big for my off-off Broadway taste, or too little for my exaggerated sense of freedom, held over from seven years of improvised poetry readings” (xv). Shange performed in the first show as the lady in orange; in earlier performances, she appeared as the lady in brown.

Sometimes referred to as for colored girls, this work is the foundation of Shange’s lasting legacy as a multidisciplinary artist. Her influences include her time dancing with African Dance companies and her work as a poet reading and writing with women of color in San Francisco. This study guide references the first edition from Scribner Poetry, published in 1997. The original text and this study guide both include references to rape, murder, and domestic abuse.

Summary

In the choreopoem, for colored girls covers many topics specific to Black girls coming of age and trying to understand their place in the world. Many pieces discuss sexuality and relationships. Others explore the sociopolitical challenges that Black women faced at the time. Often, the speakers in the poems present their struggles, overcome those struggles, or dream of being in other places. Because it was written by a Black woman for Black women, the play uses African American Vernacular English (AAVE), including the n-word. Shange also uses the term “colored” instead of Black or African American because this term was acceptable in the 1970s, and Shange especially wanted to use familiar language so her grandmother would understand her work.

Shange’s work does not adhere to the Standard American English conventions and instead utilizes AAVE spelling and pronunciation and eschews conventions like capitalization and punctuation. This technique became synonymous with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and ’70s and with Shange’s contemporaries like activist and poet, bell hooks. Thwarting grammatical standards was meant to focus the reader’s attention on the writer’s ideas and signal the writer’s rejection of the sexism and racism that pervade modern American English.

Shange also appropriates the forward slash (/) for her own purposes. Instead of indicating line breaks, Shange uses forward slashes to introduce equivalent alternatives to words and phrases that can be used interchangeably, to indicate a pause in speaking, or to create a rhythm for the actress to adapt in performance. In this study guide, Shange’s marks remain intact, and this guide employs a double forward slash (//) to indicate an official line break in the text. Stanza breaks and speakers are not indicated, because they are not essential for understanding the text. This study guide focuses on analyzing for colored girls both as a performance piece and an extended work of poetry, as the author intended.