The Mary Mack-a-thon
This Mary Mack-a-thon is an excerpt from Let’s Get the Rhythm, directed by Irene Chagall and coproduced with City Lore and Public Art Films. The hour-long documentary tells a powerful, engaging, and poignant story about women’s lives by chronicling girls’ handclapping games on inner city playgrounds. Viewers are introduced to three eight year old girls, Heaven Evans, from a household of four generations of Black women in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Eve Cook, from Montclair, New Jersey, and the extraordinarily articulate Sara Wright from East Harlem. The film follows the three girls over a four-year period, showing them learning games, deciding that some of them are “babyish” and eventually outgrowing them. With scenes of handclapping games played all over the world, the film draws attention to these girls' games as an empowering force in the lives of women.
Interwoven with the story of the three central characters growing up, are a series of brilliant and passionate women of all different ages who talk about the role of the games in their lives, among them movement specialist Dionne Kamara, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, founder of Urban Bush Women, and the prominent folklorist, Bess Lomax Hawes.
Directed by Irene Chagall
Coproduced by Irene Chagall and Steve Zeitlin, City Lore
Sponsored by City Lore and Public Art Films
Edited by Lee Eaton
Watch the full film at http://letsgettherhythm.com
To learn more about City Lore, visit http://citylore.org
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City Lore, Urban Folklore, City Play 1, video 173