Amantha Edmead
Meet three women who's life stories show that vision plus action can change anything!
We follow our heroines on a journey that whines between post slavery, through Garveyism, the Harlem renaissance, Pan Africanism and beyond.
Join Madam CJ Walker, (the first self made female millionaire and hair product Queen), Amy Jacques Garvey and Amy Ashwood Garvey (the two wives of African Nationalist the Honourable Marcus Garvey, and champions of the movement in their own right) in a play about the power of hope in action.
This uplifting solo piece of is authored and performed by Amantha Edmead and directed by John Sailsman. It is bought to life through a mixture of storytelling, comedy, movement and song. Drawing on African theatrical practices of fusing performance styles.
The weaver, who can only be described as a Master, was Amantha Edmead. This seasoned practioner of her craft, wove the story of three of her heroines – Amy Jacques Garvey, Madam C.J. Walker and Amy Ashwood Garvey – into a cloth called self-empowerment, iridescent as kente. Using narrative and movement, interspersed with humour and song, she took us on a journey - showing the bold designs and radiant patterns, that this triumvirate created.
Review - Watching the Master Weaver
Like the Kente weaver, so Amantha went between the three chairs - giving biographical sketches of the occupants: as children, youth and adults. It was amazing to watch her going between the three, weaving her textile, emblazoned with female phenomena. If you look up the word brilliant, it will give you words like gifted, masterly, inventive, creative; brilliant would be a perfect description, of the performance. Amantha is a 21st century women, celebrating ancient Africa – and its wondrous female diaspora. She is their spiritual descendent: the daughter of legacy. Dear reader, if this show comes round again , go and see it: go and see the master weaver at work.
Like the place of the weaver, whose only other resident is the loom, Amantha’s only accompanists, were three chairs. Going between the chairs and the accents – Jamaican and American – she told us of three women, who at various times, knew the national or international stage. The Jamaican Amy Jacques Garvey; journalist, editor, writer and activist, who held the UNIA – Universal Negro Improvement Association – together, when her husband Marcus Garvey was imprisoned in America. Madame C. J.Walker, the American entrepreneur and philanthropist, who revolutionised hair treatment for Black women, becoming in the process, the first Black female millionairess in America. Amy Ashwood Garvey - compatriot of Amy Jaques - first wife of Marcus and fellow activist, became a key figure in the development of the UNIA - which at its height, had an international membership of six million.