Our final community screening goes down Sunday, August 28, 2022 at 7:00pm. Part of The Art of Tease, Richmond, VA, Gallery 5.
Sunday, August 7, 2022
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
Harlem in Havana Project: Burlesque Education Series
Coming Fall 2022!
The Harlem in Havana Project: Burlesque Education Series features three hour-long classes covering American burlesque history from the traveling carnival stage. The class list includes:
Girl Shows!
My Grandma Was An Exotic Dancer!?
Burlesque Bloodlines: How I Documented My Family’s History
Presented by Leslie Cunningham, a documentary filmmaker and creator of the Harlem in Havana Project, these fun, passionate and energetic classes are filled with new and existing burlesque material, personal experiences, book reviews, film clips and much more. Created for a global audience, these educational classes are guaranteed to expand your knowledge of American burlesque and Black entertainment history. Learn more.
Saturday, May 28, 2022
About the Filmmaker
A raconteur with a journalistic background, Leslie Cunningham is an artist, writer, documentary filmmaker creator and owner of TRIBES Entertainment, a boutique digital media company based in Durham, North Carolina known creating daring and entertaining narratives through a variety of digital platforms.
Leslie created TRIBES Magazine in 2004 as artists across the Triangle area of North Carolina were calling out for a voice. Her popular show TRIBES TV covered North Carolina arts and community events and aired on public television stations, including Durham Community Media and The People’s Channel in Chapel Hill, NC. A public broadcasting hit, TRIBES TV spread Leslie’s reputation as a local media institution to citizens around the Triangle.
A graduate of the documentary arts program at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in Durham, NC, Leslie’s collection of engaging documentary film, including two feature films, have screened on public television, online and at film festivals in the U.S. and internationally. Her first feature film, M.I., A Different Kind of Girl, in 2012. M.I. was selected for The North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Atlanta’s Out On Film, Gender Reel Film Festival in 2012, and ended its festival tour in 2016 at Massimadi, the LGBT Film Festival of Africa and its Diasporas. Learn more.
Get your copy of the book BROWN SKIN SHOWGIRLS!
BROWN SKIN SHOWGIRLS is a black and white photographic celebration of the many brave African American and Cuban women who performed exotic, rumba, salsa, calypso, striptease and much more on Leon Claxton's Harlem in Havana Revue during the heyday of burlesque. This book is guaranteed to expand your knowledge of these performers who helped shape American entertainment and popular culture as we know it today. Many of them have transitioned or their whereabouts are unknown. All attempt have been made to verify the names of the individuals appearing in this book. Thanks to this special collector’s edition, they will never be forgotten. Get ready to be titillated! Learn more at harleminhavana.com.
Wednesday, March 9, 2022
Duke dance professor Thomas F. DeFrantz talks about JIG SHOW
Thomas F. DeFrantz,
Dance Professor at Duke University
Leslie Cunningham’s project sheds light on an under-explored aspect of black popular
culture in the United States, the traveling “jig show” or performing variety show/ human circus of
the twentieth century. These traveling shows brought forward crucial possibilities of social
engagement in their presentation of specialized music, dance, and burlesque-style
performance. Bridging the shift from live performance and vaudeville to the ubiquity of
television in the first half of the 1900s, these midway shows stand as demonstration of American
popular culture shaped by a pressing need to share music and dance from other geographic
locations, standards of musicality prevalent in other places, and, of course, definitions of
femininity and female beauty demonstrated by the showgirls always featured in the revue.
(Photos: In the Spring of 2022 Defrantz invited Leslie to screen her film
to students at the annual Slippage@Duke event.)
Indeed, Leon Claxton’s successful show built upon a well-established arrangement of
specialized dance, including tap dance and Latin dance; specialized music, including big band
Latin sounds; and burlesque performance, including “showgirls” and strip-tease artists.
Cunningham narrates an expansive social impact of these
formations of a popular black and Latino cultures in the context of the segregated United States.
Indeed, Cunningham’s project holds enormous potential to ignite discourse surrounding
instances of Black American and Cuban collaboration, a woefully under-resourced area of
inquiry.
Leon Claxton’s show confirmed a willingness of Cuban and Black American alignment,
a formation easily denied or forgotten as many twenty-first century Cubans claim proximity to
‘whiteness’ rather than ‘blackness.’ Popular cultures always reveal fault lines and tensions of
race, gender, sexuality, class, and their circulations among people; this film Jig Show will
bring these tensions into sharp relief while providing an invaluable document of myriad routes of
circulation for black music and dance.
From Thomas F. DeFrantz, Chair, Duke University African & African American Studies
Professor, Duke Dance|Theater Studies, Director, SLIPPAGE: Performance, Culture, Technology, President, Society of Dance History Scholars
Saturday, September 25, 2021
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Slippage @ Duke University Fall Series presents a special student screening JIG SHOW | Leon Claxton's Harlem in Havana
Sunday, August 29 at 3pm the SLIPPAGE @ Duke University 2021 Fall Series presents a final "work in progress" of Durham-based creator, Leslie Cunningham’s new documentary film series (part 1 and 2) “JIG SHOW | Leon Claxton’s Harlem in Havana”. This is a special screening for students. Slippage@Duke is directed by Thomas F. DeFrantz at the Rubenstein Arts Center. All events will be in the SLIPPAGE lab, Room 202, Rubenstein Arts Center. All events are free and open to the public. There will be capacity limits and masking protocols. For more information email:t.defrantz@duke.edu or visit https://slippage.duke.edu.
Monday, August 23, 2021
Burlesque artist Bebe Bardeaux featured!
Burlesque artist Bebe Bardeaux talks about the history of Black Burlesque in JIG SHOW | Leon Claxton's Harlem in Havana!
In August of 2020, the New York School of Burlesque Book Club held an online event hosted by Bebe Bardeaux where filmmaker Leslie Cunningham talks about the history of Harlem in Havana, her family's legacy and the Brown Skin Showgirls book. Parts of the virtual interview will be featured in the JIG SHOW film series showing online now.
Affectionately known as "The Doll of D.C.,"Bebe Bardeaux", is an award-winning burlesque performer who has wowed audiences all across the nation from coast to coast! Bebe took home the 2019 Golden Smile Award at the Golden Legends Champion Challenge and the #1 top prize at the 2018 Washington D.C. Burlypicks competition. She was nominated for the 2018 New York Burlesque Festival's Hottest Freshman Award and the 2018 Best of Gay DC Best Burlesque Performer Award.
BEBE brings her critical perspective to the film project. She is a published burlesque historian and author of the forthcoming book SHAKE QUEENS, and has been featured in several leading pinup magazines.
A special thank you to Bebe Bardeaux, the New York School of Burlesque and headmistress Jo Weldon for creating the platform to share the legacy of Harlem in Havana, an important part of the the history of Black Burlesque!
Saturday, August 21, 2021
Meet the indy artists behind JIG SHOW
Filmmaker Leslie reached out to a few of her favorite indie artists to help tell the story of JIG SHOW | Leon Claxton's Harlem in Havana. Featured in the film are the works of Hip Hop Poet Mr. Rozzi; African born-musician Mamoudou Balde; rock-n-roll musician and music composer Gordon Tittsworth, spoken word poet and activist Monica Daye, visual artist Derrick "Benetez" Bryant and Atlanta-based R&B artist Jeremy Johnson (aka J’DA Prynce)
who lent his voice for narration in part 2, and signed on as executive producer for the film.
Mammoudou Balde
African Musician
Monica Daye
Spoken Word Artist
Derrick "Benetez" Bryant
Visual Artist
Jeremy Johnson
Writer and Musician
Thursday, February 25, 2021
View the HARLEM IN HAVANA Collectors edition online!
(IPad, PDF or Web Viewer)
The Harlem in Havana Collector's Edition features 28 original pages taken directly from the show's annual program booklets in 1955, 1958 and 1959. Showcasing outstanding cast members, including Micki Lynn, The Five Pennies and the Cuban Dancing Dolls, some of the pages in this special edition include autographs from the entertainers themselves! View now.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Supporting SUSO-NC
Supporting Stand Up Speak Out - NC (SUSO) - SUSO aims to empower individuals they serve by providing advocacy and therapeutic support through Art Therapy for children and teens who are victims or witnesses to domestic violence and sexual abuse. Read more now.
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Musician Jeremy Johnson signs on as Executive Producer
Musician and performing artist Jeremy J. Johnson of Applaud You Talent Group LLC, has officially signed on as an executive producer (EP) of the JIG SHOW documentary film. Jeremy is a seasoned musician, performing artist and entertainer who has performed internationally as a lead vocalist with popular R&B bands, including Heat, SolcetFre Project and Soul Brothers Band-the Ultimate James Brown Tribute Band.
Sunday, August 2, 2020
New York School of Burlesque Book Club Show presents "Brown Skin Showgirls"
Join the New York School of Burlesque Book club show for an hour of books and burlesque! Burlesque Historian Bebe Bardot will guest host, interviewing author/filmmaker Leslie Cunningham about her book Brown Skin Showgirls.
Learn more now.
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
2019 Grant Recipient of "Filmed in NC"
Read more.
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Don't wait for the film! See the BROWN SKIN Showgirls!
Monday, November 6, 2017
2017 SDF Grant Recipient
Just announced! JIG SHOW | Leon Claxton's Harlem in Havana has been selected as an official 2017 Southern Documentary Fund Filmmaking Grant recipient. SDF supports documentary films made in and about the South. The grants are made possible thanks to the generous support from the Mark Duke Biddle Foundation. Visit southerndocumentaryfund.org.
Thursday, September 7, 2017
JIG SHOW hits FRESH DOCS, Friday, September 22, Durham, NC!
The Center for Documentary Studies and the Southern Documentary Fund are pleased to present a free screening of JIG SHOW | Leon Claxton’s Harlem in Havana, a feature documentary film in progress by Leslie Cunningham who takes viewers on a tour of her grandfather’s Black and Cuban traveling show that endures racism, segregation and immigration laws to become popular in the 1940s through the 1960s. The film is presented as part of the Fresh Docs series featuring documentary works-in-progress. Following the screenings, a moderated conversation with the filmmaker will be held, during which the audience provides valuable feedback. Note: This screening is a Fresh Docs screenings are free, but attendees must RESERVE A TICKET via Eventbrite.
Friday, September 22nd @ 7pm, Full Frame Theater, American Tobacco Campus, Blackwell St. Durham, North Carolina 27701
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Work-in-Progress Screening in DC, Saturday, July 29th!
Capitol Dance & Cinema Festival's feature film series continues Saturday, July 29 @ Dance Exchange with a work-in-progress screening of the coming documentary film JIG SHOW | Leon Claxton's Harlem in Havana by filmmaker Leslie Cunningham.- 7:00pm - 7:30pm Harlem in Havana Photo Exhibition and Event Seating
- 7:30pm - 8:30pm Film Screening Q &A with filmmaker
The event is hosted by Jen Ray of Dancinema.
Brown Skin Showgirls Books Available for Purchase!
Free Admission! .
Dance Exchange
7117 Maple Avenue
Takoma Park, Maryland
Friday, March 17, 2017
JIG SHOW work-in-progress screening, April 4, Beyu Caffe, Durham, NC
Step Right Up, Fam, Friends and Supporters- You are invited to a work-in-progress screening of my coming doc film- JIG SHOW | Leon Claxton's Harlem in Havana - Durham, NC - Tuesday, April 4th @ 7:00pm at Beyu Caffe.The Southern Documentary Fund presents Docs For Us / By Us: a new 3-part series in partnership with Beyu Caffe, Black documentary filmmakers from Durham present works-in-progress, reaching out for community support, resources and ideas as their stories take shape. This series takes place monthly on Tuesday evenings, 7:00 PM at Beyu Caffe, 341 W. Main St, Durham. Part of Beyu Caffe’s #BeConnected program. Learn more now.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Tampa Production Underway!
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| Doc Rivera Interview at the Showmen's Museum in Tampa, Florida - With Gazio Productions |
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