Carl Hancock Rux

Carl Hancock Rux (born March 24, 1979) is an American poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, actor, director, singer/ songwriter. He has recorded four CD's; and s the author of several books including "Pagan Operetta" (poetry), Asphalt (novel) and the OBIE award-winning play Talk. Rux's essay "The New White Negro" was selected for Best American Music Writing 2004. He is also a frequent collaborator in the fields of dance, theater, film, and contemporary art with artists including Nona Hendryx, Toshi Reagon, Bill T. Jones, Ronald K. Brown, Nick Cave, Anne Bogart, Robert Wilson, Kenny Leon, Jonathan Demme, Stanley Nelson Jr., Carrie Mae Weems, Glenn Ligon and others. His archives are housed at the Billy Rose Theater Division of the New York Public Library, the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution as well as the Film and Video/Theater and Dance Library of the California Institute of the Arts. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Doris Duke Awards for New Works, the Doris Duke Charitable Fund, the New York Foundation for the Arts Prize, the Bessie Schonberg (New York Dance and Performance Awards, informally known as the Bessie Awards) and the Alpert Award in the Arts

Rux was born in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem

Born Carl Stephen Hancock in Harlem, New York, Rux's biological mother (Carol Jean Hancock) suffered from chronic mental illness, diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and institutionalized shortly after the birth of his older brother. Born the result of an illegitimate pregnancy while his mother was under the care of a New York City operated psychiatric institution, the identity of Rux's biological father is unknown. Rux was placed under the guardianship of his maternal grandmother, Geneva Hancock (née Rux), until her death of cirrhosis of the liver due to alcoholism. At four years of age he entered the New York City foster care system where he remained until he was eventually placed under the legal guardianship of his great uncle (grandmother's brother) James Henry Rux and his wife Arsula (née Cottrell) and raised in the Highbridge section of the Bronx. Rux attended PS 73, Roberto Clemente Junior High School and received a scholarship to the Horace Mann School, an independent Ivy college preparatory school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx before transferring to the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts where he studied visual art. Exposed to jazz music by his legal guardians, including the work of Oscar Brown Jr., John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, Rux eventually double majored in music/voice, as well as sang with the Boys Choir of Harlem. He also became a member of the Harlem Writers Workshop, a summer journalism training program for inner city youth founded by African-American journalists, sponsored by Columbia University and The Xerox Corporation. At the age of 15, Rux was legally adopted by his guardians and his surname changed to Rux. Upon graduation from high school he entered Columbia College where he studied in the Creative Writing Program; took private acting classes at both HB studios, Gertrude Jeanette's Hadley Players as well as privately with actor Robert Earl Jones (father of actor James Earl Jones). Rux continued his studies at Columbia University, American University of Paris as well as the University of Ghana at Legon.

Working as a Social Work Trainer while moonlighting as a writer of film and music criticism, Rux became a founding member of Hezekiah Walker's Love Fellowship gospel choir and later found himself influenced by the Lower East Side poetry and experimental theater scene, collaborating with poets Miguel Algarin, Bob Holman, Jayne Cortez, Sekou Sundiata, Ntozake Shange; experimental musicians David Murray, Mal Waldron, Butch Morris, Craig Harris, Jeanne Lee, Leroy Jenkins as well as experimental theater artists Laurie Carlos, Robbie McCauley, Ruth Maleczech, Lee Breuer, Reza Abdoh and others. is one of several poets (including Paul Beatty, Tracie Morris, Dael Orlandersmith, Willie Perdomo, Kevin Powell, Maggie Estep, Reg E. Gaines, Edwin Torres and Saul Williams) to emerge from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, most of whom were included in the poetry anthology Aloud, Voices From the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, winner of the 1994 American Book Award. His first book of poetry, Pagan Operetta, received the Village Voice Literary prize and was featured on the weekly's cover story: "Eight Writers on the Verge of (Impacting) the Literary Landscape". Rux is the author of the novel Asphalt and the author of several plays. His first play, Song of Sad Young Men (written in response to his older brother's death from AIDS), was directed by Trazana Beverly and starred actor Isaiah Washington. The play received eleven AUDELCO nominations. His most notable play is the OBIE Award-winning Talk, first produced at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in 2002. Directed by Marion McClinton and starring actor Anthony Mackie, the play won seven OBIE awards.

Rux is also a recording artist, first featured on Reg E. Gaines CD Sweeper Don't Clean My Streets (Polygram). As a musician, his work is known to encompass an eclectic mixture of blues, rock, vintage R&B, classical music, futuristic pop, soul, poetry, folk, psychedelic music and jazz. His debut CD, Cornbread, Cognac & Collard Green Revolution (unreleased) was produced by Nona Hendryx and Mark Batson, featuring musicians Craig Harris, Ronnie Drayton and Lonnie Plaxico. His CD Rux Revue was recorded and produced in Los Angeles by the Dust Brothers, Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf. Rux recorded a follow up album, Apothecary Rx, (selected by French writer Phillippe Robert for his 2008 publication "Great Black Music": an exhaustive tribute of 110 albums including 1954's "Lady Sings The Blues" by Billie Holiday, the work of Jazz artists Oliver Nelson, Max Roach, John Coltrane, rhythm and blues artists Otis Redding, Ike & Tina Turner, Curtis Mayfield, George Clinton; as well as individual impressions of Fela Kuti, Jimi Hendrix, and Mos Def.) His fourth studio CD, Good Bread Alley, was released by Thirsty Ear Records, and his fifth "Homeostasis" (CD Baby) was released in May 2013. Rux has written and performed (or contributed music) to a proportionate number of dance companies including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company; Jane Comfort & Co. and Ronald K. Brown's "Evidence" among others.

Books by author

• Elmina Blues (poetry) 1995
• Pagan Operetta (poetry/Short Fiction/SemioText) 1998
• Asphalt (novel/Simon & Schuster) 2004
• Talk (drama/TCG Press) 2002

Literary fiction

• Asphalt (novel) (Atria, Simon & Schuster) 2004
• The Exalted (novel) forthcoming

Selected plays

• Song of Sad Young Men
• Talk
• Geneva Cottrell, Waiting for the Dog to Die
• Smoke, Lilies and Jade
• Song of Sad Young Men
• Chapter & Verse
• Pipe
• Pork Dream in the American House of Image
• Not the Flesh of Others
• Singing In the Womb of Angels
• Better Dayz Jones (Harlem Stage)
• "Stranger On Earth" (Harlem Stage)
• The (No) Black Male Show
• Mycenaean
• Asphalt (directed by Talvin Wilkes)
• Etudes for the Sleep of Other Sleepers (directed by Laurie Carlos)
• Steel Hammer (co-written by Will Power, Kia Corthran and Regina Taylor for the SITI company, directed by Anne Bogart).
• The Exalted (directed by Anne Bogart)
• NPR Presents WATER ± (co-written by Arthur Yorinks, directed by Kenny Leon)

Selected essays

• "Eminem: The New White Negro"
• "Dream Work and the Mimesis of Carrie Mae Weems"
• "Belief and the Invisible Playwright"
• "In Memoriam: Ruby Dee (1922–2014)"
• "Up From The Mississippi Delta"
• "Democratic Vistas of Space and Light"
• "A Rage In Harlem"

Selected anthologies

• Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project University of Texas Press
• Soul: Black Power, Politics, and Pleasure NYU Press
• Heights of the Marvelous NYU Press
• Juncture: 25 Very Good Stories and 12 Excellent Drawings Soft Skull Press
• Da Capo Best Music Writing 2004: The Year's Finest Writing on Rock, Hip-hop, Jazz, Pop, Country, and More, DeCapo Press
• Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, Counterpoint Press
• Humana Festival 2014: The Complete Plays, Playscripts, Incorporated
• Action: The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Theatre, Simon & Schuster
• Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Three Rivers Press
• The African American Male, Writing, and Difference: A Polycentric Approach to African American Literature, Criticism, and History, State University of New York Press
• Meditations and Ascensions: Black Writers on Writing, Third World Press
• Plays from the Boom Box Galaxy: Theater from the Hip-hop Generation, Theatre Communications Group
• Bad Behavior, Random House
• Verse: An Introduction to Prosody , John Wiley & Sons Press
• Significations of Blackness: American Cinema and the Idea of a Black Film, UMI Press
• So Much Things to Say: 100 Poets from the First Ten Years of the Calabash International Literary Festival, Akashic Books
• Black Men In Their Own Words, Crown Publishers
• Bulletproof Diva, Knopf Doubleday
• Race Manners: Navigating the Minefield Between Black and White Americans, Skyhorse Publishing
• In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights, Umbrage Press
• Listen Again: a Momentary History of Pop Music, Duke University Press

Journalism

Rux has been published as a contributing writer in numerous journals, catalogues, anthologies, and magazines including Interview magazine, Essence magazine, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, aRude Magazine, Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art (founded by fellow art critics Okwui Enwezor, Chika Okeke-Agulu and Salah Hassan) and American Theater Magazine.

Libretti

• Makandal (music by Yosvaney Terry, stage design and costumes by Edouard Duval Carrie, directed by Lars Jan) Harlem Stage
• Blackamoor Angel (music by Deidre Murray; directed by Karin Coonrod) Bard Spiegeltent/Joseph Papp Public Theater
• Kingmaker (music by Toshi Reagon) BRIC Arts Media
• Perfect Beauty" (music by Tamar Muskal)

• http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/everything-but-the-burden-greg-tate/1100624302?ean=9780767914970
• http://blogs.guggenheim.org/checklist/dream-work-mimesis-carrie-mae-weems/
• http://www.amazon.com/PAJ-100-January-2012-Performance-ebook/dp/B006W1COVO
• http://www.americantheatre.org/2014/08/12/in-memoriam-ruby-dee-1922-2014/
• https://www.tcg.org/publications/at/Sept08/delta.cfm
• http://blogs.newschool.edu/news/2015/05/glenn-ligon-unveils-comrades-and-lovers-at-the-new-school/#.
• http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/JulyAugust04/harlem.cfm

Solo albums

• Cornbread, Cognac, Collard Green Revolution (unreleased/1997)
• Rux Revue Sony/550 Music (1999)
• Apothecary Rx Giant Step (2004)
• Good Bread Alley Thirsty Ear (2006)
• Homeostasis CD Baby (2013)

Singles

• "Miguel" (Sony) 1999
• "Wasted Seed" (Sony) 1999
• "Fall Down" (Sony) 1999
• "No Black Male Show" (Sony) 1999
• "Good Bread Alley" (Thirsty Ear) 2006
• "Thadius Star" (Thirsty Ear) 2006
• "Living Room" (Thirsty Ear) 2006
• "Disrupted Dreams" (Giant Step) 2010
• "Eleven More Days" (Giant Step) 2010
• "I Got A Name" (Giant Step) 2010
• "Living Room" (Kevin Shields Remix) (Mercury) 2013

12-inch singles

• "Lamentations (You, Son)" Giant Step Records 2001

Collaborations

• Sweeper Don't Clean My Streets Reg E. Gaines Polygram (1995)
• Eargasms Vol. 1 (1996)
• 70 Years Coming R. L. Burnside Bongload/Acid Blues Records (1998)
• Our Souls Have Grown Deep Like the Rivers: Black Poets Read Their Works, Rhino (2000)
• Bow Down to the Exit Sign David Holmes Go! Beat (2000)
• Love Each Other Yukihiro Fukutomi Sony/ Japan (2001)
• Optometry DJ Spooky Thirsty Ear Recordings (2002)
• The Temptation of Saint Anthony (Studio Cast Recording) (2004)
• Inradio 5 Morningwatch 2004
• Thirsty Ear Presents: Blue Series Sampler (Thirsty Ear) 2006
• Poetry on Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work, 1888-2006 Box Set Shout! Factory (2006)
• More Than Posthuman-Rise of the Mojosexual Cotillion Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber, TruGROID (2006)
• The Dogs Are Parading David Holmes Universal (2010)
• Life Forum Gerald Clayton Concord Jazz (2013)
• Tributary Tales Gerald Clayton 2017

Songwriter

• Mckay Stephanie McKay Universal Music 2003

Movin' Sprits Dance Co.

• Kick The Boot, Raise the Dust An' Fly; A Recipe for Buckin (chor: Marlies Yearby, co-authors: Sekou Sundiata, Laurie Carlos, music: Craig Harris ) Performance Space 122, Maison des arts de Créteil (France)
• Totin' Business & Carryin' Bones (chor. Marlies Yearby), Performance Space 122, Maison des arts de Créteil (France)
• The Beautiful (chor: Marlies Yearby, co-author:Laurie Carlos), Judson Church, Tribeca Performing Arts Center
• Of Urban Intimacies (chor: Marlies Yearby), Lincoln Center Serious Fun!, Central Park Summerstage, National Tour
• That Was Like This/ This Was Like That(chor: Marlies Yearby, music: Grisha Coleman), Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Central Park Summerstage, National Tour

Anita Gonzalez

• Yanga, (chor: Anita Gonzalez, music: Cooper-Moore, composer), Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Montclair State College

Jane Comfort & Co.

• Asphalt (dir/chor:Jane Comfort; vocal score: Toshi Reagon, music: DJ Spooky, David Pleasant, Foosh, dramaturgy:Morgan Jenness, costumes: Liz Prince, lighting design: David Ferri ), Joyce Theater, National Tour

Urban Bush Women

• Soul Deep (chor: Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, composer: David Murray), Walker Arts Center, National Tour
• Shelter (chor: Jawole Willo Jo Zollar, music: Junior Gabbu Wedderburn) International Tour
• Hair Stories (chor: Jawole Willa jo Zollar) BAM Theater/Esplanade Theater (Singapore) Hong Kong Arts Festival

Jubilation! Dance Co.

• Sweet In The Morning (chor: Kevin Iega Jeff)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

• Shelter (chor: Jawole Willo Jo Zollar, music: Junior Gabbu Wedderburn) City Center, International Tour
• Uptown (chor: Matthew Rushing) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
• Four Corners (chor: Ronald K. Brown) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater 2014

Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble (Ailey II)

• Seeds (chor: Kevin Iega Jeff) Aaron Davis Hall, Apollo Theater, National Tour

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Theater

• The Artificial Nigger (chor: Bill T. Jones) Arnie Zane Bill T. Jones Dance Co; music: Daniel Bernard Roumain National Tour

Roberta Garrison Co.

• Certo! (chor: Roberta Garrison, music: Mathew Garrison) Scuola di Danza Mimma Testa in Trastevere (Rome, Italy) Teatro de natal infantil Raffaelly Beligni (Naples, Italy)

M'Zawa Dance Co.

• Seeking Pyramidic Balance/Flipmode (chor: Maia Claire Garrison) 651 Arts

Robert Moses Kin

• Helen (chor: Robert Moses) Yerba Buena Performing Arts Center
• Nevabawarldapece (chor: Robert Moses) Yerba Buena Performing Arts Center

Topaz Arts Dance

• Dreamfield (chor: Paz Tanjuaquio) Hudson River Park NY

Theater

Rux studied acting at the Hagen Institute (under Uta Hagen); the Luleå National Theatre School (Luleå, Sweden) and at the National Theater of Ghana (Accra). Rux has appeared in several theater projects, most notably originating the title role in the folk opera production of The Temptation of St. Anthony, based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, directed by Robert Wilson with book, libretto and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon and costumes by Geoffrey Holder. The production debuted as part of the RuhrTriennale festival in Duisburg Germany with subsequent performances at the Greek Theater in Siracusa, Italy; the Festival di Peralada in Peralada, Spain; the Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria in Santander, Spain; Sadler's Wells in London, Great Britain; the Teatro Piccinni in Bari, Italy; the Het Muziektheater in Amsterdam, Netherlands; the Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao and the Teatro Espanol in Madrid, Spain. The opera made its American premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music / BAM Next Wave Festival in October 2004 and official "world premiere" at the Paris Opera, becoming the first all African American opera to perform on its stage since the inauguration of the Académie Nationale de Musique - Théâtre de l'Opéra. Combining both his dramatic training and dance movement into his performance, Rux's performance was described as having "phenomenal charisma and supreme physical expressiveness" and achieving "a near-iconic power, equally evoking El Greco's saints in extremis and images of civil rights protesters besieged by fire hoses." Rux has also appeared in several plays and performance works for theater, as well as in his own work.

Film/Television

Carl Hancock Rux was the host and artistic programming director of the WBAI radio show, Live from The Nuyorican Poets Cafe; contributing correspondent for XM radio's The Bob Edwards Show and frequent guest host on WNYC as well as NPR and co-wrote and performed in the national touring production of NPR Presents Water±, directed by Kenny Leon.

• The Whitney Museum "Beat Culture and the New America, 1950-1965"
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum "Carrie Mae Weems: Live"
• Thread Waxing Space "Sacred Music"
• The Foundry Theater "Roundtable on Hope"
• The Kitchen "Sapphire: Black Wings & Blind Angels"
• Harlem Stage "We Da People Cabaret"
• The New School "Glenn Ligon " Comrades and Lovers"
• Mass MoCA "Nick Cave: Until"

Rux is formally the Head of the MFA Writing for Performance Program at the California Institute of Arts and has taught and or been an artist in residence at Brown University, Hollins University, UMass at Amhurst, Duke University, Stanford University, University of Iowa, and University of Wisconsin at Madison, among others.

Rux's great uncle, Rev. Marcellus Carlyle Rux (January 8, 1882 - January 5, 1948) was a graduate of Virginia Union University, and principal of The Keysville Mission Industrial School (later changed to The Bluestone Harmony Academic and Industrial School), a private school founded in 1898 by several African-American Baptist churches in Keysville Virginia at a time when education for African-Americans was scarce to non-existent. For about 50 years the school had the largest enrollment of any black boarding school in the east and sent a large number of graduates on to college. For the first five years, Marcellus Carlyle Rux was a teacher in the institution. Such was the record he made that he was promoted to the principalship in 1917. Under his administration, the school reached its highest enrollment and had its greatest period of prosperity. The post-Civil war school was one of the first of its kind in the nation and was permanently closed in 1950. The school's still existent structure once featured a girl's and boy's dormitory and President's dwelling and is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Marcellus Carlyle Rux is listed in History of the American Negro and his Institutions.

Rux's younger brother is a New York City Public School Teacher and his cousin a New York City middle school principal. Rux's older brother died of AIDS-related complications.

Rux was briefly engaged to marry a childhood sweetheart, and later, dated singer/songwriter Morley while both artists were signed to Sony Music. He has also been associated with television actress Deborah Joy Winans and aspiring actress, E'Dena Hines, the adopted step-granddaughter of Academy Award winning actor Morgan Freeman, who was brutally murdered by her ex-boyfriend, in Manhattan in the summer of 2015In 2011 Rux married his longtime partner in a private ceremony in the Tribeca loft of a close friend.

Rux's home, a Victorian Brownstone in the Fort Greene Brooklyn section of New York City, has been photographed by Stefani Georgani and frequently featured in home decor magazines and coffee table books internationally, including Elle Decor UK.

Rux joined New Yorkers Against Fracking, organized by singer Natalie Merchant, calling for a fracking ban on natural gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing. A concert featuring Rux, Merchant, actors Mark Ruffalo and Melissa Leo and musicians Joan Osborne, Tracy Bonham, Toshi Reagon, Citizen Cope, Meshell Ndegeocello and numerous others was held in Albany and resulted in public protests. Subsequently, New York Governor Mario Cuomo banned hydraulic fracking. New York follows Vermont as the only other U.S. state to ban fracking, joining such economic superpowers as France and Bulgaria. Rux was a co-producer ( through a partnership between MAPP International and Harlem Stage) and curator of WeDaPeoples Cabaret, an annual event regarding citizens without borders in a globally interdependent world. A longtime resident and homeowner in Fort Greene Brooklyn, Carl Rux worked with the Fort Greene association and New York philanthropist Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel to erect a cultural medallion at the Carlton Avenue home where novelist Richard Wright lived and penned his seminal work, Native Son. Rux is a member of Take Back the Night, a foundation seeking to end sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual abuse and all other forms of sexual violence.

• Alpert Award in the Arts
• OBIE Award
• Bessie Schönburg Award
• New York Foundation for the Arts Prize
• CINE Golden Eagle Award (television documentary)
• MNSWA Urban Griot Award (poetry)
• Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) 10 Arts & Artists in Progress Award
• New York Press Club Journalism Award for Entertainment News
• Brooklyn Borough Hall City Council Black-American Achievement Award
• Kitchen Theater Artist Award
• Fresh Poet Prize
• African Diasporic Artist in Residence (Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami)
• National Endowment for the Arts Playwright in Residence Fellow
• New York Foundation for the Arts Gregory Millard Fellow
• Rockefeller Map Grant
• Rockefeller Multi-Arts Production Fund
• Creative Capital Fund
• Creative Capital Multi-Arts Production Fund
• Creative Capital Artists Initiative Grant
• Doris Duke Awards for New Works
• Doris Duke Charitable Fund
• National Endowment for the Arts Grant
• New York State Council on the Arts Grant
• Mary Flagler Cary Foundation
• Time Out Top 10 Plays Citation (Theater)
• DeCapo’s Best Music Writing (Essay)
• New York Times "Thirty Artists under Thirty (Most Likely to Influence Culture)"
• New York Times Best Alternative Music
• Vibe Magazine "Ones to Watch"
• Village Voice Literary Prize
• Interview Magazine Artists Award
• Hermitage Artist Fellow
• United States Artist Fellowship (shortlist)
• Isadora Duncan Award/Outstanding Text and Dance (nominated)
• Yale University Hayden Artist in Residence