Carl Hancock Rux

Carl Hancock Rux 2009

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Carl Hancock Rux (born March 24, Harlem, New York) is an award winning writer and performer; former Head of the MFA Writing for Performance Program at the California Institute of the Arts (2006–09) and has taught or been in residence at University of California–San Diego, Stanford University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Hollins University, University of Iowa and Brown University. He is the recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts; Obie and BESSIE award; the Village Voice Literary prize; New York Press Club Journalism Award for Entertainment News; subject of a CINE Golden Eagle Award winning documentary and featured in the New York Times Magazine "Thirty Artists Under The Age of Thirty Most Likely to Influence Culture in the Next Thirty Years".

Early life

Born Carl Stephen Hancock in Harlem, New York, Rux's biological mother (Carol Jean Hancock) suffered from schizophrenia and was institutionalized shortly after his birth. The identity of his biological father is unknown. After the death of his maternal grandmother Geneva Hancock (née Rux) he entered the New York City foster care system at the age of four. He was legally adopted by his great uncle and aunt, James Henry Rux and Arsula Rux (née Cottrell) at the age of fifteen upon which his surname was legally changed to Rux. The name is of German derivation. It is also a city near Wroclaw, Poland situated on the Oder river in Lower Silesia, formerly a jurisdiction of Bohemia, Austria and Prussia. Carl Hancock Rux has stated his mother, maternal grandmother and great uncle are African American descendents of French Huguenots of German descent. His maternal great grandfather, Alfie Rux, was the brother of Dr. Marcellus Carlyle Rux, principal of the The Bluestone Harmony Academic and Industrial School at Keysville, Virginia, one of the first boarding high schools for African Americans post-emancipation, and pastor of Mt. Olive Baptist Church at South Boston Virginia, and Mt. Ellis at Keysville, Moderator of the Harmony Association, Statistical Secretary of the General Baptist Association of Virginia.

As a teenager, Carl Rux was a member of the Harlem Writers Workshop, a summer journalism training program for inner city youth founded by African American journalists and sponsored by Columbia University and The Xerox Corporation. While in high school, he sang with the Boys Choir of Harlem and Hezekiah Walker's Love Fellowship gospel choir and studied acting. He is a graduate of the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts where he studied both visual art and voice, Columbia University, and also studied at the American University of Paris as well as the University of Ghana at Legon. After graduating college, Rux wrote theater, film and music criticism for several magazines and publications including Essence magazine, Interview magazine (and later) American Theater magazine.

Literature

Rux eventually became 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.Siting the literary influences of Julio Cortázar, Ernesto Sabato, Julio Llamazares, and Gayl Jones, Rux is the author of the novel Asphalt (see Asphalt (novel)) and the OBIE Award winning play Talk.

Theater/Dance

Rux is the author of several plays.His first, Song of Sad Young Men ( written in response to his older brother's death from AIDS) was directed by Tony Award–winning actress Trazana Beverly, and starred actor Isaiah Washington and received eleven AUDELCO nominations. Rux's most notable play is Talk ( see Talk (play) )produced at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in 2002, directed by Marion McClinton and starring actors Anthony Mackie, Karen Kandel, Reg E. Cathy, John Seitz, Maria Tucci and James Himelsbach. Set as a panel discussion structured according to Plato's Socratic Dialogues, the play focused on a (fictional) African-American writer, Archer Aymes who became a controversial overnight sensation for his first book, (an experimental novel inspired by the relationship between Agave and her son Pentheus from Euripedes The Bacchae) only to commit suicide in a prison cell ten years later. The play won seven OBIE awards. Rux has written several plays, and also worked as a writer and frequent guest performer in dance, collaborating with Marlies Yearby (choreographer of the Broadway musical Rent), the Urban Bush Women, Jane Comfort & Co., Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company,and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Rux received a BESSIE© award for his direction of the Lisa Jones/Alva Rogers dance musical, Stained. In 2005, and in 2009, he donated his archives to the Billy Rose Theater Division of the New York Public Library as well as to the Film and Video/Theater and Dance Library Archives of the California Institute of the Arts.

Actor/Performer

Rux has appeared in several theater and film projects. He originated 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 in June 2003 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; and 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 in 1875.Rux is the subject of the Voices of America television documentary, Carl Hancock Rux, Coming of Age, recipient of the CINE Golden Eagle Award (Larry Clamage/Richard Maniscalo producers);appeared in the film, The Grand Inquisitor (as The One) directed by Tony Torn, screenplay by Ruth Margraff; the documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: a Film About Gil Scott-Heron (as “Carl Hancock Rux”), the feature film The Bratz (as music teacher Mr. Whitman), the forthcoming documentary "Brooklyn Boheme" (as “Carl Hancock Rux”)co-directed by Diane Vargas and Nelson George, and "Migrations", a feature film directed by Nelson George.

Radio

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's Soundcheck. Rux co-wrote and narrated the radio documentary, Walt Whitman; Songs of Myself, awarded the 2006 New York Press Club Journalism Award for Entertainment News (Elena Park/Curtis Fox producers).

Music

Carl Hancock Rux and friend at Afro-Punk festival, CBGBs, 2006

Having recorded on spoken word artist/Tony Award–winning playwright Reg E. Gaines (Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk) sophomore CD Sweeper Don't Clean My Streets (Polygram), Rux was discovered by singer/songwriter Nona Hendryx while performing at a Toshi Reagon concert at CBGB's in New York City. Managed by Hendryx and Vicki Wickham and signed to Hendryx's independent label, Free Records, his debut CD, Cornbread, Cognac & Collard Green Revolution (unreleased) produced by Hendryx and Mark Batson, featured musicians Craig Harris, Ronnie Drayton and Lonnie Plaxico. Polly Anthony, then president of Epic Records, signed Rux to Sony/550 after seeing Rux perform with his band at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. His CD, Rux Revue, recorded and produced in Los Angeles by the Dust Brothers, Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf, featured drummers Joey Waronker (formerly of REM) and James Gadson, bassists Atom Ellis (of Link Wray/The New Cars) and Carol Kaye, keyboardist James Hall, and bass guitarist Wah-Wah Watson. The CD was voted one of the top ten alternative music CDs of 1998 (New York Times/Year in Music). Incorporating a gospel influenced Sprechgesang and Vocalese style reliant upon an African American influenced alliteration, consonance and assonance while abstaining from the common techniques of poetic monologue popular in spoken word poetry, Rux's music is often associated with the experimental sound of anti-folk and electronica pioneered by Beck and Stereopathetic Soulmanure. His baritone singing voice has frequently been described as a cross between Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Scott Walker and Gil Scott Heron, using vocal harmony hooks reminiscent of Moby or Alan Wilder's Recoil, or lush arrangements sometimes reminiscent of Virginia Astley or The Blue Nile with influences of Nick Cave, Bill Withers and Lou Reed, mixing soul, gospel, blues, rock, classical and hip-hop into a collage of majestic, dirty blues vamps underscoring heartfelt soliloquies mixed to machine drum samples, live instrumentation and sound effects. Though his debut album received critical acclaim the CD failed to cross over into the mainstream. After several appearances in the U.S. and Europe, most notably on stage with Macy Gray, Erykah Badu and The Roots, Rux asked to be released from his record deal with Sony and recorded a follow up album, "Apothecary Rx", for Giant Step records, an independent label owned by music promoter Maurice Bernstein. The CD, co-produced by Rux and Stewart Lerman with songs written by Rux, Lerman and Rob Hyman (co-writer of the song "Time After Time"), featuring rock musicians Vernon Reid, experimental jazz violinist Leroy Jenkins and Brazilian percussionist Venecius Cantuera. Rux toured Europe and recorded songs on the David Holmes CD "Bow Down To The Exit Sign". One of three tracks he co-wrote and recorded for the album, "Living Room", appeared on the second season of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. While in Europe Rux also collaborated with Portishead producer Geoff Barrow for Stephanie McKay's debut CD, McKay.Rux also contributed vocals for Jimmy Riot's (ex-boyfriend of singer Alexa Ray Joel) art-metal band Torture Sermon. His fourth studio CD, Good Bread Alley, released by Thirsty Ear Records, was co-produced by the artist and label owner Peter Gordon. Rux has since performed with many artists across genres, including Mal Waldron, Jeanne Lee, Craig Harris, Sekou Sundiata, Nona Hendryx,Cyro Baptista, Gerald Clayton and Yoshiro Fukotomi, among others.

Bibliography

Books by the author

• Elmina blues (Poetry)
• Pagan Operetta (Poetry & Fiction/SemioText)
• Talk (Play/TCG)
• Asphalt (novel/Atria, Simon & Schuster)

Selected Anthologies

• Da Capo best music writing 2004 (essay)
• Everything but the burden: what white people are taking from Black Culture (essay)
• Heights of the Marvelous: a New York anthology (poetry)
• Listen Up!: Spoken Word Poetry (poetry)
• Juncture: 25 very good stories and 12 excellent drawings (poetry)
• Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project (play)
• African American Theatre (essay)
• The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Milleneium (interview)
• Souls: a critical journal of Black politics, culture, and society (interview)
• In their Company: portraits of American playwrights (photography & interviews)
• Action: the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Theater Festival (play)
• Bum Rush the Page: a Def Poetry Jam (poetry)
• A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama (play)
• Hip-hop revolution in the flesh: power, knowledge, and pleasure in Lil Kim (essay)
• The Best American Poetry 2003 (poetry)
• Hip: The History (essay)

Discography

Lead Artist

• Rux Revue (Sony 550 Music)
• Apothecary Rx (Giant Step Records)
• Good Bread Alley (Thirsty Ear Music)

Collaborations

• Lamentations (You, Son) (12")

Giant Step Records

• Lamentations (You, Son) (12", Promo)

Giant Step Records

• A New Dimension (12") I Am

Forma Recordings

• Abstract Jazz Lounge III (2xLP, Album) I Am (Original Mix)

Nite Grooves

• Bow Down To The Exit Sign/Slip Your Skin/Compared to What/Living Room

Go! Beat 1500 Records

• Optometry (CD, Album) Asphalt (Tome II)

Thirsty Ear

• Deep House Vol. 2 - Harley & Muscle In The Mix (2xCD) Lamentations(You, Son)

Clubstar 2001

• Eclectic Aesthetic (Part 2) (CDr, Mixed) Intro To (R)Evolution

Sound Signature

• Sessions: Volume One (CD, Comp, Mixed) Lamentations (You, Son)

Giant Step Records

• Soul Sessions 2 (2xLP) Protean Character

Giant Step Records

• Soul Sessions 2 (CD, Comp) Protean Character

Giant Step Records

• Fall 2003 Records Sampler (CD, Comp) Lamentations

Giant Step Records

• Loop Select 005 (CD + DVD) Lamentations (You, Son)

LOOP Recordings Aot(ear)oa

• Simply Good Music Vol. 1 (CD, Comp) Lamentations

Giant Step Records

• The Green Room 003:(Ear)th (CD) Protean Character

LOOP Recordings Aot(ear)oa

• Thirsty Ear Blue Series Sampler (CD, Smplr) Thadeus Star

Thirsty Ear

• Rhapsodies in Black: Music and Words from the Harlem Renaissance

Rhino Records

• Our Souls Have Grown Deep Like The Rivers: Black Poets Read Their Work

Rhino Records

• Poetry on Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work 1888-2006

Shout Factory

• Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre: Revelations A Musical Retrospective...

• The Temptation of Saint Anthony

Producers: Bernice Johnson Reagon/Toshi Reagon

External links

• www.CarlHancockRux.com Official Website