Sweet and Dandy is an 8-week film series featuring an entertaining mix of documentaries, shorts and narratives complementing both exhibitions on view at Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) The Grace Jones Project and Dandy Lion: (Re)Articulating Black Masculine Identity. The films explore how fashion, music and performance are expressions of resistance and pleasure, defying confining interpretations of race and masculinity/femininity in global Black communities.

A program of captivating shorts from a variety of artists such as Marlon Riggs, Terence Nash and Cheryl Dunye. The line-up includes music video, experimental and narrative pieces and documentaries on preparing for Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Carnaval in Brazil. They highlight the different ways people express their cultural and gender identities through performance and attire.

ANTHEM (10 minutes, 1991, Marlon Riggs) - An experimental music video asserting a defiant homoeroticism of African American male sexuality featuring poetry by Essex Hemphill.

VOGUE KNIGHTS IN HELL’S KITCHEN (5 minutes, 2014, animalnewyork) – A short video on the today’s “ball” culture in New York among queer men of color where “voguing” began.

MARDI GRAS INDIAN - LARRY BANNOCK. (3 minutes, 1984, Gail Pellett) - Larry Bannock was a Mardi Gras Indian, part of a rich New Orleans tradition. Steeped in history, these groups paraded during Mardi Gras and created fabulous costumes from beads, feathers, rhinestones and sequins using "Indian" motifs.

FILHOS DE GANDHY – CARNAVAL 2015 (9 minutes, 2015, Janela do Mundo. In Portuguese). Formed in 1948 by a group of stevedores in Salvador, Brazil Filhos de Gandhy (Sons of Gandi) was inspired by the peaceful philosophy of Gandhi. The group parades in the city’s Carnaval in signature blue and white attire to afoxé rhythms inspired by the Afro-Brazilizan religion of candomblé .

FRENEL: A MILINER/FATHER (7 minutes, 2014, Terence Nash) – A portrait of designer Frenel Morris

YOU&I&YOU (8 minutes, 2014, Terence Nash) – A magical realist dance odyssey with music by The Digs

BLACK IS BLUE (21 minutes, 2014, Cheryl Dunye) A short narrative that tells the story of Black — an African American Transman, who works as a security guard inside an apartment complex in Oakland.

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