Dave Chapelle has announced that his Alma Mater, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, will not make his name in his theater.
The comic icon, a 1991 graduate of Washington Public School, surprised viewers at the Student Theater announcement ceremony on Monday. The theater will instead be called the Theater of Liberty and Artistic Expression.
At the ceremony, Chapel said he refused to be honored because he did not want his name to interfere with the work of the students.
The Duke Ellington School of the Arts last year decided to name the theater after the Chapel and planned a fundraiser in November. But the school postponed the event after controversy escalated following Chapel’s Netflix special “The Closer,” which included explicit jokes about transgender women and the LGBTQ community.
“The Duke Ellington School was a great institution.“ Within these walls I found a context in which I seriously explored my work, ”Chapel wrote, adding,“ My only purpose was to give Duke Ellington had the opportunity to properly prepare his actors.
The Netflix special controversy has sparked Chapel’s comments on the trans community. Duke Ellington’s students joined the protest.
Chapelle said Monday that the students’ criticisms were “really hurt”.
“I’ve done a lot of cold shooting in business … but that day was painful,” the standing icon told the excited people at the ceremony.
Chapel said that instead of directly rejecting the eponym, he “delayed” by changing the name of his school’s theater to emphasize the “nuances of art” as well as “my right, my freedom to artistic expression ”and called it the Art Theater. Freedom and expression.
After the announcement of his decision, which he said he did on Friday, people shouted and the Chapel applauded.
“No matter what else they say about The Closer, it’s still (one of) the most watched specialties on Netflix,” Chapelle said. “The more you say I can’t say something, the more relevant it will be. No matter what you say, I can’t say. It all has to do with my freedom of artistic expression ”.
Philip Lewis participated in the report.
Source: Huffpost
