… the story of cutting her hair when cutting it wasn’t in…at all.
“I was asked to do a show with the emerging African nations. At that time, I was wearing me hair straightened. I wasn’t comfortable in the woman’s skin wearing that style of hair because I knew that they didn’t wear their hair straightened in Africa. So, I went through rehearsals with the straightened hair but the night before the show, which was being done live, I went to a barbershop in Harlem called The Shalamar where Duke Ellington used to cut his hair.”
“I told the barber to cut my hair as close to my scalp as possible, then shampoo it so it could go back to its natural state. He then sat down. When he regained himself, he came back to me and said, ‘Are you sure that’s what you want?’ I said, ‘Yes.’”
“The next morning I go to the studio with my hair wrapped in a scarf. I go to makeup and costume. Then when the director said, ‘Places.’ I took the scarf off…You could hear a hair hit the floor. So finally he walked up to me and said, ‘Cicely, you cut your hair…” I sheepishly held my down and shook my head.”
“Then he said, ‘You know, I wanted to ask you to do that but I didn’t have the nerve. [smiles]”
Tyson is also hands on. She co-founded the Dance Theater of Harlem after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and when a school board in East Orange, New Jersey, wanted to name a performing arts schools after her, she only agreed to accept the honor if she could participate in school activities.