In My Own Little Corner

From the commissioned exhibition essay by Ella Ray:

The 1997 version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, starring Brandy Norwood as the title character and Whitney Houston as her Fairy Godmother, is a noteworthy reimagining of the original 1957 film and its 1965 remake. While this iteration of the production adheres to the canonical structure of the tale—the wicked stepmother, the pumpkin-turned-carriage, the prince, the glass slipper—its themes of transformation and desire are deepened by the protagonist’s identity as a Black girl from a working-class background. Norwood and Houston world-build together to conceive of a life beyond Cinderella’s repressive and oftentimes abusive homelife. The power of her imagination catalyzes Cinderella to move from “her own little corner in her own little room” to a life of her own creation. In a standout scene, Norwood and Houston slip into a call-and-response as they hurry to the ball, the lyric “Impossible!” slowly but fiercely becoming “It’s possible!” Nurtured by the Black gospel tradition and dripping with a R&B cadence, their voices swell with faith that their current circumstances can and will change and that the transformation is already in motion.