Soul Steps’ performance illustrates the dynamic percussive dance movement called Stepping. Their often interactive presentation also includes an overview of the history and healing power of stepping throughout the African Diaspora.
Public space in the 19th and 20th century was inaccessible most of the time, but there were moments such as expositions, pageants, parades and protests when public space was claimed. Marching On: The Politics of Performance explores the histories, driving forces, and legacy of marching and organized forms of performance.
Reception follows, (2nd Floor Reception Lounge)
Co-sponsored by Architectural Technology Department
Keynote Event
T.R. Simon, author of the Edgar Award –nominated children’s book Zora and Me: The Cursed Ground, and musician/composer Khuent Rose participate in a community conversation about storytelling in Africana communities.
The event also includes student presentations, a musical selection by Rose on the steel pan, a book signing by Simon, and a reception.
National African American Read-In
City Tech students, faculty, and staff read excerpts from classic and contemporary Africana texts with special recognition of W. E. B. DuBois and Audre Lorde. Refreshments to follow.
The Life of Zora Neale Hurston: A Curated Exhibit
This curated exhibit includes archival images and footage of Zora Neale Hurston, whose work as an anthropologist, novelist, essayist, and folklorist highlights the unique stories of the Africana world. Opening ceremony on February 5th at 1pm.
LaShonda Katrice Barnett was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1974, and grew up in Park Forest, Illinois. She is the author of the debut novel Jam on the Vine (Grove 2015; paperback 2/2016) and a story collection (1999). Designated a Stonewall Honor Award by the American Library Association (2016), Jam was an Editor’s Choice pick at the Chicago Tribune; won ElIe Magazine’s Belle Lettres 2015 Reader’s Prize and earned Barnett the Emerging Writers Award at the 2015 Tennessee Williams Literary Festival. The novel was shortlisted for the Crook’s Corner Book Prize and is a 2016 Lambda Literary Award finalist.
This keynote event provides a space for dialogue about healing in Africana communities. Rashida Bumbray, a Brooklyn-based curator and choreographer, and Senior Program Manager of the Arts Exchange at Open Society Foundations is the featured keynote guest.
Ms. Bumbray’s talk titled “The Value of Black Spaces” includes an abbreviated screening of Black America Again (with Common, Stevie Wonder, and Rashida Bumbray and the Dance Diaspora Collective). Ms. Bumbray will discuss her participation in Black America Again as an effort to cultivate healing in Freddie Gray’s community in Baltimore and beyond. At the keynote event, Ms. Bumbray will also perform “Untitled (Red),” and there will be a panel discussion and student reading.
Bring in your archival treasures, related to Brooklyn’s African American history, and have them professionally evaluated by historian and appraiser Dr. Elvin Montgomery.
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