INFORMATION FOR
An arts festival that celebrates the wide range of African cultures will be held at William Paterson University in Wayne from March 22 to April 8 as part of the University’s second annual Cross-Cultural Arts Festival.
“The Cross-Cultural Arts Festival—Africa and the African Diaspora” was created by the University’s College of the Arts and Communication to highlight William Paterson’s mission to encourage diversity, community outreach, and multiculturalism. It also seeks to feature the impact of the fine arts, music, and film in facilitating cross-cultural empathy and developing global connections. All events are open to the public.
According to Raymond Torres-Santos, dean of the College of the Arts and Communication, Africa was selected for this year’s festival because of the continent’s impact on history and contemporary geopolitics. “African cultures have influenced art, music, poetry, and a host of other cultural practices,” he says. “Its enormous influence on the culture of the Americas obliges us all to examine the intersection of cultures and to discover our commonalities and our differences,”
The festival opens on Tuesday, March 22 with a panel discussion, “The African Impact on the American Experience: Between Race and Culture,” from 12:30-2 p.m. in University Commons Ballroom C. Guest speaker will be Ali Mazrui, director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies and and Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at Binghamton University. Admission is free.
Among the highlights of the festival will be several musical events, beginning with Imani Winds on Thursday, March 24 at 8 p.m. in Shea Center on campus. The Grammy-nominated wind quintet has carved out a distinct presence on the classical music scene and is one of the most successful chamber music ensembles in the United States. The group enriches the traditional wind quintet repertoire while meaningfully bridging European, American, African, and Latin American traditions. Tickets are $15, $12 for the William Paterson University community; $8 for non-William Paterson University students and children; and free for William Paterson University students.
Guitarist and vocalist Abdoulaye Diabate brings his group Super Manden, a collective of musicians and music educators from Mali and Guinea, to Shea Center on Friday, March 25 at 8 p.m. The New York-based ensemble is dedicated to the performance and teaching of the Malinke oral tradition of Central West Africa known as Jaliya. Passed from generation to generation, this tradition forms the basis of the Manden culture of central West Africa. Super Manden seeks to increase the understanding of this eight-hundred-year old culture for artists as well as for audiences of all ages. Tickets are $20, $16 for the William Paterson University community, $8 for non-William Paterson University students and children, and free for William Paterson University students.
Rounding out a weekend of music on Saturday, March 26 is The Roy Haynes Fountain of Youth Band, who will perform at 8 p.m. in Shea Center. The final event in the University’s Spring 2011 Jazz Room Series, the concert will feature the legendary 85-year-old drummer, who recently received a 2011 Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement, with his young band featuring Jaleel Shaw, saxophone, David Wong, bass, and Martin Bejerano, piano. Haynes has performed with nearly every major jazz musician, from Charlie Parker to Pat Metheny and countless others. Tickets are $40 gold circle, $30 orchestra/loge; and $24 rear loge.
An art exhibit, “Objects of Power: Selections from the Joan and Gordon Tobias Collection of African Art,” opens on March 21 in the Ben Shahn Galleries in the Ben Shahn Center for the Arts on campus. The exhibit features African art and artifacts, including masks, symbols of leadership, ancestor sculpture and guardian figures, household items, and objects used for personal adornment, and is a partial selection from the nearly 700 objects donated to the University by Joan and Gordon Tobias, private collectors who frequently traveled to Africa and collected the pieces over a 30-year period. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. A reception will be held on Sunday, March 27 from 3 to 5 p.m. Admission is free.
A theatre production, “Crumbs from the Table of Joy,” by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, will be staged from March 29 to 31 in Hunziker Black Box Theatre on campus. The production, featuring a William Paterson University student cast, chronicles the struggles of a widowed African-American father bringing up two daughters in Brooklyn in the late 1950s. Tickets are $12 standard, and $9 for the William Paterson community.
A film series, coordinated by Keith Obadike, assistant professor of communication, kicks off with a screening of From a Whisper, a 2009 film from Kenya, on April 4. Bamako, a film from Mali, will be screened on April 5, followed by Les Saignantes, a film from Cameroon, on April 6. The series continues on April 7 with Yousou N’dour: I Bring What I Love, from Senegal, and concludes on April 8 with Faat Kine, also from Senegal. All films will be shown in the Hobart Hall screening room beginning at 6 p.m. A question and answer period follows each film.
A children’s art event, “United by Culture and Love: Africa and the African Diaspora,” will be held on Wednesday, March 23 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in various locations on campus. Activities include mask-making, tie-dying, drama art, and a mural activity by Papa Gora Tall, a Senegalese artist.
Several panel discussions will explore issues of arts and culture, including “The New City: Urbanization of the Arts,” on March 23 from 4 to 7 p.m. in the Ben Shahn Gallery; “Geographic Snapshot of Africa,” on March 29 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in University Commons 171 A-B; “Doing Business in Africa” on April 1 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Valley Road Auditorium; and “Sketches of Teaching and Learning: A Portrait of William Paterson University Teacher Educators in Non-Western Cultures” on April 7 from 12:30-2 p.m. in University Commons 208. All programs are free.
Additional musical performances include the William Paterson University Gospel Choir on Sunday, March 27 at 3 p.m. in Shea Center. The William Paterson University New Music Ensemble will perform works by Nigerian and Ugandan composers on Monday, March 28 at 7:30 p.m.
William Paterson University’s College of Education, Cotsakos College of Business, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and David and Lorraine Cheng Library have collaborated with the College of the Arts and Communication to present and co-sponsor many of the events. In addition, funding has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
A complete list of events can be accessed at www.wpunj.edu/coac.
# # #
