On October 9, Krannert Art Museum will host its second Global Africa Community Forum, an event designed to transform the museum space into a dynamic and participatory public forum for engaging issues relating to the arts, cultures, and communities of Africa and the African diaspora.  This year’s Forum explores experiences of blackness, gender, and coming of age. What, for instance, does black masculinity look like?  Are there cues, codes, worlds of possibility?  Directed by choreographer and performer C. Kemal Nance, Lecturer in Dance at UIUC, the program departs from conventional discussion formats and emerges instead from three interconnected performance segments involving dance, sound, and personal testimonials.  A conversation with the audience and forum moderators will conclude the program.

The first Global Africa Community Forum – Creating Community Through African Art – took place in October 2012, in connection with the opening of Encounters, Krannert Art Museum’s new gallery dedicated to the arts of Africa and its diasporas.  The Forum was conceived and led by Anne Lutomia, Mabinty Tarawallie, and Sam Smith, who used specific artworks in the gallery to speak to experiences, perceptions, and misperceptions of being African and African American in the U.S.

Featuring C. Kemal Nance, lecturer in Dance; with Anne Lutomia, doctoral student in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership; Erik McDuffie, associate professor in African American Studies; Sam Smith, engagement director of Krannert Center for the Performing Arts; Mabinty Tarawallie, MSW, alumna of the University of Illinois School of Social Work; Rory James, director, Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center; and Allyson Purpura, Curator of African Art Gelvin Noel Gallery

Thanks to the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center listserv for this information item.