HARLEM RENAISSANCE 100 Goes Virtual As Second Phase of the Celebration Kicks Off
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Jun. 11, 2020
Organizers today announced the second phase of the Harlem Renaissance 100, a multi-year celebration originally kicked off in February of this year to commemorate the milestone 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance and the artistic brilliance born from that movement. This second phase will see Harlem Renaissance 100 go online with virtual salons and will include a series of events and programs over the Summer and beyond.
Launching on June 12th , Harlem Renaissance 100 will present most events on the second and fourth Sunday of each month during the summer with more events to be announced for the Fall. June events include: Uptown's People Assembly: Facing the Raging Pandemic presented by The Wallach Art Gallery (June 12th); Langston and Beethoven | Black and Proud with Terrance McKnight and Kyle Walker presented by The Harlem Chamber Players (June 14th); Puttin' on the Ritz: Fashion and the Harlem Renaissance: A Conversation with Camara Holloway and Elizabeth Way presented by The Bearden Foundation in collaboration with Harlem School of the Arts and the Museum at the Fashion Institute (June 16th) and A Conversation with Yuval Taylor, Author of Zora and Langston: A Story of Friendship and Betrayal presented by Harlem One Stop (June 28th). The full Summer schedule is below.
Spearheaded by Harlem One Stop, this unprecedented partnership comprised of over 40 of Harlem's most esteemed cultural institutions will not only celebrate the centennial and its cultural legacy but also spotlight the vibrancy and creative energy of today's Harlem seeking to inspire the next generation of artists.
"The purpose of Harlem Renaissance 100 is to inform, educate and re-connect communities to the momentous movement that made Harlem world-renown then and which still resonates today," said Yuien Chin, Executive Director, Harlem One Stop. "We are so excited to be able to continue this next phase of the initiative. With so much going on in the country particularly surrounding the Black experience in America, we felt it was only right to continue to present events under the Festival and to carry forth in the spirit of what the Harlem Renaissance represented - which was the resiliency and brilliance and contributions of African Americans to American culture. Also, now that we are going virtual, it will allow the celebration to truly go global and to reach audiences all over the world."
Originally called the New Negro Movement, the Harlem Renaissance was a cultural, social, and artistic eruption born in Harlem at the end of World War I and spanning through the mid-1930s. Growing out of the Great Migration - the relocation of millions of African Americans from the South to other parts of the country - and the emergence of Harlem as the premier black metropolis in the United States, the Harlem Renaissance was an unrivaled period of brilliance in both profound intellectual expression and preeminent entertainment that went on to become a global movement. With his seminal essay, "The New Negro," Alain Locke, considered to be the Father of the Harlem Renaissance, opined that this movement of intellectual liberation would be a precursor to social change, ushering in a new revolution. Central artistic figures of the Harlem Renaissance include: Locke, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston; Jacob Lawrence , Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and James Weldon Johnson.
Harlem Renaissance 100 sets a path to bolster Harlem's legacy for future generations and to draw together historic preservation, cultural identity, and community empowerment as an economic generator of local and visitor engagement.
For more information, please visit: harlemrenaissance.org or harlemonestop.org
HARLEM RENAISSANCE 100: SCHEDULE OF SUMMER EVENTS
Uptown's People Assembly: Facing the Raging Pandemic
Presented by: Wallach Art Gallery
Location: Online
Date(s): Friday, June 12, 2020 at 10:00 am
A generative space of listening and sharing amongst activists, artists and scholars for future impact. Confirmed co-conveners include: Black Siren Radio at The American Assembly and WKCR; filmmaker Cathleen Campbell; Columbia Community Wellness Center + Harlem Wellness Center; Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University; Actor and teacher Daniel Carlton; artist Dianne Smith; DJ April Hunt; Harlem School of the Arts; Hunter East Harlem Gallery; Institute for Research in African-American Studies Columbia University; Pastor Joshua Brown; Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University and Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University
Full details and RSVP available via: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/uptown-peoples-assembly-facing-the-raging-pandemics-tickets-107848457640
Langston and Beethoven | Black and Proud with Terrance McKnight and Kyle Walker
Presented by: The Harlem Chamber Players
Location: Online
Date(s): Sunday, June 14, 2020 - 4:00 pm
The Harlem Chamber Players, in partnership with the Harlem Cultural Collaborative, present Langston and Beethoven | Black and Proud by Terrance McKnight with Kyle Walker on piano. Mr. McKnight arranged some of Langston Hughes' poetry to be performed as spoken word set to selected solo piano works by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Langston Hughes/Ludwig van Beethoven Beethoven's Weary Blues (arranged by Terrance McKnight)
Langston Hughes/Ludwig van Beethoven Life Is Fine (arranged by Terrance McKnight)
Margaret Bonds Troubled Water
Langston Hughes/Ludwig van Beethoven Demonstration (arranged by Terrance McKnight)
Langston Hughes/Ludwig van Beethoven American Variations (arranged by Terrance McKnight)
Please click on this link to RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/langston-and-beethoven-black-and-proud-tickets-108927115936
Puttin' on the Ritz: Fashion and the Harlem Renaissance: A Conversation with Camara Holloway and Elizabeth Way
Presented by: The Bearden Foundation in Collaboration with Harlem School of the Arts and The Museum at the Fashion Institute
Location: Online
Date(s): June 16, 2020 - 6:00 pm
Harlem during the Jazz Age was renowned for the style of its denizens. The twenties was a time of radical transformation for clothing, and Harlem was at the cutting edge of new trends, influencing mainstream fashion and culture in unprecedented ways. This conversation will examine what people wore during the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, from flapper dresses to Zoot suits. The style of fashionable Harlemites has had a lasting influence on fashion and is still felt today.
Camara Holloway, art historian and Co-Director of the Association for Critical Race Art History (ACRAH); Elizabeth Way is Assistant Curator of Costume at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
For more information and to RSVP, please visit: www.beardenfoundation.org
A Conversation with Yuval Taylor, Author of Zora and Langston: A Story of Friendship and Betrayal
Presented by: Harlem One Stop
Location: Online
Date(s): Sunday, June 28, 2020 - 4:00 pm
They were best friends. They were collaborators, literary gadflies, and champions of the common people. They were the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance. Zora Neale Hurston, the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Langston Hughes, the author of "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and "Let America Be America Again," first met in 1925, at a great gathering of black and white literati, and they fascinated each other.
Join Dr. Vanessa Valdes, Director of Black Studies, The City College of New York, and Herb Boyd, Journalist, Educator, Author and Activist in an engaging discussion with Yuval Taylor, author and senior editor Chicago Review Press as they discuss the relationship between Hughes and Hurston and the Harlem Renaissance.
For more information, please visit: www.harlemonestop.org
Harlem Summer Arts Experience
Presented by: Harlem School of the Arts
Location: Online
Date(s): July 6 -31, 2020
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance, Harlem School of the Arts will present a four-week virtual camp that transports young artists to the Harlem Renaissance! Children ages 5-18 are invited to sing, dance, act and design!
Please register at www.hsanyc.org.
A Concert for Justice
Presented by: Harlem Opera Theater
Location: Online
Date(s): July 12, 2020 - 4:00 pm
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance, the Harlem Opera Theater will present a tribute to the 90th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
For more information, please visit: harlemoperatheater.org
The Importance of Being Earnest
Presented by: Harlem Shakespeare Festival
Location: Online
Date(s): Sunday, July 26, 2020 - 4:00 pm
In celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance, the Harlem Shakespeare Festival in partnership with the Harlem Cultural Collaborative present "The Importance of Being Earnest" set in 1920's Harlem. With high style, dynamic dialogue and the music that changed a nation, two young gentlemen, living in Harlem and Westchester, have taken to bending the truth in order to put some excitement into their lives. Things start to go awry when they end up together at the country estate. The cast of nine classically trained actors of color will provide a glimpse of America's black bourgeoisie in Oscar Wilde's fun-loving and hilarious comedy of manners.
Harlem Architecture: Colonial & Modernism with John Reddick
Presented by: Morris-Jumel Mansion
Location: Online
Date(s): Sunday, August 9, 2020 - 4:00 pm
In this engaging lecture architect and historian, John Reddick, will explore the colonial aesthetic in Harlem's early "modern" architecture, considering how it served as a backdrop to the jazz age. Discussing select local early twentieth-century designs, such as the Roger Morris Apartments (555 Edgecombe) and Colonial Parkway Apts. (409 Edgecombe). Reddick will place these "Dark Towers" in the context of Harlem's architecture and social status. For more information, please visit: www.morrisjumel.org
Uptown Triennial
Presented by: The Wallach Art Gallery
Location: Online
Date(s): Sunday, August 23, 2020 -Time: TBD
In celebration of the Harlem Renaissance centennial, the second iteration of the Wallach Art Gallery's Uptown triennial, Uptown 2020, will present works by contemporary artists who have been inspired by this important expression of modernism. Contemporary works will be exhibited alongside several historical works.
Several exemplary objects from the Harlem Renaissance will make up the historical component of the Uptown 2020 exhibition including: Alain Locke's seminal publication of The New Negro; an early edition of God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse by James Weldon Johnson and illustrated by Aaron Douglas; Harlem Hospital WPA murals by Charles Alston, Alfred Crimi, Vertis Hayes, and Georgette Seabrooke; a sculpture by Augusta Savage, and a photograph by James Van Der Zee. The rise of jazz music during the era of the Harlem Renaissance will be explored via a tableau of sound recordings, photographs, and a set model by Joseph Urban for the 1929 Ziegfeld Theatre production of Show Girl featuring Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra. This event is free and open to the public.
For more information, please visit: https://wallach.columbia.edu/exhibitions/uptown-2020
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