Public Programs Calendar

Cuando los Espiritus Bailan Mambo/When Spirits Dance the Diaspora

Directors: Robert (Bobby) Shepard and Marta Moreno Vega

2009 | 90 min. l U.S.A. Screening Followed by Q&A.

A celebration of the traditions of ancestor worship, When the Spirits Dance Mambo, documents the roots of the sacred African religion, La Regla de Ocha (known as Santeria) as practiced in Matanzas, Santiago de Cuba and Havana. The film traces its roots from 15th century Africa to the New World. Developing practices in the formation of Cuban civil society, Yoruba belief systems survived and traveled from Africa to Cuba and New York through sacred rituals, songs, music and dance. Armed with the energy of their ancestral rituals and customs, enslaved Africans carried La Regla de Ocha as protective shields believing in the power of a spiritual force for endurance, identity and empowerment.

Tracing the role of sacred African thought and practices in the formation of Cuban society, culture and music, the documentary is a tribute to the spiritual energy that traveled from West Africa to Cuba and New York.

African Belief Systems from Africa to the Americas

In conjunction with the exhibition African Continuum: Sacred Ceremonies and Rituals please join us for the lecture African Belief Systems from Africa to the Americas by Dr. Marta Moreno Vega.

The reality that the legacy of ancient practices continues to influence the lives of African descendants is evident in the continued spread of these nature based traditions to broad communities through out the globe. Through ritual as well as the creative forms that are integral to the African global experience of "being" the sacred traditions of West and Central Africa are alive and thriving in the Americas.

Dr. Marta Moreno Vega is an Adjunct Associate Professor teaching Afro-Caribbean Religions and Afro Latinos in New York City at Hunter College/CUNY. She is co-editor of "Voices from the Battlefront: Achieving Cultural Equity" and author of "The Altar of My Soul: The Living Traditions of Santeria" as well as the book "When the Spirits Dance Mambo." Dr. Vega was awarded a grant from the Ford Foundation, which partially supported the filming of the documentary "When the Spirits Dance Mambo" shot in Cuba, focuses on the impact of Santeria on the Civil Society of the island.

Come participate in an inspiring two session (April 10 & 17) workshop with the Bay Area's own Valerie Troutt. The workshop will include an overview and lyric analysis of some of African America's most influential female singers and songwriters active in the post-emancipation and the civil rights period.

Participants will learn the role women and their songs had in the fight for equal rights and will come away having learned several resistance songs.

NO PRIOR EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

Workshop series $35 members / $45 non-members.

Valerie Troutt, a remarkable singer-songwriter, fuses gospel, soul, world, folk and electronica in her unique approach to jazz and original compositions. Her ability as a jazz vocalist and soul composer has inspired the hearts of many listeners. Valerie's accomplishments include performing for the Jazz at Lincoln Center 1999-2000 Season Kick-off Party, successfully accompanying the Marcus Strickland Quartet.

Valerie Troutt is one of few young modern singers creating stylistic change in the Vocal Jazz Tradition.

“From Underground to Reggaeton: Race and Representation in Puerto Rican Reggaeton”

Free with MoAD Admission, and includes free pass for later visit

Petra Rivera will discuss the history of reggaeton from its beginnings as “underground” in the urban housing projects of San Juan to its rise as an international music industry. Particular attention will be paid to the ways that blackness has been represented in different moments throughout reggaeton’s history, and the ways reggaeton may serve as a site for Puerto Rican youth to express links with the broader African diaspora.

PETRA R. RIVERA is a Ph.D. Candidate in the African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of California Berkeley. She is currently finishing her dissertation entitled “Orgulloso de mi Caserío y de Quien Soy: Race, Place, and Space in Puerto Rican Reggaetón” about the racial politics of reggaetón in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Sequin flag-making is an art form unique to Haiti. The colourful flags are made of satin, velvet or rayon, and adorned with sequins, beads or appliqué. Join us for a day of flag making. Create flags by applying beads and sequins inspired by Haitian artistry.

Free for MoAD members; $10 materials fee for non-members.

Reservations required education@moadsf.org

Come participate in an inspiring two session (April 10 & 17) workshop with the Bay Area's own Valerie Troutt. The workshop will include an overview and lyric analysis of some of African America's most influential female singers and songwriters active in the post-emancipation and the civil rights period.

Participants will learn the role women and their songs had in the fight for equal rights and will come away having learned several resistance songs.

NO PRIOR EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

Workshop series $35 members / $45 non-members.

Valerie Troutt, a remarkable singer-songwriter, fuses gospel, soul, world, folk and electronica in her unique approach to jazz and original compositions. Her ability as a jazz vocalist and soul composer has inspired the hearts of many listeners. Valerie's accomplishments include performing for the Jazz at Lincoln Center 1999-2000 Season Kick-off Party, successfully accompanying the Marcus Strickland Quartet.

Valerie Troutt is one of few young modern singers creating stylistic change in the Vocal Jazz Tradition.

Lolis Eric Elie, a New Orleans newspaperman, takes us on a tour of the city, his city“ in what becomes a reflection on the relevance of history folded into a love letter to the storied New Orleans neighborhood, Faubourg Treme. Arguably the oldest black neighborhood in America and the birthplace of jazz, Faubourg Treme was home to the largest community of free black people in the Deep South during slavery and a hotbed of political ferment. Here black and white, free and enslaved, rich and poor co-habitated, collaborated, and clashed to create America's first Civil Rights movement and a unique American culture. Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans is a riveting tale of heartbreak, hope, resiliency and haunting historic parallels.

Elie and director Dawn Logsdon make clear the city's present, up through Katrina, remains steeped in its past- one that, for New Orleans, naturally includes an emphasis on music, heightened here by Derrick Hodge's original jazz score and over a hundred years of New Orleans music. This is a film of ideas, a historical film, a personal film and a celebration of place.

Free with Admission. Co-presented by Cuba Caribe.

Director: Chike C. Nwoffiah

2009 l United States l 105 minutes

An African American hip-hop girl resists the ancestral call of the Senegalese dance Sabar. When she finally gives in, she discovers more than a dance - she finds herself. Set against the backdrop of the African dance movement in the United States, Sabar is a dramatic feature film about the triumph of the human spirit in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Sabar examines how we constantly negotiate and choreograph our way through the bigger and sometimes arrhythmic dance called LIFE.

Once little known outside of Haiti, Vodou flags (drapo Vodou), dazzling in color and imagery, have become popular commodities in the international art market. Shimmering with sequins and reflected light, they capture the attention of Vodou practitioners and art lovers alike.

Participants in this 2 part workshop will learn to make their own Applique Flags using techniques from Haitian drapo Vodou.

NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

Dates: April 24th & May 1st

Workshop series: $55 members/$65 general public.

All Materials provided.

Director: Chike C. Nwoffiah

2009 l United States l 105 minutes

An African American hip-hop girl resists the ancestral call of the Senegalese dance Sabar. When she finally gives in, she discovers more than a dance - she finds herself. Set against the backdrop of the African dance movement in the United States, Sabar is a dramatic feature film about the triumph of the human spirit in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Sabar examines how we constantly negotiate and choreograph our way through the bigger and sometimes a rhythmic dance called LIFE.

A song lyric in the Kikongo language appears in M. L. E. Moreau de St. Méry's massive landmark 1797 work about Saint-Domingue (the future Haiti). Its meaning, and even the name of the language it was in, was apparently unknown to Moreau de St. Méry, and it remained untranslated by scholars until recently. It was a call to revolt. Eh, Eh, it began, Bomba! – a Kikongo word meaning secret. It was no secret to those who understood.

Taking this text as a point of departure, author and musician Ned Sublette will trace an arc of music, together with a polemic of revolution and resistance, that exploded when slavery was violently exterminated, leaving its legacy across the Antilles from Trinidad to eastern Cuba, on to New Orleans and beyond.

Co-sponsored by Cuba Caribe.