MoAD Events and Exhibitions

Event: May 19, 2012: TELL ME MORE | Scholarly Voices from the Diaspora

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This series is designed to bring different scholars to MoAD who will present on a variety of topics related to the African Diaspora. These events create a bridge of conversation between scholars and the community. All talks occur on Saturday mornings 10am -12pm in the Salon. Seating is limited.

Marcus Shelby presents Harriet Tubman and the Blues. The blues is a powerful form of language created by slaves (most notably Harriet Tubman) through the use of field hollers, blues cries, work songs, and spirituals. Marcus Anthony Shelby is an accomplished teacher, composer, arranger, and bassist for more than 20 years. He is currently the Artistic Director and leader of The Marcus Shelby Orchestra, The Marcus Shelby Hot 7, and the The Marcus Shelby Trio. In 2009 he was awarded the Black Metropolis Research Consortium Fellowship in Chicago to conduct research for his commission to compose “Soul of the Movement”.

Free with MoAD Admission.

10:00 am - 12:00 pm:

Event: May 19, 2012: FAMILY PROGRAM | Folktales Across the African Diaspora with Awele Makebe

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Join Awele Makebe for Anansi: From West Africa to the Caribbean and the African Diaspora. Anansi (ah-NAHN-see), the spider, is a popular figure in the folklore of parts of West Africa (the stories later came with enslaved Africans to the Caribbean islands and the African Diaspora.) Like Brer Rabbit in America, Anansi is a 'trickster' figure - clever, cunning, sometimes mischievous - who uses his wits to make up for what he lacks in size and strength. The Anansi tales are believed to have originated in the Ashanti people in Ghana. (The word Anansi is Akan and means, simply, spider.) They later spread to other Akan groups and then to the West Indies, Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles. Following the storytelling, Awele will lead children and their families in Step It Down: Gullah Circle and Clap Games. Traditional Gullah and African-American circle and clap games and songs from folklorist Bessie Jones teach children about cooperative interaction, preparation for adult roles and socialization showing them how to create fun out of nothing more than their hands, feet, voices, and imaginations.

Awele (ah WAY lay) has mesmerized audiences around the world including TED 2012, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria; the Suriname and Costa Rican rainforest; and Tsinchu Teacher's College in Taiwan. She is an award winning and internationally known storyteller, recording artist, educator and she's also a Community Producer of Cultural Programs in the San Francisco Bay Area. She paints pictures with words, breathes life into characters, teaches, and inspires through the power of story--personal tales, history, folklore and children's literature. Additional info: Awele.com

Folktales Across the African Diaspora is generously supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation

Free with MoAD Admission.

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm:

Event: May 20, 2012: SACRED MUSIC, SUNDAY FELLOWSHIP | Ohnedaruth: Music from the St. ...

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The St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church provides a rhythm section and lead horns which Support the Voices of Compassion (choir), as together they seek to invoke the Spirit of God through Sound praise. The sound praise consists of the Coltrane Liturgy, which combines the Divine Liturgy Of the African Orthodox Church, and the Twenty-third Psalm, with the melodies, harmonies and Rhythms of Saint John Coltrane's masterpiece: A Love Supreme. The dedication of the Ministers of Sound extends far beyond Sunday morning worship and has made Global impact, drawing visitors to the church from all parts of the world. The Saint John Coltrane Church of San Francisco brings together a celebration of African American Classical Music with the divine, through the anointed sound of Saint John Will I Am Coltrane. Melody, harmony, and rhythm transformed into a blessed musical trinity through sound and praise.

Sacred Music, Sunday Fellowship is generously supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation

Free with MoAD Admission.

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm:

Event: May 20, 2012: FREE Educator Workshop: Language Arts and History - First Person Slave ...

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Please join us at the Museum of the African Diaspora for a FREE curriculum workshop for Bay Area K-12 teachers and educators. In this workshop we will use our “Slavery Passages” exhibit to examine first-person narratives of enslaved African men and women - spanning three continents and three centuries. This workshop is best suited for teachers of grades 9-12, but any educator is welcome to participate. If you would like to attend this or any other workshop, please RSVP to estorer@moadsf.org.

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm:

Event: June 2, 2012: MIGRATIONS OF THE SACRED: SPIRITUAL PRACTICES ACROSS THE DIASPORA | ...

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During this program, Dr. Wade Nobles will discuss the concept of Sakhu Sheti/Djaer and interrogate the notion of “sacred space” as “spiritness” in the very being of African people across the diaspora. He will discuss the assault on the African spirit as spirit defilement and the colonization of psychic space resulting in a shattered African consciousness and a fractured Black identity. In calling for a rebirth of African spiritual systems, Dr. Nobles will also recommend a spirit driven campaign to reciprocally restore “spiritness” in African personhood and neighborhood across the diaspora.

Dr. Wade Nobles is Professor Emeritus of Africana (Black) Studies, at San Francisco State University and the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family, Life and Culture Inc. For over 40 years, Dr. Nobles has studied classical African philosophy (Kemet, Twa & Nubian) and traditional African wisdom traditions (Akan, Yoruba, Bantu, Wolof, Dogon, Fon, Lebou, etc) as the intellectual grounding for the development of an authentic Black psychology. Dr Nobles’ professional career and life’s work has been no less than a formal engagement in the on-going theoretical development and programmatic application of African (Black) psychology, African centered thought, and cultural grounding to address the liberation and restoration of the African mind and spirit and world-wide development of African people.

Free with MoAD Admission.

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm:

Event: June 9, 2012: TELL ME MORE | Scholarly Voices from the Diaspora

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John Leonard Burris presents Trayvon Martin and Racial Profiling: Real or imaginary? John Leonard Burris is an American civil rights attorney, based in Oakland, California, known for his work in police brutality cases representing plaintiffs. He briefly represented Rodney King in his suit against the Los Angeles Police Department and is most recently noted for filing a civil suit over the BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant. Burris has appeared as a legal commentator on MSNBC, CNN, and other cable and local television networks.

Free with MoAD Admission.

10:00 am - 12:00 pm:

Event: June 16, 2012: FAMILY PROGRAM | Folktales Across the African Diaspora with Wayne Harris

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Wayne Harris presents The John Henry Chronicles, a solo performance of traditional and new stories about the African-American mythological character, John Henry “The Steel Drivin’ Man.” The stories are told by several characters, both male and female and in the telling, they share their personal stories of culture, community and family. The work embodies the Black experience in America while affirming the universal truths that are the foundation of all races. During the course of the performance, the subjects of race, honesty, hard work and the indomitable human spirit are explored through character and song. Memorable characters and tall tales create an opportunity for students to experience the power of oral storytelling and it’s application to language arts in an entertaining and fun atmosphere. Storytelling will be followed by theatre games and songs inspired by The John Henry Chronicles.

Wayne Harris is an award winning solo performer, writer, educator, curriculum innovator and musician. A giftedd artist with wide-ranging interests, he has accumulated an impressive body of work over the years that includes 3 full length solo plays, performances for schools, directing and designing for pageantry groups as well as various musical projects.

Folktales Across the African Diaspora is generously supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation

Free with MoAD Admission.

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm:

Event: June 17, 2012: JUNETEENTH JUBILATION: Celebrate Juneteenth and Father's Day | Free Day!

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Join us for Day One of our two event, a free day of celebration of Juneteenth, together with Father’s Day at MoAD. Enjoy a lecture and performance with Branice McKensie on The African Roots of Gospel, as part of our Sacred Music, Sunday Fellowship series (made possible by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation), Learn local history with a book talk and booksigning with Jan Batiste Adkins, author of African Americans of San Francisco, engage in a family art activity, and meet with a genealogist for our Ask a Genealogist workshop. Please register in advance to guarantee a time-slot with a genealogist by emailing egessel@moadsf.org.

12:00 pm - 5:00 pm:

Event: June 19, 2012: JUNETEENTH JUBILATION: A Special Evening with Dion Graham and Zakiya Hooker

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Day Two - Performance, Music and Cuisine. A benefit event celebrating a historical period in American history. Featuring a dramatic reading by actor and narrator Dion Graham of the award winning HBO series The Wire, legendary Blues singer and songwriter Zakiya Hooker and tastings of sumptuous southern cuisine and award winning wines. Photo: Juneteenth celebration in Austin, Texas, on June 19, 1900

5:30 pm - 6:30 pm: VIP Reception
6:30 pm - 7:30 pm: Dramatic Reading (St. Regis Hotel)
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm: Post-event Reception

Event: June 30, 2012: TELL ME MORE | Scholarly Voices from the Diaspora

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Duane Deterville presents Jazz and Visual Culture: Playing Jazz in the Visual Field. Artists from Mondrian and Matisse to Bearden and Basquiat have used Jazz music as a creative well to draw images from. Jazz as an aesthetic used for visualization has been examined many times by culture critics, however with this lecture presentation Deterville will explore the interdisciplinary intersection between visuality and jazz improvisation with an emphasis on the jazz aesthetic as an African diasporic cultural expression. The visual artwork and illuminated musical scores of jazz musicians Louis Armstrong, Leo Wadada Smith and Anthony Braxton amongst others will be explored as well as the concerns for Jazz music in the work of visual artists.

Free with MoAD Admission.

10:00 am - 12:00 pm:

Event: August 23, 2012: FILM SCREENING and DISCUSSION | All Me: The Life and Times of Winfred ...

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Join us for a film screening and discussion with the director of ALL ME: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert. With his intensely autobiographical paintings depicting the day-to-day existence of African Americans in the segregated South, Winfred Rembert has preserved an important, if often disturbing, chapter of American history. His indelible images of toiling in the cotton fields, singing in church, dancing in juke joints, or working on a chain gang are especially powerful, not just because he lived every moment, but because he experienced so much of the injustice and bigotry they show as recently as the 1960s and 70s. Now in his sixties, Rembert has developed a growing following among collectors and connoisseurs, and enjoyed a number of tributes and exhibitions of his work. In ALL ME: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert, the artist relives his turbulent life, abundantly visualized by his extensive paintings and, in a series of intimate reminiscences, shows us how even the most painful memories can be transformed into something meaningful and beautiful. A glowing portrait of how an artist—and his art—is made, ALL ME is also a triumphant saga of race in contemporary America. www.allmethemovie.com.

ALL ME: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert is director Vivian Ducat’s first feature-length documentary. A native New Yorker, Ducat has directed, produced and written more than 20 long-format documentaries for broadcast. She spent the first part of her career in London, working for the BBC, directing films for series including The Story of English, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power among others.Ducat also produced programs for WGBH series including The American Experience (“Hawaii’s Last Queen,” narrated by Anna Deveare Smith). Ducat also directs and produces interactive media and short films for touchscreen kiosks and digital exhibitions, for institutions and museums, through her company Ducat Media, including The Library of Congress, the National Park Service, the New-York Historical Society, the Museum of the City of New York, Columbia University, and the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center.

Free with MoAD Admission.

6:30 pm - 8:30 pm: