Hip-hop Artist Akua Naru helps students workshop lyrics, think critically about songwriting
Last night, Akua Naru, hip-hop artist and Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America artist-in-residence, invited students to participate in a lyrics workshop, where she spoke about her own writing process and helped them brainstorm techniques for songwriting. Through her music and scholarship, Naru attempts to “theorize the myriad experiences of black women through rhyme along a sonic spectrum from Jazz to Soul,” according to her website. She has performed hundreds of shows in more than 50 countries with her six-piece band and has been invited to lecture at schools such as Harvard, the University of Oxford and Princeton.
Celebrated writer, translator Lizzie Davis ’15 to read at the McCormack Family Theater
Tonight at 5:30, Writer and Translator Lizzie Davis ’15 will read from her recent works at the McCormack Family Theater in the Literary Arts building. An expert in Spanish-to-English translation, Davis has worked with established writers such as Pilar Fraile Amador, Daniela Tarazona, Daniel Saldana Paris and Paulina Flores. She currently serves as an editor at Coffee House Press in Minneapolis and holds a B.A. in Literary Arts.
“Exposing Unseen Boundaries” examines borderlines, narratives of U.S. and Mexico border
On Monday, “Exposing Unseen Boundaries” opened at the Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender with a public lecture and opening reception. It features works by fiber artist Consuelo Jimenez Underwood that transport “viewers to the mystical threshold between the void and the mundane,” according to the event description. For “Exposing Unseen Boundaries,” Underwood’s works consider the effects of the U.S. and Mexico border on people and the environment. The exhibit includes “The Brown-Violet Borderline,” a wall installation that is part of Underwood’s “Borderlines” series. Underwood has work featured in the permanent collections of many museums, including the Smithsonian American Museum of Art, the National Hispanic Center for the Arts in New Mexico and the Mexican Museum in San Francisco. His exhibit in the Sarah Doyle Center marks the end of a week-long artist residency supported by the Institute for Transformative Practice, following the institute’s year-long theme of “Crossing Borders, Unsettling Boundaries.” The exhibit will show until May 23, 2020.
Spirit Sounds Symposium invites experts, community to consider religion and music
Today and tomorrow, the Spirit Sounds Symposium will convene in the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts to explore the role of spirituality and religion in black American music. Featuring lectures, discussions and music, the symposium begins today with a panel from 1:00-3:30 p.m., “Revealing Religion in Black Music,” moderated by Andre Willis, assistant professor of religious studies. On Friday, the symposium will conclude with a workshop and concert from Cory Henry & The Funk Apostles, whose music blends “blues, soul, R&B, Afrobeat, gospel and jazz,” according to their website. In in the afternoon, Cory Henry & The Funk Apostles will work with participants in the Brown Arts Initiative’s weekly songwriting workshop.
