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Celebrating Black History Month in Seattle

February marks the beginning of Black History Month, but residents of Seattle are able to celebrate and learn about the rich cultural history of Blacks and African-Americans all year long. In honor of Black History Month we have compiled a few events to mark on your calendar in February and throughout the year.

Northwest African American Museum
Black Quarterly – Gentrification
February 4, 6:30 – 8 p.m.
Free
The Black Quarterly brings people together to break bread and delve deeper into a world of topics. February’s conversation topic: Changing Neighborhoods, Displacement, Personal & Cultural Ownership of Community.  Hosted by Inye Wokoma.

With the fluidity of a dinner table conversation, the Black Quarterly takes socially pertinent topics and creates a space for deeper and honest discussion about the dreams and challenges we face as a society. While the table is set for a limited number of guests, the goal is for the fruits of the conversation to ripple into the community as participants learn from each other’s diverse perspectives. The conversation, whenever possible, will also extend directly into the greater community through social media. 

Dialogues in Art: Exhibitions on Racial Injustice
Sign of the Times
Seattle Presents Gallery opening
Thursday, February 4, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
Free
In Sign of The Times Johnson reveals statistics and data that counter the negative media representations of African-Americans. The exhibition will feature artistic representations of data that illustrate the increase of graduation rates of African-Americans from the 60’s; and the increase of marriage in straight and LGBTQ Black homes. Sign of the Times not only demonstrates the power of data and how it is shared but pairs with Black History Month by having a black artist actively re-write history.

Dialogues in Art: Exhibitions on Racial Injustice is a yearlong series of exhibitions that explore artists’ and curators’ interpretations of racial injustice and systemic racism impacting Black and African-American people throughout America. 

Museum of History and Industry
Black History Month Celebration
Saturday, February 13, 11 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
$7
Get immersed in Seattle Hip-Hop culture and history through special film screenings, performances, and photography. Participate in a community panel discussion continuing the Town Hall Seattle conversation on the role of Black Lives Matter and the civil rights movement in Hip-Hop.

ARTS Presents: Lunch + Learn
Celebrating Black History Month
Friday, February 19, 12 – 1 p.m.
Bertha Knight Landes Room at City Hall
600 4th Ave, Seattle, WA 98104
Free
Please join us for a special Lunch + Learn, celebrating Black History Month. Artists Barbara Earl Thomas, Aramis Hamer and C. Davida Ingram will present their work and Ingram will moderate a conversation about how their artwork reflects their cultural heritage. Please bring your lunch; beverages and food for thought will be provided.

STG Presents: Silent Movie Mondays: Silent Treasures Series
Lime Kiln Club Field Day
The Paramount Theatre
Monday, February 22, 7 p.m.
$10
Discovered in the vault of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) 100 years after it was filmed, Lime Kiln Club Field Day offers a glimpse of the earliest known surviving feature film with a cast of black actors. A compilation of unedited daily rushes – multiple “takes” shot each day during production – this assemblage is a mixture of narrative scenes and candid shots of the black cast and white crew interacting on set, as well as documentary footage of the interracial cast and crew. Filmed in September of 1913 and starring legendary musical theater performer Bert Williams, the film uses minstrel stereotypes and contemporary performance styles to create a comedy centered around Williams’s character, a black social club, and his attempt to win the heart of the local beauty. There will be a pre-show presentation by MoMA’s Associate Curator of Film Ron Magliozzi, as well as a Cakewalk performance from Spectrum Dance Theater before the screening, which will also include the Bert Williams short film A Natural Born Gambler. Tacoma native Tedde Gibson will accompany on the Mighty Wurlitzer organ, and a CineClub discussion will follow.

INTERGENERATIONAL DIALOGUE ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT: THEN & NOW
Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute
104 17th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98144
Tuesday, February 23, 6:30 – 8 p.m.
Free

The Seattle King County NAACP is pleased to offer this free event in celebration of Black History Month! Five local leaders and activists of varying ages will join us for a panel discussion on the history of the civil rights movement and current efforts to advance racial equity. The event will also include performances by local youth, and small group discussions on how to effectively build an intergenerational movement. RSVP to communications@seattlekingcountynaacp.org

Northwest African American Museum
Complex Exchange – Tradition & Innovation
Wednesday, February 24, 7 – 9 p.m.
Free
RANDERSON ROMUALDO CORDEIRO, 2008, KEHINDE WILEY
A Program Partnership with Seattle Art Museum
Complex Exchange pairs Seattle community members from varying disciplines in a series of conversations related to issues of race, power, and politics of representation.

Artists, technologists, activists, writers, and community builders tackle themes inspired by the exhibitions Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic—on view at the Seattle Art Museum, and The Harmon and Harriet Kelly Collection of African American Art: Works on Paper—on view at NAAM.

EMP Museum
Through the Eyes of Art
Sky Church at EMP Museum
Friday, February 26, 7 – 11 p.m.
$15 ($10 EMP members) All ages.
Presented by EMP Museum and Brandkings, Through the Eyes of Art is the city’s premier Black History Month celebration. Now in its third year, the event will take an artistic look at the topic of Black Love featuring live performances from Draze and others, presentation of the Servant of the People Award honoring gospel singer Pat Wright and Gregg Alex (Matt Talbot Center), and an art show from some of Seattle’s top painters and photographers. Visit Black History Month at EMP to learn about other events.

2016 Black Music Summit
Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute
104 17th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98144
UPDATE: moved to March

The 2016 Black Music Summit will bring together music stakeholders including musicians, artists, technologists, promoters, venues, media, educators, community organizers and others to discuss the music industry, innovation and future of Black music in the Central Area, Seattle and beyond.  The theme of the event will be innovation and explore the future of Black music at the intersection of art, technology and business. Tickets are available at http://blackmusicsummit.com/

Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic
Seattle Art Museum
Thru May 8, 2016
Adults $19.95; SAM Members and child 18 and under – Free
Kehinde Wiley is one of the leading American artists to emerge in the last decade and he has been ingeniously reworking the grand portraiture traditions. Since ancient times the portrait has been tied to the representation of power, and in European courts and churches, artists and their patrons developed a complex repository of postures and poses and refined a symbolic language. This language, woven into all aspects of a portrait, described the sitter’s influence and power, virtue and character, or profession. In his consideration of portrait traditions, Wiley has been especially drawn to the grand aristocratic portraits of the 18th century.

Celebrate Black culture anytime:

STG Presents: Re:definition Gallery, Curated by Jonathan Moore & Tariqa Waters, Featuring works by Ari Glass & Aramis Hamer
The Paramount Theatre
911 Pine Street
Seattle, WA 98101
Re:definition aims to redefine historic cultural space in the form of an art gallery for local visual artists, with rotating exhibits occurring throughout the year. Current exhibit on display through May 31, 2016.

As a society, we prescribe definitions to our spaces and faces, in an effort to put the world around us into context. Via participation with a significant number of arts managers in our area, Seattle Theatre Group has gained an increased sensitivity to how definitions can be limiting, outdated and in many cases, hurtful. To expand the conversation on the importance of space and how it can be illuminating, STG will be showcasing three visual art exhibits featuring Black artists and their work.

Spectrum Dance Theater
2015\16 Season #RACEish
An exploration of America’s 240 years of (failed) race relations. #RACEish is a series of productions that boldly disrupt the current conversation around race – a conversation that has become tinny, familiar, insular, limited, narrowed by political correctness, self-censored, afraid to offend and peopled by people that think alike.

Intiman Theater Summer Festival
July 2016
Award-winning director and University of Washington School of Drama professor Valerie Curtis-Newton will serve as co-curator of the 2016 Intiman Theatre Festival, which will be devoted to great American playwrights who are also inter-generational black female writers.