A Virtual Performance and Live Discussion
March 14, 4:00-5:00 pm
Register for the Virtual Performance HERE
Join us for a free virtual performance of For Keepsakes: Love, Jim Crow, by Full Circle choreographer Hope B. Byers. This work illuminates the dark history of racial-terror lynching, a savage tool of white supremacy that is part of the American story. It probes beneath the surface of the violent acts against thousands of Black citizens to reveal layers of motive, myth, custom, marketing, and impact. From the experiences of Black people forced to become refugees in America, to the role of religion, to the indoctrination of white children, Byers dissects lynching in order to motivate reckoning in our present moment with this profound source of enduring pain.
The performance will be followed by a live discussion, moderated by Full Circle Artistic Director Donna L. Jacobs. Panelists will include Dr. Jewell C. Debnam, Assistant Professor at Morgan State University, choreographer Hope B. Byers, and several of the dancers who performed the work.
Excerpt from For Keepsakes: Love, Jim Crow
About the Choreographer:
Hope B. Byers has been a member of Full Circle since 2006, and her choreography is a staple of the company’s repertoire. Formerly, she performed with Floyd Project Dance Company and Rafiki Dance Theatre. Hope’s choreography has been selected for presentation by Maryland Council for Dance, Baltimore Dance Invitational and Koresh Artist Showcase. Her work has been performed at Atlas Performing Arts Center, Baltimore Museum of Art’s Meyerhoff Auditorium, Baltimore Theatre Project, Chesapeake Arts Center, Dogtown Dance Theatre, Gordon Center for Performing Arts, Kraushaar Auditorium, Lyric Opera House, Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Slayton House Theatre and Strand Theater.
About the Guest Scholar:
Jewell Debnam is Assistant Professor of History at Morgan State University. In May 2016, Jewell earned her Ph.D in History from Michigan State University. She received her BA in History and African American and African American Studies from the University of Virginia in 2010. Her book project Fighting for Respect: Black Women and the Charleston Hospital Workers’ Strike of 1969 offers a window into the intersections of workers’ rights and resistance, the modern Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, and black women’s activism.