Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 8, 1994 TAG: 9406080060
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A $450,000 grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Foundation is helping the theater reach that goal, starting this weekend with a four-day Celebration of African-American Culture, featuring musicians, dancers, storytellers and artists.
The Richmond-based Elegba Folklore Society headlines the festival, with a Friday night performance as well as a workshop Saturday afternoon and a musical drama Saturday night.
The drama, titled ``To Be Sold,'' combines actual slave narratives with music, dance and historical record - taking the audience on an emotional journey through the lives of proud and reverent Africans and through the violence, confusion and survival that built the foundation of America today.
As the cast's historian, Philip J. Schwarz, says: ``Slavery is a cancer on the body of American history. We need to look at it to avoid denying it. We need to watch for recurrence of certain attitudes connected with it.''
``To Be Sold'' ponders the question: What is the legacy of bondage?
It explores the attitudes embodied in this statement, made by a South Carolina preacher and slave owner: ``When we buy and sell them it is not human flesh and blood that we buy and sell, but we buy and sell a right, established by Providence, and sanctioned by Scripture to their labor and service for life.''
The play is set mainly in Richmond, which was host to the second largest slave trade in the antebellum South. The cast enacts the story using scenes from slave pens and markets that still stand today in Richmond as well as 60 miles to the south in Jamestown, where the first enslaved Africans arrived in 1619.
Elegba dancer Janine Bell and drummer Khalid Saleem are joined in the cast of ``To Be Sold'' by singer-songwriter James Banks Jr., saxophonist and music historian J. Plunky Branch, singer-actress Katherine Kendall White, and stage and film actor Carl Jackson.
Other celebration events include:
An NAACP benefit hosted by Greta Evans of WSLS (Channel 10) tonight, featuring six gospel choirs from the Rockbridge area and the one-act play ``De Ways of De Wimmens.'' Adapted from a traditional Southern folktale, the play takes a humorous look at the events in the Garden of Eden.
``Theater has always had a place in the African-American church,'' says Marshal B. McAden, the associate artistic director who adapted and directs the play. ``This piece grows out of that tradition and takes us beyond Bible School programs and Sunday School dramatic readings. It represents a new twist on the timeless story and gives our `first couple' very human qualities that everyone can relate to.''
Proceeds from these performances will be donated to the Rockbridge County NAACP. Chapters in Staunton and Roanoke are also expected to bring groups.
Soul food and storytelling are featured Thursday night with a potluck picnic at 6 p.m., followed by master storyteller Dylan Pritchett, who has been an African-American programming specialist at Colonial Williamsburg as well as a member of its Fife & Drum Corps - when he was 11.
Pritchett tells stories in the same manner as the African griots, who have chronicled the history of the villages for thousands of years using anecdotes, voice, instruments and movement.
Friday's events features Elegba Folklore Society, which fuses dance, music and narrative to celebrate multiculturalism. The audience will be invited to participate as the group examines the origins and contemporary significance of African dance, instruments and song.
An all-day festival Saturday will showcase regional artists and their display of African and African-inspired clothing, jewelry and crafts. African artifacts will also be on exhibit, courtesy of Roanoke's Harrison Museum of African-American Culture, as will the paintings of Lexington artist Tommy Huffman, whose building murals depict African-American life.
Lexington's Pat Butler will explain the seven principles of Kwanzaa, the African-American celebration of unity observed Dec. 26 through Jan. 1. And Roanoke's Marilyn Harmon will present a free seminar for young people on African-American inventors, including those who invented the stoplight and the lightbulb filament.
Caribbean and Virgin Island drummers will perform throughout the free Saturday festival, and church groups and youth clubs are encouraged to come. (Anyone interested in bringing a youth group should contact Ken Sheck at 463-3074.)
Elegba will also conduct an audience-participation workshop on Saturday at 2 p.m.
With the exception of the Saturday workshop, all performances begin at 8 p.m., with gates opening for picnics at 6 p.m.
Tickets for The Celebration of African-American Culture range from $3 to $12 (with a $2 discount offered to students, seniors and children). A special package including one ticket to each event is $30.
Tickets are available at the Lime Kiln box office (14 S. Randolph St. in Lexington) or by calling 463-3074. Tickets may be purchased at the door, but patrons are advised to call in advance in case of a sell-out.
Lime Kiln is also developing other strategies designed to attract new audiences. Short radio shows adapted from local stories and legends will begin airing this summer, courtesy of the grant. A quarterly newsletter is being established, as well as a playwriting contest. A playreading festival held in April was also part of Lime Kiln's new community outreach.
``It's really helping to make Lime Kiln something that belongs to all parts of the community,'' Cocke says. ``We're starting to see all sorts of new faces come through here.''
by CNB