RELAX: TALK: GROW - Arts, Community, and Public Spaces

RELAX: TALK: GROW is a monthly networking/policy planning event that combines food and drink, visiting, entertainment and policy discussions to enhance black lives in our community. This month's discussion takes place from 5:30 to 7 p.m., Friday, Nov. 11. The discussion topic is "Arts, Community, and Public Spaces." With an eye on recent events, this month’s conversation centers on the challenges of producing black cultural experiences in Iowa City specifically and 2016 America more broadly.  Panelists will talk about their experiences planning festivals and programs. After offering their insights, they will take questions from the audience.

Panelists include:

• Loyce Arthur is an associate professor of design. She has designed costumes for numerous productions. Most recently, she designed Peer Gynt and The 39 Steps at Portland Stage Company in Portland, Maine, and Black Pearl Sings! at Interact Theater Company in Philadelphia, which won the 2010 Brown Martin Philadelphia Award, (Barrymore Awards). Her design work at the University of Iowa includes The Tattoo Girl, 14, Reefer Madness, The Magic Flute, The Learned Ladies and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. In 2004, she presented her work on Trinidad Carnival at a symposium in Santiago de Cuba, and she has researched carnival traditions in the UK, Toronto, Rio de Janeiro, the Netherlands, Trinidad and around the world. Since 2013, she has coordinated the Iowa City Carnaval Project, a series of activities that bring the pageantry of a Carribbean celebration to our community. Arthur is currently on the executive board of the Iowa Center for Human Rights. She is also Co-Director of the Caribbean Diaspora and Atlantic Studies Program.

• Andre Perry is executive director of The Englert Theatre. After coming to Iowa City in 2005 to pursue an MFA in UI's non-fiction writing program, he became involved in the local arts scene in 2006 when he helped launch the first Iowa City Mission Creek Festival, an evolution of a previous event he organized in San Francisco. Mission Creek now exists as a spring mainstay, bringing dozens of bands, writers, comedians and other artists to town for a nearly week-long celebration of the arts. Not content to rest on that success, last year, Perry and his Englert collaborators conceived The Witching Hour Festival, a two-day event that brought together 40 artists, including, writers, scientists and entrepreneurs for a slate of lectures and discussions. The festival continued this year, and Andre shows no signs of slowing in his efforts to bring talent to our town.

This event will also include music from Kevin “B.F.” Burt.  

Kevin plays solo and as part of Kevin "B.F." Burt and the Instigators.

Kevin "B.F." Burt and The Instigators have been electrifying audiences with their unique blend of blues/funk/rock for more than 20 years. Starting in the early 90s as The Blues Instigators as a seven-piece ensemble, they are now a four-piece power band consisting of Eric E.G Madison on percussion, Matt Kool-Aid Panek on guitar, John Lane on bass and Kevin "B.F." Burt on vocals, harmonica and guitar. Shawn Burt also plays bass with Kevin and the Big Medicine Trio.

Sponsored by:
UI African American Council and UI Public Policy Center