Martin Luther King Jr. Day may have passed a week ago, but Dartmouth's celebration of King's life continued this weekend with a Festival of Student Arts that showcased visual arts, performance and spoken word from an array of student groups at Dartmouth.
This year's theme, "Lift Every Voice: Freedom's Artists and the Ongoing Struggle for Civil Rights," found various cultural groups on campus interacting and performing together.
The weekend's events gave festival-goers an interesting and varied look at "the ways that students' artistic production and vision serve as commentary on or intervention into social and political issues and realities," said Giavanna Munafo, associate director for training and educational programs in the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity. Munafo also served as co-chair of the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee, along with history professor Judith Byfield '80.
"The speakers, performers and artists who are part of this year's program remind us that creative anger, joyous celebration and loving compassion can move mountains," Munafo and Byfield said in a statement.
The Festival, coordinated by Rudee Lipscomb '08 and Njihia Mbitiru GRLS, showcased some of Dartmouth's most unique and least-known performing arts groups.
Collis hosted Soul Scribes' Spoken Word open mic night on Friday. The slam poetry group's show was followed by the Black Underground Theatre Association, a student theater group devoted to the performing arts that explore Afro-American history and current culture. They presented "Scenes of Freedom."
The festival continued on Saturday evening with "Lifted: A Celebration of Unity and Song," the weekend's main event in Collis Common Ground. "Lifted" featured a diverse spread of campus recreational groups, culture-specific organizations and performing arts ensembles, including Thursday Night Salsa, Ujima Dance Troupe, FUSION Dance Ensemble, Dartmouth Argentine Tango Society, Native Women's Dancing Society, Occom Pond Dancers, Ceili Irish Dancers and Vandana.
It's not every day that you get to see Irish, South Asian, Native American, Argentinian and African dance troupes perform all in the same evening. The diversity of performing groups featured in the Festival perfectly suited a celebration of King's life. Especially for those organizations that are not quite as well known around campus as Dartmouth's ubiquitous a cappella groups, the Festival provided an opportunity for students in the arts to show their stuff in honor of the fight for civil rights.
