Published: November 21, 2008 11:36 am      

Poetry, Music, Dance

CUMBERLAND — The African-American cultural awakening known as the Harlem Renaissance will be celebrated at Allegany College of Maryland in a performance tonight that is free and open to the public.

The Harlem Renaissance Project, starting at 7 p.m. in the College Center Theatre, is an outgrowth of an independent study course of the same name devised by Lynn Bowman, ACM assistant professor of English and speech.

Bowman, who has a longtime interest in the period and a background in theater, has planned an evening that will feature students performing poetry, music and dance with art reproductions serving as a backdrop.

The program centers on the poetry of Langston Hughes, who was among the most influential in a New York-based movement that embraced all forms of creative expression.

Six students in Bowman’s course and about a half-dozen others will present 26 poems, including 18 by Hughes from the Harlem Renaissance. It dated from the end of World War I, soared in the prosperous 1920s and continued into the 1930s, where it was sustained by the federal Works Progress Administration.

Contemporary descendants of the black cultural expression that flourished then also will be part of the ACM performance. Poems by Maya Angelou and Tupac Shakur (originally raps in his case) are featured among the eight non-Hughes writings.

Behind the performers will be images by Aaron Douglas, who ranks with Hughes as among the leading creative forces of the Harlem Renaissance. His art, in a semi-abstract style, synthesized various forms for a celebration of the African-American experience.

The six enrolled students in Bowman’s course who are taking part in the performance are Adam Campbell, Ramon Hall, April Huckabay, Brent Jones, Lloyd Lepley and Wil Manley. Other ACM student participants include Anastasha Arrington, Iven Bailey, James Ortiz and JaCara Smothers.

The Harlem Renaissance Project performance is a co-presentation of the ACM Fine Arts and Humanities Division and the programming committee of ACM’s Diversity Center.

For more information contact Bowman at (301) 784-5258 or by e-mail at lbowman@allegany.edu.