Public Conversation with Amiri Baraka October 14, 2011

Esteemed Black Arts poet and playwright Amiri Baraka will share excerpts from his poems and plays in a conversation moderated by Theater Professor Dominic Taylor.

Amiri Baraka is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism, a poet icon, and revolutionary political activist who has recited poetry and lectured on cultural and political issues extensively in the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. With influences on his work ranging from musical orishas such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, and Sun Ra to the Cuban Revolution, Malcolm X and world revolutionary movements, Baraka is renowned as the founder of the Black Arts Movement in Harlem in the 1960s that became, though short-lived, the virtual blueprint for a new American theater aesthetics.

Dominic Taylor is an Associate Artist with Penumbra Theater and teaches courses in Blacks in American Theater and will be teaching a special spring course on the Black Arts Movement.

Amiri Baraka will perform Wise Whys Ys: The Griot's Tale on Saturday, October 15, at 8 p.m. at the Southern Theater. Information and tickets at http://amiribaraka.eventbrite.com/.

Official Website: https://events.umn.edu/016245