The UH Hilo Poetry Blues Project

The UH Hilo Poetry Blues Project is organized around two central activities with additional outreach scheduled for the week of February 6 through 10, 2012. Part I Quincy Troupe and Kelvyn Bell: Sound Art at the Hilo Palace Theater with friends Lois Ann Yamanaka, Bridget Gray and Brother Noland
	At the Historic Palace Theater, Wednesday, February 8, 2012 from 6:00 – 8:00pm. Sound Art presents a new dialog that will contribute to an evolving conversation that celebrates root music and oral tradition which has spread from Africa across the middle passage up through the Mississippi Delta to St. Louis and Hawaii.

The Palace event will include cameo performances by the writer Lois Ann Yamanaka and 2011 Hawaii Grand Slam Poetry Champion, Bridget Gray. Yamanaka will share excerpts from a recent work that illuminates the voices of the people of Hawaii and conclude the evening by extending an invitation to the audience to join the group for a Public Conversation that will focus on the importance of writing, music, and art to our collective and shared humanity.

The stage setting for the performance (scenic design) will be the product of a collaboration between Oliver Jackson, UH Hilo Droste Visiting Research Fellow who is scheduled to be in-residence in the Hilo Art Department January 2 through February 17, 2012, local ceramic sculptor Stephen Freedman, and Professor Michael Marshall, Chair UHH Art Department.

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Part II

Music, Art, and Words: a public conversation,

University of Hawaii Hilo campus, Friday, February 10, 2012 from 6:00 - 8:00pm.

With Oliver Jackson, Quincy Troupe, and Kelvyn Bell on the root influences of their current work and significance of the Blues idiom.

James whose academic field and research program is History and Humanities Scholarship with a particular interest in all aspects of the African Diaspora, is an alumnus of Phillips Andover and the University of Hawaii, and holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in history. He is currently teaches at the
Hawaii Community College, Hilo (HawCC), Instructor.

Paul Carter Harrison, Professor Emeritus, Columbia College, Chicago, IL has agreed to service the project as a senior mentor and will bring a high level of internationally recognized scholarship to the table. Harrison, a Playwright, Dramaturg, and Educator is known for his groundbreaking work The Great MacDaddy published in Classics from the Negro Ensemble Company, University of Pittsburg Press (1995), and for his work as a script consultant for the film directed by Thomas Allan Harris, The Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela (2004). Professor Harrison’s papers and manuscripts are permanently archived at Emory University, Atlanta, GA where he currently conducts a research group around the subject: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for African Diasporic Expressivity.

Critical scholarship authored by James and Harrison and initially presented as a program guide, will be further expanded as linear notes/teachers guide to accompany the DVD that will be produced from the digital archive that will document the Palace Theater and UH Hilo Public Conversation.

This annotated permanent record of the two key project events will be made

available to the general public through distribution to library collections state wide and to the Library of Congress.

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Additional Project Activity

In addition to Part I performance and Part II public conversation the following project activities will be scheduled.

Quincy Troupe and Kelvyn Bell, at the initiation of the UH Hilo Art Department will engage the UH Hilo and Hawaii Community College academic and Hilo communities at large as scholars-in-residence for five (5) days, Monday February 6 through Friday February 10, 2012.

Lois Ann Yamanaka and Bridget Gray will be scheduled to be in-residence for three (3) days, Wednesday through Friday, February 8 – 10, 2012.

Key project support will be provided by Oliver Jackson who will in-residence at the UH Hilo Art Department as a Howard and Yoneko Droste Visiting Research Fellow from January 10 through February 17, 2012 and teaching a special topics course,

Art 494: Considering Blues and Jazz.

During this residency Jackson will pursue in collaboration with local ceramic sculptor Stephen Freedman, and Professor Michael Marshall, Chair, of the UHH Art Department scenic design for the Poetry and Blues project.

This collaboration will be carried out in partial fulfillment of special topic course instruction which will be offered by Jackson during the residency period.

Oliver Jackson’s contribution to the UHH Poetry and Blues Project and a Public Conversation is under the auspices of and with fiscal support from the Howard and Yoneko Droste Bequest to the UHH Art Department.

Summary of Project Activities

Troupe, Bell, Yamanaka, and Gray will be invited by the University of Hawaii at Hilo, College of Arts and Sciences, as Humanities Scholars-In-Residence during the week of February 6 – 10, 2012

University Radio Hilo will conduct a radio interview with Quincy Troupe and Kelvyn Bell, Monday February 6

A total of 10 days of mentor activity and classroom visits will be scheduled between Troupe (3), Bell(3), Lois Ann Yamanaka(2), and Bridget Gray(2)

Each mentor activity day will consist of two classroom visits or some other comparable activity

Mentor activity will take place on both the UH Hilo and Hawaii Community College campuses and in the community with various co-sponsoring entities including Public and Public Charter Schools.

The two central project public events: Part I: Sound Art at the Hilo Palace Theater; Part II: A Public Conversation

Development of a guide, digital archive, and DVD documenting the two public events

Public distribution of the DVD document and guide.