Art After Dark

Art After Dark is back! Mark your calendars and plan to join us on February 1st for Art After Dark, an evening of music, conversation and creative expression. Our doors will be open late, so come enjoy the art for free. Join us as we celebrate our common humanity through the arts.

Program Schedule

6:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Exhibition galleries open. Guided tours on the hour.

6:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Evening soundtrack provided by The Stereotypes

6:00 PM - 10:00 PM
"For The Culture" hands-on art

Kick off Black History Month by creating your own album and magazine covers inspired by the work of contemporary artist Mickalene Thomas. Participants are encouraged to bring their favorite photographs to incorporate into the work.

6:30 PM
The Art of Our Stories with Dasan Ahanu

This performance will be a poetic journey through the craft and significance of Black storytelling. As Black writers, we walk in a long tradition of wordsmiths who seek to use their verse as representations of Black life. Poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Zora Neale Hurston, Yusef Komunyakaa and Audre Lorde have eloquently captured our beauty and struggle in their work. What does it mean to tell these stories? What is at stake if we don’t?

Christopher Massenburg, better known as Dasan Ahanu, is a public speaker, organizer, workshop facilitator, poet, spoken word performer, educator, songwriter, writer, emcee, and loyal Hip Hop head born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. In addition to performing, Ahanu has hosted many poetry, jazz, Hip Hop, and cultural arts events across the state and is one of the founders of Black Poetry Theatre. Ahanu is a member of Black Jedi Zulu, a non-profit community organization that seeks to serve the community while also fostering greater cultural awareness of Hip Hop. He was awarded a 2015-2016 Nasir Jones Fellowship with the Hip Hop Archive at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. Currently Ahanu is a visiting professor at UNC Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, NC teaching courses on Hip Hop and Black culture.

8:30 PM
Ted Talks and Chill

What is Black art? Who are the gatekeepers of the culture? Watch, listen and react to shorts in this “clips + conversation” session.

Hailing from Charlotte, NC, by way of Brooklyn, NY, Ohavia "Oh" Phillips M.S., is one of a kind! Her charisma, infectious personality and warmth make her a favorite in any circle!

Receiving her B.S. from The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and her M.S. from Walden University, Phillips is a successful media personality around the city of Charlotte and a thriving talk show host of her YouTube show, The Oh Show.

Her experience and love for people have led her to be a highly demanded speaker across multiple platforms.

7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
R&B Trivia and Musical Family Tree with Stephanye Watts

About R&B Trivia - Rhythm & Bodyroll is the basement house party of your golden years. It's where the R&B bred + fed and newcomers congregate in honor of Supremes vocal stylings and melodic baselines that get you bankhead bouncin' in slow-mo. Besides an evening of solid jams, you also get to flex your R&B knowledge, where the winning team takes home the sacred gold Charlie Wilson fedora... and by gold Charlie Wilson fedora, we mean exciting prizes! Your host, Stephanye Watts, has been getting down and dirty every second Monday at Trophy Bar in Brooklyn, NY since 2014.

About Musical Family Tree - Lineage is integral to the history of Black music in this country. In this workshop, we'll be creating family trees as a visual representation of these throughlines. Scott Joplin begat Nina Simone who begat Benjamin Clementine. Join us as we discover the musicians that not only inspired, but birthed your favorite artists. Check out the family tree Stephanye Watts built during Black History Month 2017 on her podcast The Psyce.

A graduate of Clark Atlanta University, Stephanye R. Watts is the newly appointed Assembly Program Coordinator at Recess. Watts served her community in her previous post as Community Engagement Manager at Weeksville Heritage Center and continues to do so as a member of the Association of African-American Museums, CAU's alumni association, UNCF's Inter-Alumni Council, and the HBCU Hub. When the Philadelphia native isn't pushing the Black agenda, she is the woman behind the world's only R&B trivia night, #RhythmNBodyroll and the Black music podcast, The Psyce. Listen to The Psyce episode discussing the musical family tree.

9:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Performance: Excerpts from ​Black Love is Revolutionary with Artists: Cedric Umoja + Roni Nicole Henderson

Excerpts from Black Love is Revolutionary is a preview of an interactive performance being developed by Roni Nicole Henderson and Cedric Umoja. This performance will engage the audience in movements meant to challenge the historically violent undertones of revolution by re-centering black love as an elemental aspect of change-making.

Given the current and continuous attacks on our safe spaces, as well as the black body, we must find refuge in one another. A gaze that humanizes, an embrace that restores, our greatest asset is in making the series of simple choices that, when all lined up together, engender love. This performance will gather participants together in acts of transparency and acceptance, all set to songs that helped Umoja and Roni fall in love. Participants will have an opportunity to share feedback regarding the performance and help in the development of the final piece.