2003 James S. Coleman Memorial Lecture -- Planet Mambo: Kongo Dance Influences Conquer the World
Dance. Live Drumming. Music. Internationally reknown scholar Robert Farris Thompson will be discussing the art and dance of the kingdom of Kongo as a parallel classical tradition in the Black Americas. He will show Kongo dance roots in the rise, development and achievement of Brazilian samba, Argentine milonga and tango, Uruguayan candombe, Peruvian lando, U.S. jazz dance and Cuban rumba, habanera, and mambo. The lecture will be supplemented and illustrated with slides, videotape, CDs and live drumming. Dessert reception from 6-7 PM; presentation from 7-8:30 PM.
Thursday, May 08, 2003
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Lenart Auditorium
UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History
Westwood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Professor Thompson is the Col. John Trumbull Professor of the History of the Art, Master of Timothy Dwight College at Yale University and Professor of African and Afro-American Art History at the same institution. In his writings, Dr. Thompson has explored the material cultures of various African ethnic groups both in their own right and in relation to cultural traditions of the African American, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Cuban worlds. Although he focuses on the visual arts, his writing is informed by a broader knowledge of the musical, dance, religious, and philosophical cultural traditions on both sides of the Atlantic. His most recent book, Face of the Gods: Art and Altars of Africa and the African Americas, (1993), is a comparative study of Afro-Atlantic altars. Other publications include Black Gods and Kings (1971), African Art and Motion (1974), The Four Moments of the Sun: Kongo Art in Two Worlds (1981), Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy (1983). His articles have been anthologized in more than fourteen books and he has designed and organized five major exhibitions of African and Afro-American art.
Cost: Free and open to the public
Special Instructions
Dessert Reception from 6 - 7 PM. Parking is available for $7 in structure 4. Enter UCLA from Sunset Blvd. at Westwood. Stay in the center lane and drive straight ahead to the Parking Information Booth.
For more information please contact
James S. Coleman African Studies Center
Tel: 310-825-3686
jscasc@international.ucla.edu
www.international.ucla.edu/jscasc
Sponsor(s): African Studies Center, World Arts & Cultures, Art History Department, Fowler Museum at UCLA
