Surface and Symbol
The Emerald’s weekly arts and entertainment supplement Thursday, May 6, 1976
Block CUkur€: festival offers a look at it
May 10th will be the opening day of the
4th annual Black Arts Festival, presented
by the Black Student Union.
The festival is designed to give Eugene
residents an opportunity to learn about
black culture. There will be art displays,
dress and food, as well as concerts,
dances. Black-oriented films and plays by
popular black artists.
The events will begin about noon on
Monday, May 10, with display of African
drumming. There will be a street faire on
13th Avenue where arts and crafts will be
displayed, including a display by Global
Fashion, which will include African and In
dian wood carvings and musical instru
ments. The street faire is to have an atmos
phere like that of the Saturday Market with
local talents to perform jazz, singing, and
drama.
Later in the day the Rev. Cedi Williams,
pastor of Glide Memorial Methodist Church
in San Francisco, will speak in the EMU
Ballroom at 2 p.m. Following will be a series
of black-oriented films depicting the lives of
black people in America.
The week-long festival will feature differ
ent performers each day. There will be a
fashion show—which has proved to be one
of the most popular of the events in the past
— with a beauty clinic dealing with expres
sive African head wraps, Afro hairdo groom
ing and African braiding. Emphasis at the
fashion show will be on the evolution of
African costume to modern day Afro
American styles, and the latest trend of
combining African costumes and designs to
make western dresses
Several popular plays will be dramatized
as a part of the Faire, including “Soul Gone
Home,” a one act fantasy, by Langston
Hughes, and “The Gentleman Caller,” a
play by Ed Bullings, which he calls "a para
ble so fierce in its intention that it is almost
impossible to laugh at it.” Also presented
will be LeRoi Jones' “Dutchman," and “The
First Militant Minister” by Ben Caldwell.
At the end of the week will be a benefit
dance and concert in the EMU ballroom
with the group “Pleasure,” an eight-piece
Portland based band that plays “funky, and
rhythmic, jazz-tinged soul music.” Art
Blakely, who formed his trend-setting group
“The Messengers" in 1947, is on of the
most important shapers of the contempor
ary jazz scene.
The student body of the University and
the Eugene Community are encouraged to
participate in this week-long event. For
times and places of these events, see ad
vertisements in the Emerald during festival
week.
Clockwise from right: Art Blakely
and the Jazz Messengers perform
at 8 p.m. Saturday in the ballroom,
Rev. Cecil Williams speaks in the
ballroom Monday at 2 p.m., and
Socialist Workers Party Candidate
Willie Mae Reid makes her presen
tation in the EMU at 2:30 Wednes
day.