"Rent Party": African American Urban Dance Music from Ragtime to House

Description

Join this tribute to the Rent Party, a site of music and dance experience for the Black urban migrant of the early 1900s. The Rent Party was an opportunity for confident, joyful self-expression and freedom from codes that regulated racial and sexual conduct, freedom from the ideals of uplift, sobriety, and propriety. It was a moment and a space for staking vernacular pleasure. It was an unapologetic place for Black creative expression.

This evening will begin with a presentation by Shana Redmond, professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and Columbia's Center for the Study of Ethnicity & Race, on the philosophical and symbolic significance of the Rent Party followed by a music and dance performance that pays homage to the dynamic Rent Party dance music tradition. Peabody Jazz Studies faculty members Nasar Abadey (percussion) and Richard Johnson (piano) will play an improvisational jam session showcasing the evolution of Black musical history. Baltimore house music dancers will respond to the music live, artfully demonstrating their distinctive stylistic movement. A catered wine reception will immediately follow the program.

This free program commemorates the life of Donald V. Bentley and is presented by the Johns Hopkins Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts in partnership with the Baltimore Museum of Art. Registration is encouraged.

Schedule of Events

• 6 p.m.: Auditorium doors open
• 6:30 p.m.: Program begins: "The Folk Were Fly: Rent Parties and Other Tunnels" presentation by Shana Redmond (45 minutes) | Music and dance performance (25 minutes)
• 7:45 p.m.: Program ends
• 7:45–9 p.m.: Reception in Fox Court

About the Donald V. Bentley Memorial Lecture

The Donald Bentley Annual Memorial Lecture is the Billie Holiday Project's capstone annual public lecture to honor one of Baltimore's promising young leaders who lost their life in the violence crisis that has been endemic to the city for more than 30 years. The lecture is a unique platform to drive debate and critical reflection on the role of the arts in our everyday lives and in our imagining of a future just world. Each year, the Billie Holiday Project invites a distinguished arts practitioner and intellectual to address topical, historical, or philosophical issues connecting the work of the arts to the renewal and revitalization of civic life.