Imagining TRUTH: An evening with five women who have imagined sharing the story of Sojourner Truth.

Date: 02/08/2012 Time: 7:00 pm

Location
Academy of Music


Imagining TRUTH: An evening with four women who have imagined sharing the story of Sojourner Truth.

Five women will each offer 15 minutes onstage about her re-imagining Sojourner Truth followed by an open conversation.

Dr. Riché J. Daniel Barnes, who teaches about Sojourner Truth, is a cultural anthropologist in the department of Afro-American studies at Smith College. She holds a M.S. in Urban studies and a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Emory University. She completed her undergraduate degree in Political Science at Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Barnes specializes in race, class, and gender dynamics in African American families as they are experienced in the U.S. political economy. Dr. Barnes specializes in race, class, and gender dynamics in African American families as they are experienced in the U.S. political economy. Dr. Barnes book Running the Race: Black Career Women Redefine Marriage, Motherhood, and Community is forthcoming (Rutgers University Press). She is also collaborating on two edited volumes, one on Zora Neale Hurston and her contributions to the field of anthropology, and the other on Transnational Feminisms, as well as several articles.

The Rev. Dr. Andrea Ayvazian, a member of the original Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee that had the statue of Sojourner Truth installed in Florence, MA, is the Senior Pastor of the Haydenville Congregational Church, and has been active in movements for social and political change since 1970.  An anti-racism educator, published poet, and singer/songwriter with three albums and CDs in circulation, Andrea has been living in the Pioneer Valley since 1980.  Andrea was, for ten years, the Dean of Religious Life and Protestant Chaplain at Mount Holyoke College where she supervised a team of Chaplains who served the nine active faith communities on the campus.  Andrea is the life partner to Michael Klare; they have one grown son, Sasha Klare-Ayvazian..  Andrea holds degrees from Oberlin College, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, the Graduate School of the Union Institute, and Yale Divinity School.  Andrea’s book PSALMS IN ORDINARY VOICES was published in 2011 by White River Press.

Priscilla Kane Hellweg, co-author and director of SOJOURNER’S TRUTH: “I will shake every place I go to” is the Executive/Artistic Director of Enchanted Circle Theater, a non-profit educational theater company based in Holyoke. Ms. Hellweg, named 2004 Artist-in-Resident of the Year, by the Massachusetts Alliance for Arts in Education, has written, directed, performed and taught arts integrated programs in classrooms from preschool through college. Priscilla is adjunct faculty at Hampshire College, and is on the Arts Education Advisory Council for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Priscilla and her writing partner, Rachel Kuhn, have written several site-based historical dramas, including: BETWEEN THE CANALS: The Evolution of a Mill Town, THE SKINNER SERVANTS’ TOUR: A Living History of Wistariahurst, and LEAH ENTERS LATE: A New Page in the History of Yiddish, as well as a documentary film for WGBY entitled Creating Holyoke: The Immigrants Search for Community.  Priscilla is currently working on a book entitled: Actively Engaged- Theater as a Dynamic Teaching Tool.  SOJOURNER’S TRUTH was originally commissioned in 2009, by the Sojourner Truth Memorial Statue Committee in Florence.

Ms. Hellweg directs all ECT productions and is co-author ECT’s historical dramas SOJOURNER’S TRUTH: “I will shake every place I go to”, BETWEEN THE CANALS: The Evolution of a Mill Town, LEAH ENTERS LATE: A New Page in the History of Yiddish, and THE SKINNER SERVANTS’ TOUR: A Living History of Wistariahurst.She and her writing partners Rachel Kuhn and Kate Thibodeau also wrote and developed a documentary film for WGBY entitled Creating Holyoke: The Immigrants Search for Community.Ms. Hellweg received her B.A. in Performing Arts and Education at Hampshire College, and did professional theater training at the Provincetown Playhouse and SUNY at Purchase. She is currently working on a book entitled: Actively Engaged- Theater as a Dynamic Teaching Tool.

Paula Kimper, composer of TRUTH, a new folk opera about the life of Sojourner Truth, is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, and is active in New York City as a composer for opera, theater, dance, film, and song.

Ms. Kimper’s first opera, PATIENCE & SARAH, with librettist Wende Persons, is based on the novel by Isabel Miller and premiered in Lincoln Center Festival 98. The Act II Duet, ”I want to live,” on CRI’s release Lesbian American Composers, won two 1999 GLAMA Awards. Further productions have taken place in Denver, Chicago, England, and Oakland, CA. (More at: www.patienceandsarah.com.)  In 2002 Ms. Kimper was commissioned by the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association to compose an opera for the 300th anniversary of the 1704 Raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts.  THE CAPTIVATION OF EUNICE WILLIAMS, with libretto by Harley Erdman, premiered in July 2004, at the Reid Theatre of Deerfield Academy.  It was performanced at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, in Washington, DC, in October, 2006, and toured the Balkan region from July – September 2008.  Old Deerfield Productions has commissioned TRUTH, an opera about Sojourner Truth, which will premiere in February 2012 at the Academy of Music in Northampton, MA.  Excerpts from Kimper’s opera based on Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY were featured in the “New Works Sampler” at Opera America’s National Conference in Pittsburgh, PA.  The Orchestra Suite from the Bridge of San Luis Rey was premiered by The Danbury Community Orchestra in May 2007 under the direction of Stephen M. Smith.

Linda McInerney is the founder and artistic director of Old Deerfield Productions. She commissioned TRUTH, a new folk opera about the life of Sojourner Truth that will premiere February 16, 17, and 18th, 2012 at the Academy of Music featuring Evelyn Harris, formerly of Sweet Honey in the Rock in title role.

THIS IS A FREE EVENT!