jun 23 $15 - menokin foundation · jun 23 ticket cost includes light refreshment . purchase...
TRANSCRIPT
JUN 23
Ticket cost includes light refreshment
Purchase tickets: menokin.org/register
4037 Menokin Road | Warsaw, VA 22560 | menokin.org
804.333.1776 or [email protected]
FROM MY PEOPLE | SPEAKER: Daryl Dance, PhD
7 PM
9 PM- $15
Menokin’s mission is to use our historic house and the surrounding landscape to explore and celebrate the contribution of the individual to history. The individuals that built this unique place were enslaved here for several generations.
This inaugural session of the new Campfire Conversations program explores the folklore of the people who were enslaved, lived and died in Virginia.
Dr. Daryl Dance will be on hand to explain the importance of folklore for the enslaved communities of early America. The recipe for the evening includes a good mixture of scholarly information, oral presentation of stories and some group conversation.
Dance’s book, From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore: An Anthology is a magnificent celebration of—and an essential introduction to—African American life and culture. Folklore displays the heart and soul of a people. African American folklore not only hands down traditions and wisdom through the generations but also tells the history of a people banned from writing and reading during slavery.
In this anthology, Daryl Cumber Dance collects a wealth of tales that have survived and been adapted over the years, many featuring characters (like Brer’ Rabbit) from African culture. She leaves no genre of folklore out, including everything from proverbs and recipes to folk songs and rumor. There is a section on the unique style
that African Americans have consciously fashioned, including works by and about Paul Laurence Dunbar, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jelly Roll Morton. Within the chapter on folk art, which includes a sixteen-page color insert, quilts, dolls, sculpture, and painting get their due.
From the famous to the anonymous, From My People is Dance’s gift back to her culture. Books will be available for purchase at the event.
Join us at the campfire near the ruin to learn about the importance of these stories, share one of your own, and explore and discuss their meaning and relevance over time.
(A Booklist Top Ten African American Nonfiction Book of the Year. Nominated for the Library of Virginia Literary Award. 82 illustrations.)
DR. DARYL DANCE: Professor of English at the University of Richmond.