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Pre-registration is required
Join us to celebrate Juneteenth!
Juneteenth celebrates the historical event in Galveston, Texas which declared the end of slavery in the United States of America. It has been celebrated annually on June 19 in various parts of the country since 1865. Together with Amistad Center for Art & Culture and ShopBlackCT, Hill-Stead is once again hosting this event as part of a month-long series of Juneteenth celebrations taking place throughout the region.
Inspired by Juneteenth picnics, please join us for an evening of discovery and celebration featuring regional Black artists, organizations ,and businesses. Bring your lawn chairs and picnic dinner on the grounds as you enjoy performances by Voices of Hartford, Subira Vs Movement who will be performing “Renaissance Gyalz,” and Khaiim the RapOet, on Hill-Stead’s picturesque grounds.
Schedule
4:45 – 5:30 pm
Voices of Hartford performs on Hill-Stead’s Veranda
Voices of Hartford is a community of young musicians who live, go to school, and/or work in the City of Hartford and its neighborhoods. Our goal is to bring young BIPOC musicians – from high school age to early professional – together to make music, to share meals, and to be part of a safe, positive community. VoH normally meets one day a week for rehearsal, dinner, and special events (like working with a singing coach, someone with Broadway experience, and more). Our singers are paid for time rehearsing music and time performing.
Co-founded by VoH Artistic Director Miles Wilson-Toliver and the professional choral ensemble Voce, VoH is in high demand for its music and is always looking for additional singers. VoH offers a varied repertoire including spirituals, gospel, classical pieces, and more. They are currently working with composer Melanie Guerin on the creation of a piece which describes their lives in Hartford. VoH has performed at Connecticut’s Old State House, at a fundraiser for Hands on Hartford, and at numerous churches. VoH travelled to Cincinnati to perform in the “Healing & Understanding: We Are One” festival, and recently performed at the Wadsworth Atheneum on MLK day. We will return to the Atheneum to celebrate Juneteenth with the Amistad Center for Arts & Culture.
5:45 – 6:45 pm
Lauren Horn//Subira Vs. Movement performs on Hill-Stead’s Veranda
Subira Vs. Movement will perform their piece Renaissance Gyal. Renaissance Gyal is a choreographic work, set on a cast of Black women, that explores the ways in which Black women have set a precedent for culture in America, while simultaneously being erased. Inspired by the renaissance, this piece frames Black creativity in movement, music, art and style as a continuous cultural boom deserving of both deference and celebration.
Lauren Horn is a movement and text based artist from Windsor, CT. She graduated from Amherst College with degrees in Psychology and Theatre and Dance. Lauren’s work explores identity and the ways it can be uncovered, marginalized, highlighted, and erased. By utilizing movement and text as means of fostering a more welcoming form of vulnerability, the work creates a space for self-reflection and conversation for both the performer and viewer. Another aspect of Lauren’s work is entrenched in creating a dialogue around our current society’s relationship to technology. From the Silent Generation to Generation Z, she wants to understand how groups of individuals, in each living generation, feel that technology has affected their expression of their true self. Lauren’s choreographic work has been showcased at The BAM Fisher Theatre in Brooklyn, NYC, The Boston Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, MA, Hibernian Hall in Boston MA,The Meydenbauer Center Theatre in Belleview,WA, The Armory in Sommerville, The Studio of Contemporary Dance and Thought in Northampton, MA, The Northampton Center for the Arts, Amherst College and ACDFA New England.
7 – 8 pm
Khaiim the RapOet performs on Hill-Stead’s Veranda
First discovered and introduced to crowds by the Hip-Hop icon Talib Kweli, Khaiim the RapOet has performed internationally with everyone from Pulitzer Prize poets like Alice Walker to Grammy-winning MCs like Common. Hip-Hop heads know him as Self Suffice, the charismatic lyricist whose album with Dreamville’s (J. Cole) Mez Davis summited the Indie Hip-Hop Top 40. His positive use of rap music has been recognized by Obama’s White House, the New York Times, NPR, and others. He continually perfects his craft and has received certificates from the Kennedy Center, NVC, and the CT Center for (Kingian) Nonviolence, to name a few.
Self Suffice currently has 5 songs in Spotify’s Top 10% Most Played, is 1 of the first Free Center BIPOC grant recipients, and is currently serving his second year as the inaugural Troubadour of Hartford, CT which also makes him the U.S.A.’s first Hip-Hop Troubadour. You can find his Make It Full Time program on Instagram at @MIFTkhaiim, where he provides career guidance & support for professional artists.
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