Anonymous
Rating: N/A Votes: 0 (Vote!) | Posted on Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - 01:08 pm: |
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NEW JERSEY’S POPULAR SPOKEN WORD POETRY EVENT SERENGETI PLAINS COMES TO NJPAC’S SACRED CIRCLE CAFÉ Newark, NJ - NJPAC’s Alternate Routes Sacred Circle Café hosts SERENGETI PLAINS, inspired by the popular New Jersey spoken word poetry event of the same name, on Saturday, November 19 at 8:00 p.m., in The Chase Room. Tickets are $17, and may be purchased by telephone at 1-888-GO-NJPAC (1-888-466-5722), at the NJPAC Box Office at One Center Street in downtown Newark, or by visiting www.njpac.org. Alternate Routes is sponsored, in part, by American Express and made possible through the generosity of Allen and Joan Bildner and the Bildner Family Foundation and The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and through the endowment gifts of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and The Wallace Foundation. Participating in NJPAC’s SERENGETI PLAINS will be Helena D. Lewis, Narubi Selah, Big Mike, Flowmentalz, Drew “Droopy” Anderson and Kasim Allah. These poets’ credits include extensive poetry slams, ranking membership on the Nuyorican Poets Café National Slam Team, appearances on Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, and performances with hip-hop luminaries such as KRS One, Lauryn Hill, Sista Soulja (of Public Enemy), Poor Righteous Teachers, Slick Rick, Doug E. Fresh, and Wyclef Jean. Three of the poets are also classroom teachers: Narubi Selah (4th grade in Trenton); Big Mike (3rd grade in Rahway); and Drew Anderson (high school biology in Washington DC). In 1998, Charles Thompson III launched Serengeti Plains, a gallery in Montclair, NJ. The gallery celebrated works from African, African-American, and other world cultures, and featured furniture, fine art, literature and other products. In 1999, Thompson added to Serengeti Plains art exhibits, book signings and after-hours entertainment including plays, comedy shows and a highly acclaimed spoken word poetry series. The series quickly gained national attention and poets from across the country came to take part in the slams, known for their intimate atmosphere, spontaneous artistic expression and generous audiences. Each year, Serengeti Plains created a team to compete in the National Poetry Slam, achieving more success than any other team in the history of New Jersey Slams. This evening will be SERENGETI PLAINS’ NJPAC debut, even though NJPAC’s Sacred Circle Café has hosted spoken word poets many times previously. Since October 1999, Baraka Sele, Curator/Producer of NJPAC’s Alternate Routes, has presented local, national and international spoken word poets and Hip Hop artists as part of its Sacred Circle/Spoken Word conference, festival and the on-going Sacred Circle Café series. Sacred Circle Café has featured such artists as Rennie Harris, Sarah Jones, Sekou Sundiata, Taalam Acey, Toni Blackman and Will Power. Sele has also presented such groundbreaking artists as Mos Def and the Fo Deuk Revue, which included popular Senegalese rappers Positive Black Soul, among others. These events were a catalyst for the bi-annual Planet Hip Hop, which returns in the 2006-07 season. New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), located in the heart of an emerging downtown Newark, New Jersey, is the sixth largest performing arts center in the United States. Home of the Grammy® Award-winning New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, NJPAC has been widely cited as a catalyst in the revitalization of New Jersey's largest city, attracting over 3.5 million visitors (including more than 700,000 children) in its first eight years of operation. This program is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. NJPAC is a wheelchair accessible facility and provides assistive services such as TTY ticket purchase, designated seating, Sennheiser infrared listening devices and seat cushions. WCBS-TV/CBS 2 is the official television partner for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. NJPAC’s Alternate Routes NJPAC Sacred Circle Cafe The Chase Room Serengeti Plains Saturday, November 19 at 8:00 pm Tickets are $17, and may be purchased by telephone at 1-888-GO-NJPAC (1-888-466-5722), at the NJPAC Box Office at One Center Street in downtown Newark, or by visiting the NJPAC website at www.njpac.org. # # #
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