Geared for all ages (K-12), the residency program is offered as a resource to educate and inspire future artists and local youths. Carefully selected artists provide outreach in the community and “in-house” programming at the Hayti Heritage Center to children and adults with limited or no access to arts programming. The 45-60 minute mini presentations or concert are interactive, hands on, lively and full of dance, songs and music.

September 9-11

HOMEMADE JAMZ BLUES BAND
Blues In the Schools
Various locations

October 22

BLOOD DONE SIGN MY NAME
Mike Wiley Production
10:30 AM/7:30 PM*
(Ages 13 and up)

January 16

Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. Holiday

RAISE-A-READER BOOK FAIR
12 noon – 3:00 PM

BROWN vs BOARD OF EDUCATION
2:00 PM (FREE)

February 11

LIFE IS GOOD
Mike Wiley & EZEBD Productions
10:30 AM / 7:30 PM*

March 18

THE LIFE OF FREDRICK DOUGLAS
Bright Star Children’s Theatre
10:30 AM

May 21

A TUFF SHUFFLE: BACKSTAGE WITH LOUIS ARMSTRONG
A Danny Mullen Production

Celebrating BIMBE’ Festival 2010
10:30 AM / 7:30 PM*
Admission: $5 per student/ Teachers and Chaperons admitted free with group; $10 students & $15 for adults (full length evening performances only)*
Large groups reservations are suggested.
Study Guides available upon request
Call (919) 683-1709 ext. 21

October 25 at Hayti Heritage Center

Durham Acts: Grassroots Engagement lecture and panel discussion will take place at the Hayti Heritage Center on Sunday, October 25, 2009 from 3:00 pm until 5:00 pm in the St. Joseph’s Performance Hall. The program will bring Durham community organizations, grass root activists and residents together to dialogue and discuss Durham’s historical and socio-political past, in the context of politics, history and socio-cultural interaction. The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Devin Fergus (the author of Liberalism, Black Power and the Making of American Politics) will be on hand to discuss his research and contextualize the interactivity of these events, individuals and groups that were integral in this unique part of Durham’s and North Carolina’s cultural history. Many of the groups and participants (e.g. Black Panther Party of W-S, N.C., Soul City, Joanne Little Case, Malcolm X. Liberation University will also be invited to the program and recognized for their efforts in this aspect of North Carolina history. Dr. Fergus, Assistant Professor of History, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.

Durham Acts: Grassroots Engagement program will act as a conduit to bring together Durham’s diverse communities to dialogue about human welfare, community engagement and inter-racial collaboration. The unique narrative is discussed in-depth in Devin Fergus’ recently released book Liberalism, Black Power and the Making of American Politics. Much of the traditional scholarship on the post Civil Rights, Black Power era contends that individuals and groups operated in a vacuum—separate and apart from each other. However, in the case of Durham’s diverse, multi-ethnic, populace, traditional individual community roles were often blurred in the eyesight of the casual observer—partly because its citizens could not be placed in narrowly defined categories (e.g. conservative, liberal, radical) based upon ethnic identification, political orientation, gender perspective, religious affiliation or social activity.

All of the chapters in Liberalism, Black Power and the Making of American Politics (i.e. Hidden Histories of Remittance: Liberalism and the Making of Black Nationalism in North Carolina, 1965-1970; We Had a Beautiful Thing: Malcolm X. Liberation University, the Black Middle Class, and the Black Liberation Movement; From Rebellion to Reform: Constitutional Liberalism and the Black Panther Party, 1968-1974; In Defense of Sister Joan: The Joan Little Case and American Justice in the Cosmopolitan South, 1974-1975; Speaking Truth to Power: Cosmopolitan Black Nationalism and its Gendered Discontents; Federally Subsidized Black Nationalism: Soul City, Statist Liberalism, and the Rise of the New Right, 1968-1980) chronicle the roles and actions of selected Durham and North Carolina citizenry. Although many North Carolina citizens, educators and school children are familiar with the Durham/North Carolina liberal, black power historical narrative, the majority are unaware of the specific role played by local and regional citizens within the context of the aforementioned framework.

Malcolm X. Liberation University founded in Durham, North Carolina, which Fergus devotes a chapter to in his narrative, will celebrate its 40th year anniversary in October 2009. The principal organizer of MXLU, Howard Fuller, and many former MXLU faculty/students are scheduled to be in Durham the weekend of October 23-24, 2009, several days preceding the aforementioned community dialogue slated for October 25, 2009. Thus, the MXLU commemoration will make for an excellent kick-off to the Durham Acts: Grassroots Engagement program.

Scheduled to participate in the panel discussion are Attorney Karen Bethea Shields, Mr. Howard Fuller, Mr. Larry Little, Mr. Jarvis Hall and Dr. Charmaine McKissick Melton. Dr. Sandy Darity of the Sanford Public Policy Institute will serve as our moderator for the program.

Funding for this program is provided by the North Carolina Humanities Council and a host of private contributors. For more information call (919) 683-1709 or www.hayti.org.

September 30 – November 4
Wednesdays, 6 pm – 7 pm
Hayti Heritage Center

Gaspard Louis will teach a creative movement class for students 12-18 years old involving the techniques of contact improvisation and partnering. This class will also focus on balance and counter-balance technique that will enable students to be creative and to develop movement vocabularies that will help them acquire a better understanding and appreciation for the art of choreography. Students should have at least one year of dance experience.

Space will be limited so early registration is encouraged. If you are interested please call 919-684-6402 or email adf@americandancefestival.org to register.

About Gaspard Louis
Gaspard Louis was a member of Pilobolus Dance Theater from 1996 to 2001. He has performed worldwide and collaborated on the choreography for nine major dance works with the company. He continues to do special projects with Pilobolus, the most recent being a commercial for Hyndai. He has also danced for Shirley Mordine and Company in Chicago and AllNations Dance Company in New York. Gaspard has choreographed for the Kentucky University Dance Ensemble and collaborated on four works for Freespace Dance Company in New Jersey. He has been a guest artist for the New York Renaissance Dance Festival and choreographed for and performed in a Caribbean music video. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Montclair State University and continued his studies on scholarship with Gus Giordano in Chicago and Nikolais/Louis Dance Lab in New York. Gaspard is currently directing ADF’s community creative movement program and co-teaching Haitian Creole at Duke University.

Thank you for a wonderful Bull Durham Blues Festival!  On behalf of the Board of Directors, Staff and Blues Festival Committee, we would like too thank all of the sponsors volunteers and persons attending this year’s festival for a grand time.  The weather was just beautiful, the music outstanding, vendors had the best food around and well the audience- there is none better.

We look forward to seeing you all at next year’s festival September 10 & 11 at the Durham Athletic Park!!  Keeping the Blues Alive!!

“An intensely physical actor and writer who can turn on the charm like nobody’s business. When it comes to working a crowd, Wiley makes Bill Clinton look like a wallflower.”
– Independent Weekly

St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation is pleased to present Mike Wiley in “Blood Done Sign My Name” for two shows October 22 at 10:30 AM for the Heritage Arts for Youth Performance and 7:30 PM for the general public at the Hayti Heritage Center. Based on Tim Tyson’s award winning memoir, much like song Blood Done Sign My Name, is meant to acknowledge America’s painful racial history, “that our freedom and dignity, if we still have any, has been paid for in blood, that we have a contract with our ancestors not to let their sacrifices be in vain.” The morning performance admission is $5 for students, teachers and chaperons admitted free with group, reservation requested; the evening performance adults $15, students $10. Tickets go on sale September 15th and can be purchased on the web at www.hayti.org, at the Hayti Heritage Center or call (919) 683-1709 ext. 21.

“Daddy and Roger and ’em shot ’em a nigger.” Those incendiary words, spoken by ten-year-old Gerald Teel in the spring of 1970 were merely a harbinger of the turmoil smoldering on Oxford, North Carolina’s dark horizon. Henry “Dickie” Marrow, a 23-year-old U.S. Army veteran whose wife was pregnant with their third daughter, had been beaten down and shot to death in the street by Robert Teel, his 18-year-old son Larry, and Roger Oakley, Teel’s 21-year-old stepson for allegedly making a remark to Larry Teel’s wife. The men were acquitted of the crime by an all-white jury, despite testimony by two black eyewitnesses. Roger Oakley, Teel’s stepson, actually confessed to shooting the gun but was never indicted. But it was the Teels’ acquittal for their hot-headed hate crime that launched Oxford into a season of violent reprisals.

Formerly of Theatre IV and Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, Mike Wiley has more than ten years in theatre for young audiences, plus film, television and regional theatre. A gifted playwright and actor, his overriding goal is expanding cultural awareness – for all audiences – through dynamic portrayal of pivotal events to unveil a richer picture of the American experience. An Upward Bound alum and Trio Achiever Award recipient, Mike is a graduate of UNC/Chapel Hill’s M.F.A. program. His repertoire of powerful, acclaimed works includes One Noble Journey in which he portrays more than 20 characters in the true tale of Henry “Box” Brown who mailed himself to freedom in a crate labeled “This Side Up;” Brown vs. Board of Education encapsulating the impact of the pivotal ruling for desegregating schools; Jackie Robinson: A Game Apart, with penetrating lessons of courage and leadership from heroic African American athletes; Dar He: The Lynching of Emmett Till, chronicling the 1955 Mississippi murder, trial and confession of the men accused of the horrific death of 14-year-old Emmett Till; Tired Souls documenting the days following Rosa Park’s refusal to relinquish her bus seat, and the accounts of those who held tight to their bus money and walked for freedom for 381 days; and Tuskegee, the absorbing story of the fearless first black fighter pilots of WWII.

This is where you come in: Mike Wiley’s creative vision and abilities are so broad and magnetic that he changes your space with his presence. He dives to deep reaches of truth and possesses a gift that peels away barnacles of misunderstanding. Mike’s performances nurture opportunities for self-discovery and interpersonal respect like none I’ve seen in a long time. He’s one of those persons for whom you search to find ways to thank. “Mike Wiley” doesn’t leave when the curtain comes down. Whether you’re a child or an adult, what he brings doesn’t come with an expiration date.