REGULAR CLASS SCHEDULE

Wednesday and Thursday from 6:30pm – 7:30pm
Cost: $5 per class

Get Your Zumba® Fix Every Week!

Led by a Licensed Instructor

Tuesday  from 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Cost: $5 per class
Location: 2nd Floor – Dance Studio

For More information Contact:
919-683-1709

Prepare to travel the African Diaspora in this energetic and culturally rich dance exploration. Let the rhythms of the drums and movements of the Motherland uplift your soul and jump-start your body.

The 90-minute class incorporates deep breathing, conditioning, and cardio intensive movements from various dance styles. Men and women of all levels are welcome. Childcare not provided. Space is limited. All are welcome to join us at Hayti! $5 per class. Guest instructors and master classes are programmed throughout the year for participants.

REGULAR CLASS SCHEDULE

Monday from 6:30-8pm
Cost: $5 per class

For more information call 919-683-1709 ext 21

Please support our regular poetry slam, the Jambalaya Soul Slam, on the the third Saturday of every month. You can find more information on the slam and the Bull City Slam Team at www.bullcitypoetryslam.com. The team will be traveling to regional competition in Tampa, FL in June and to national competition in Charlotte, NC this summer.

Please support the Hayti Heritage Center in its fundraising efforts. It is a historic landmark and one of Durham’s treasures. Your assistance is needed to keep the center running and in top condition. It has been our home since 2005 and it has offered quality arts programming in Durham for many years. You can make a donation to the f the St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation on the website or by calling 919-683-1709 ext 25.

Spokenword is the art of performance poetry. It is where the poems written on the page are given life on stage. The art form has become a staple in communities across the country. Many venues are opening their doors for spokenword events. Poetry slam in growing in support and reach. In Durham, there is a vibrant spokenword community that reflects the strength of the scene across North Carolina. This festival celebrates the artform and showcases the talent of today’s spokenword artists.

Saturday, May 5th, 2012

Noon – 2pm
Writing and Performance Workshop (youth and adult)
$3 Admission, 18 & under free

2pm – 4pm
Youth Poetry Slam w/ Sacrificial Poets
$7 General Admission, $5 student admission

8pm – 11pm
Group Piece Invitational Poetry Slam
$10 General Admission, $7 student admission

All-access passes (get you into all the events & workshops):
$15 advance day passes (general admission)
$10 advance day passes (student admission)

Hosted by Dasan Ahanu
Workshops facilitated by Ed Mabrey & Sacrificial Poets

For more info and to purchase tickets, visit www.bullcitypoetryslam.com/festival.html
Contact: Dasan Ahanu at 919-295-0176 or dasan67@live.com

Zumba is a fusion of Latin and International music that creates a dynamic, exciting, and effective fitness system.  The routines feature interval training sessions where fast and slow rhythms and resistance training are combined to tone and sculpt your body.

Get Your Zumba Fix Every Week!    

This Town Hall meeting will guide parents in answering three critical questions:

1. What is the optimal level of parental engagement needed to support the academic and social success of African American males?
2. How do we increase the presence and involvement of fathers in PTAs and other parent related activities?
3. What strategies can parents implement at home to increase literacy?

Following COSEBOC’s Town Hall, the discussion notes and suggestions from parents and community
leaders will be available as a reference on www.coseboc.org for anyone interested in best practices for
increasing parental engagement.

David Miller, CVO of the Urban Leadership Institute & Co-Founder of the Raising Him Alone Campaign, will lead the facilitation of the Town Hall Meeting. David is a seasoned group facilitator and has also authored Khalil’s Way, an illustrated children’s novel that focuses on bullying through the eyes of a bright 11 year old African American male.

Opening Reception
Thursday, April 19, at 7 p.m.

Some of these names may ring a bell for you, others may not.  But whether you’re an old-school soul specialist or a rhythm & blues rookie, you are hereby invited to explore a brand-new exhibit in the Bull City, “Soul Souvenirs: Durham’s Musical Memories from the 1960s and 1970s.  

Please join us at the St. Joseph’s Hayti Heritage Center in Durham on Thursday, April 19 at 7PM for the public opening of “Soul Souvenirs.” The evening will also feature a panel discussion with Durham musicians of the era from groups like the Black Experience Band and Tracy and the Jammers.

Curated by historian Joshua Clark Davis and Jason Perlmutter of Carolina Soul and designed by Linc Hancock and Robin Vuchnich, “Soul Souvenirs” is the official gallery exhibit for the Bull City Soul Revival, a locally-based humanities project seeking to recover Durham’s rich heritage of soul, funk and R&B music. Yet “Soul Souvenirs” is not only about music. The exhibit will also touch on radio and television, record stores and night clubs, local high schools and churches, and even the civil rights and black power movements of the era. In short, this exhibit tells the story of Durham’s African American community in the 1960s and 1970s.  

ABOUT BULL CITY SOUL REVIVAL

The Bull City Soul Revival (B.C.S.R.) is a community-based, ad-hoc collaborative initiative comprised of Durham County Library, St. Joseph Historic Foundation, Carolina Soul, North Carolina Central University, Duke University, North Carolina State University and the Durham Jazz Renaissance Foundation, Triangle Virtual Media, whose primary purpose is to host an educational, interactive performance, community colloquium in 2012 highlighting the rich musical legacy of Durham’s rhythm and blues tradition

For more information: bullcitysoulrevival.org/ or www.durhamcountylibrary.org/bcsr.php

This program is sponsored by: Carolina Soul, City of Durham Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Duke University, Durham County Library, Durham Jazz Renaissance Foundation, Durham Library Foundation, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina Humanities Council, Parrish Street Advocacy Group, Show Tranz, Triangle Virtual Media, St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation, Inc.

The Bull City Soul Revival (B.C.S.R.) is a community-based, ad-hoc collaborative initiative comprised of Durham County Library, St. Joseph Historic Foundation, Carolina Soul, North Carolina Central University, Duke University, North Carolina State University and the Durham Jazz Renaissance Foundation, Triangle Virtual Media, whose primary purpose is to host an educational, interactive performance, community colloquium in 2012 highlighting the rich musical legacy of Durham’s rhythm and blues tradition.

UPCOMING EVENTS

THE TOASTS AND THE SIGNIFYING MONKEY
Thursday, April 12, 7 p.m.
Stanford L. Warren Branch, 1201 Fayetteville St., Durham
This event is free & open to the public.

Join Dr. Bruce Bridges for a performance and lecture on the Signifying Monkey, Toasts and the Humor Tradition in African-American Music. The term “Signifying Monkey” comes from a folk trickster figure said to have originated during slavery. In most narratives, the monkey dupes a powerful lion

by “signifying”: employing a speech pattern using connotative, contextbound words, the significance of which are accessible only to those who share unique and cultural values. In Henry Louis Gates’ highly influential book, The Signifying Monkey, Gates expands the term to refer not merely to a specific vernacular strategy, but also to a trope of double-voiced repetition and reversal that exemplifies a distinguishing property of African- American discourse.

Bruce Bridges is a life-long resident of Durham, North Carolina. Bridges received degrees from North Carolina Central University and University of Cincinnati, and received a Ph.D in African History from the University of West lndies. Bridges has taught at Saint Augustine’s College, North Carolina Central University and North Carolina State University. Founder and owner of the Know Book Store, Dr. Bridges is the author of The Ghetto Mind and The Roots of Geography.

SOUL SOUVENIRS EXHIBIT OPENING: DURHAM’S MUSICAL MEMORIES FROM THE 1960s AND 1970s
Thursday, April 19, 7 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: April 19-May 31, 2012
Upper Lydia Moore Merrick Gallery (2nd Floor)
This event is free & open to the public.

For the opening of the BCSR Soul Souvenirs exhibit, Jason Perlmutter, discographer, researcher and founder of Carolina Soul, will moderate a panel discussion on Durham’s soul music of the 1960s and 1970s featuring several representatives of the local scene. Hosted by St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation: Hayti Heritage Center.

Jason Perlmutter is a collector and researcher of local music of the Carolinas.  In 2005, he founded the Carolina Soul website as a home for discography and articles on soul recordings from North and South Carolina. In 2006 and 2007, Perlmutter compiled Carolina Funk for Jazzman Records in the United Kingdom; the album was subsequently issued in the United States by Now-Again Records of California. More recently Perlmutter co-founded the local record label Paradise of Bachelors, consulted for the North Carolina Arts Council’s African-American Music Trail initiative and delivered lectures on Carolina Soul at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.

BULL CITY SOUL REVIVAL CONCERT & TRIBUTE
Friday, April 27, 7 p.m.
This event is free & open to the public.

This musical tribute is the grand finale of a month-long celebration of Durham’s rich legacy as an epicenter of soul music. Dr. Mark Anthony Neal will host an interactive and historical journey in the form of a documentary film, produced by Jaisun McMillian and Victor Stone of Triangle Virtual Media. The film will pay tribute to Bull City Soul using archival interviews, oral histories and photography. Johnny White & The Elite Band, Lady Jaisun of The Risse Band, The Beast, Apple Juice Kid and The Black Experience close the evening with performances both remixing the past and representing the future of Durham’s soul renaissance. Hosted by St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation: Hayti Heritage Center.

For more information: bullcitysoulrevival.org/ or www.durhamcountylibrary.org/bcsr.php

This program is sponsored by: Carolina Soul, City of Durham Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Duke University, Durham County Library, Durham Jazz Renaissance Foundation, Durham Library Foundation, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina Humanities Council, Parrish Street Advocacy Group, Show Tranz, Triangle Virtual Media, St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation, Inc.

April 3 – May 31 2012

Opening Reception
Formal Gallery Talk with Artist
Friday, April 20, from 8-10pm
Light refreshments and cash wine bar

McRay’s new exhibition, “Jazzilicious” features fresh-off-the-easel jazz paintings. The collection makes its way to Durham’s Hayti Heritage Center for its debut.

A NOTE FROM THE ARTIST

In my “Jazz, Rhythm & Blues” Series, I use bold color and expressive marks to capture the vibrancy and spontaneity of jazz and blues music. This visual simulation of jazz and blues rhythms allows the viewer to literally “see” the music coming right out of the canvas through a colorful, “visual rhythm.” My goal is to inspire viewers to “feel the music and intensity” through my art. So sit back, get yourself a cup of fresh brew (or whatever your indulgence), and enjoy these wonderful works.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

The stars of the art world are usually seen as bad boys with tattoos, piercings, and all the clichés of popular romance. McRay is no cliché. He is an original. He is neither the starving artist nor the profiteering commercial artist. “I am an extraordinary gentleman with an adventurer’s heart, but I’m no bohemian!” He is a man that has struggled throughout his career to achieve a high level of technical proficiency, pictorial intelligence and a sense of artistic legacy.

Outside of his artistic endeavors, Eric McRay is an exceptional man who is a dutiful husband and proud father, a supportive son and loyal friend to many. He attends church regularly, has a comfortable home, drives a modest car and strives for the American dream like most descent folk. He keeps a daily studio work schedule, lives near Raleigh, NC and often vacations along the Carolina Coast with his family.

McRay earned a BFA degree at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, where he received a four-year scholarship. In 1998, he was juried into downtown Raleigh’s prestigious Artspace. Eric currently serves in the office of President of the Artspace Artists Association, as well as serves on Artspace’s board of directors. McRay has consistently participated in and supported many charitable art exhibits and other community art events.

McRay has been featured on TV and radio, and in numerous newspapers, magazines, and websites. The Raleigh News & Observer named him one of the “Artists to Watch” for 2001. He was featured in the June 2002 issue of Southern Living Magazine. In 2008, McRay was anointed by Metro Magazine, “Best Local Artist” and listed as the “Favorite Local Artist” by the Raleigh Downtowner Magazine.

Some of McRay’s collectors include First South Bank, American Tobacco Campus, Duke University Medical Center, NC State University, UNC Chapel Hill, SAS Institute, NCCU Art Museum, Duke Eye Center, and Western Wake Hospital, as well as many private collectors locally, nationally & internationally.

ARTIST PROFILE

Name: Eric McRay
Phone: 919-838-0755
Email: efmcray@aol.com
Website: mcraystudios.com
Facebook Profile: www.facebook.com/eric.mcray
Type of Art: Painting & Collage
Price Range: $250-$5000
Education: BFA, Maryland Institute, College of Art
Artist Quote: “I see art as a journey, a march, an exploration. I don’t see it as a comfy Sunday afternoon endeavor”.

For more information, photos or to request an interview with Eric McRay, call 919-838-0755, send an email to efmcray@aol.com or visit www.mcraystudios.com.

Q&A immediately following screening
Movie Clip:  http://youtu.be/Qt2XV0B05aU

SYNOPSIS

In the early 1970′s, Frank “Pee Wee” Matthews of Durham, North Carolina, became America’s biggest drug kingpin. His organization, headquartered in Brooklyn, stretched across more than 20 states, and he became the only Black gangster to establish direct ties to the French Connection heroin pipeline. After being indicted in 1973, he disappeared with 15-20 million dollars in drug profits, equivalent to roughly $100 million in today’s cash. Despite one of the largest manhunt’s in US history, Frank Matthews hasn’t been seen since. Today, there is no proof as to whether he is alive or dead.

To quote the federal prosecutor assigned the Matthews case, he “was a pioneering giant of drug distribution”. His organization eventually outgrew even the Italian Mafia and when he built himself a mansion in Staten Island’s most exclusive neighborhood (and across the street from Mafia boss Paul Castellano) he found himself on the verge of war with La Cosa Nostra. Matthews would come back regularly to Durham and recruited many home boys for his drug organization.