On Thursday, Nov. 17, at 4 p.m. the Inclusive Reading Club (IRC) will be facilitated by Silvermoon Mars LaRose, assistant director of the Tomaquag Museum. Entitled “Keepers of the Earth: Native Stories,” the lecture will discuss how native stories can provide a platform for enhancing a deep respect for the earth.

The IRC event will be available both online and in person on the second floor of McKillop Library on Thursday, Nov. 17, from 4-5 p.m. To register for the event, go here.

Traditions of storytelling in Indigenous culture have long recounted a deep love and respect for land, culture and identity. Through this passing of knowledge to new generations in traditional ways, an underlying theme of respect for nature persists. As humans face the effects of a changing climate, and native stories are more important than ever.

Join Silvermoon Mars LaRose in exploring stories that demonstrate the value and respect for earth as seen through Indigenous culture.

The ICR has two readings for this month. A chapter from the book “Braiding Sweetgrass,” by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and a chapter from the book “Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids,” edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Find the readings through the IRC’s online Padlet board.

LaRose, a member of the Narragansett Tribe, assists the executive director with managing the museum’s collections and archives, cultural education and the Indigenous Empowerment projects. LaRose has worked in tribal communities for over 20 years, serving in the areas of health and human services and education. Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to travel extensively, learning from Indigenous communities throughout the United States.

LaRose is also a member of the Rhode Island Foundation’s inaugural cohort of the Equity Leadership Initiative. As a public servant, LaRose serves as the secretary for the Charlestown Conservation Commission. As an artist and educator, she hopes to foster Indigenous empowerment through education, community building, and the sharing of cultural knowledge and traditional arts.

LaRose holds a bachelor of arts in sociology, a minor in justice law and society from the University of Rhode Island, and is on her way to completing a master’s in rehabilitation counseling from Western Washington University.

To register for the IRC event, go here.

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As Salve Regina continues to celebrate its 75th anniversary during the 2022-23 academic year, the Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery and Salve Regina’s Department of Art and Art History are pleased to announce the opening of “Muse and Mercy: Celebrating 75 Years of Art at Salve Regina University.” This exhibition is showcasing the University’s diverse collection of fine and decorative arts, and it will run from Nov. 10 through Dec. 11.

This exhibition is a complement of a much larger project — a published book that is the first ever catalogue of the University’s art collections — entitled “Muse and Mercy: Exploring Fine and Decorative Arts at Salve Regina University.” A faculty lecture will be held on this book, which is not yet published, and more details on the lecture are below.

An opening reception to celebrate the art exhibition, Salve Regina’s 75th anniversary and its artistic legacy will happen on Thursday, Nov. 10, from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Hamilton Gallery located in the Antone Academic Center. The Salve Regina community and general public are invited to attend.

Ernest Jolicoeur and Dr. Anthony Mangieri, professors in the Department of Art and Art History, curated the exhibition. Jolicoeur, who is also the director of the Hamilton Gallery, and Dr. Mangieri worked with a team of students in an upper-level art history class to co-curate the exhibition and create videos that will be displayed in the show.

“Muse and Mercy: Celebrating 75 Years of Art at Salve Regina University” presents a selection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, rare books, textiles and metalwork, along with photographic and video documentation of Gilded Age works on campus that cannot be displayed in the gallery. Highlights include a number of rarely seen works, such as two Oscar de la Renta dresses and a group of John Howard Benson drawings, both from the University’s Special Collections.

Faculty lecture on forthcoming “Muse and Mercy” book

This art gallery exhibition is a complement of a much larger project — a published book that is the first ever catalogue of the University’s art collections. Entitled “Muse and Mercy: Exploring Fine and Decorative Arts at Salve Regina University,” this book is a years-long project with collaborations among varying departments and students across campus.

Jolicoeur and Dr. Mangieri are presenting at a faculty lecture about the book on Monday, Nov. 14, at 4 p.m. on the first floor of McKillop Library. For more information on the faculty lecture and to register, go here.

During the lecture, Jolicoeur and Dr. Mangieri will be speaking about the way “Muse and Mercy: Exploring Fine and Decorative Arts at Salve Regina University” came together, highlighting the lengthy process, careful scholarship and and active collaboration that enabled this book to come into being. The book will be published and launched in early December.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the campus of Salve Regina. It is handicap accessible with parking along Lawrence and Leroy Avenues. Its exhibits are open Tuesdays through Thursdays 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesdays and Fridays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays Noon to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays.

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The Department of Music, Theatre and Dance is proud to present a special performance that celebrates connections across the continuum of Black American jazz dance with the works of three celebrated choreographers, dancers and teachers. The Salve Regina community and the general public are invited to attend.

This performance will include excerpts from a musical in progress entitled “Hattie Mae’s Jook Joint” by Alvon Reed; a solo from Duane Lee Holland, Jr.’s one-man show “The Adventures of Maxx Lancaster;” and an original dance piece choreographed by Carlos R.A. Jones. Salve Regina’s dance students will also perform hip hop and house works choreographed by Holland.

Conversation and context on Black American identity and culture is integral to this performance, with a pre-show speech by Carlos R. A. Jones and a post-performance conversation with Reed, Holland and Jones.

The performances will happen on Thursday, Nov. 10, at 8 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 12, at 2 p.m. Tickets are free for Salve Regina faculty, staff and students; $15 for general admission; and $10 for military, seniors and children under 12. To register, go here.

Celebrating Black jazz choreographers, dancers and teachers

“Hattie Mae’s Jook Joint” is the brainchild of Alvon Reed, who is an assistant professor of Musical Theatre at The University of Alabama, as well as a celebrated dancer and choreographer. Reed has been doing a six-week residency within the dance program at Salve Regina over the course of this fall 2022 semester, where he has been teaching several jazz classes and workshopping his choreography.

Over the past few years, Reed has been developing an original musical entitled “Hattie Mae’s Jook Joint” as a nod to something with roots in 1940s Southern Black culture: jook joints.

“If people are unfamiliar with jook joint, they’re really like these hole-in-the-wall places that are off the beaten path,” said Reed. “Jook joints are generally a space where people seek refuge from daily life, and what comes out of the jook joint is Black culture like music, dance, food—with a huge emphasis on music within these contexts.”

At one point, jook joints became extremely popular across the country, but there are probably now about 50-100 left, according to Reed. Reed decided to write a musical to explore the legacy of jook joints and to raise awareness for the importance they have within Black culture, as well as American culture as a whole.

What audience members will see are three pieces from the musical that Salve Regina’s students have practiced over the past six weeks of Reed’s residency for the University, including thirteen dancers, three female student vocalists. Salve Regina’s jazz combo — led by Peter Davis, senior lecturer and music program coordinator, and Michael Johnson, adjunct faculty in the music program — will play live music for the show.  Two guest performers are also in the cast: Harlem-based Broadway-performer Jaquez Sims and Robert Solomon from Newport, Rhode Island.

Alongside the three pieces from Hattie Mae’s Jook Joint will be a solo performance by Duane Lee Holland, Jr. and a piece choreographed by Carlos R.A. Jones.

Holland joined the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Music as its first full-time hip hop dance professor in the fall of 2022. He’ll be premiering his one-man show “The Adventures of Maxx Lancaster” in the spring of 2023, and he’ll perform a solo from this show during this performance for Salve Regina.  Holland was also recently able to come to Salve Regina to conduct a hip hop workshop for Salve Regina’s dancers.

 

Jones, associate dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at SUNY College at Buffalo, was a contributing author to the book “Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches” in 2014, a book co-edited by Lindsay Guarino, associate professor of the dance program at Salve Regina. He was the co-editor with Guarino in a new book entitled “Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century” in 2022. Both of these books have continued to change conversations on jazz dance by identifying the roots of the form in Black American people and culture, challenging a century of misappropriation.

Carlos Jones’ piece is a celebration of jazz dance. “At the root of the jazz and African American experience is freedom within constraints,” Jones described. “The tension of this duality bears a spirit that carries authentic and liberating joy.”

Dance students reflect on their experience 

Students in the dance major at Salve Regina are excited to be part of this special performance and to examine storytelling and art through the lens of Black culture and social justice.

Morgan Dubay ’24, a double major in dance and psychology, will be performing in “Hattie Mae’s Jook Joint,” as well as Jones’ piece. She was excited to be part of Reed’s “Hattie Mae Jook Joint,” and she said the experience was life changing.

“Not only are we learning movement and music, we are learning the social and cultural context along with it,” she said. “As a white woman, at times it feels inauthentic telling a story that is not of my lived experience. However, as a white woman, I have a responsibility to share this story as it was given to me: authentically and confidently.”

Dubay also enjoyed Holland’s hop hip workshop. She believes that the workshop was an advanced form of research through practice. Through it, she learned that hip hop is the true experience of the American people, specifically the Black and Latino communities.

“Professor Duane Lee Holland was a walking encyclopedia,” she said. “He was able to provide context, citation and content for every single hip hop skill and groove. His love for dance was so present in his teaching and his passion lit a fire in me to continue this work, even when it gets hard.”

Brianna Brown ’24, a psychology major and a theatre minor, has enjoyed the entire creative process of “Hattie Mae’s Jook Joint,” and she compared it becoming like a family.

 

“The entire process in itself has created such a familial atmosphere, and I have so many new friends coming out of this project,” Brown said. “I think jook joints have always represented family. You come to dance, eat, sing, and have a great time with friends that are your family …. I have also learned so much in terms of collaboration and what it means to create a musical from the ground up. It’s really cool to witness and be a part of.”

The performances will happen on Thursday, Nov. 10, at 8 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 12, at 2 p.m. Tickets are free for Salve Regina faculty, staff and students; $15 for general admission; and $10 for military, seniors and children under 12. To register, go here.

This performance was made possible through an Antone Grant, which enabled Guarino to host artists on campus who could teach African American social vernacular dance to Salve Regina’s students through their lived experiences.  This work deepens the jazz focus of the dance curriculum, where conversations around identity and culture are central to the practice. The grant also made possible to offer the show free to Salve Regina faculty, staff and students.

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