An Evening with Toshi Reagon

1 Bath Road,Brunswick ME 04011

26 October, 2022

Description

Toshi Reagon, Bowdoin College’s Joseph McKeen Visiting Fellow, 2022-2023, will share an evening of music and conversation centered on racial justice, climate justice, gender justice, and faith. These themes, which will guide her work as a fellow, are culled from Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, a dystopian speculative Afrofuturistic fiction piece providing commentary on climate change and social inequality. Reagon will be joined by Judith Casselberry, Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Bowdoin College, Samaa Abdurraqib, Executive Director of Maine Humanities Council, and others in a discussion of the significance of Butler’s work, contemporary societal challenges, and the importance of community. An Evening With Toshi Reagon is part of Parable Path Maine, a framework Reagan is bringing to Bowdoin during the course of her fellowship that is based on Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Through a decades-long career, and most recently through national and international Parable Path collaborations, Reagon has brought people together to name precarities, expand networks, and craft solutions to create a framework for community organizing through artistic engagement. This program is free and open to all. PLEASE NOTE: Visitors to Bowdoin College are required to either be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or wear a mask when inside campus buildings. Learn More: Toshi Reagon is a versatile musician and songwriter described as having a profound ear for sonic Americana. Reagon has been the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts award for music composition, OutMusic’s Heritage Award, the Black Lily Music and Film Festival Award for Outstanding Performance, the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) Award Merit for Achievement in the Performing Arts, and the 2021 Herb Alpert Award in Music. She has been an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Creative Futures Artist-in-Residence with the Carolina Performing Arts organization. In 2022, she received an honorary doctorate from Emerson College. Other recent projects include her involvement in the Met Civic Practice. For the Parable Path Maine initiative, the McKeen Center will be working alongside Portland-based Indigo Arts Alliance, which supports Maine-based Black and brown artists and activists, and the Maine Humanities Council, whose focus on Afrofuturism for the next two years brings the work of Butler to libraries, correctional facilities, and community organizations across the state. The fellowship culminates with a performance of Toshi and Bernice Reagon’s congregational opera adaptation of Parable of the Sower. This one-night-only event will be presented by Indigo Arts Alliance and Portland Ovations in association with the College, and will be performed at Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine, on April 14, 2023. Click here to purchase tickets and learn more.