CHARGING CHANGE

Artistic Metamorphosis Towards Social Justice

Michelle Eistrup is the Aaron Douglas Artist Fellow-inResidence for The John Lewis Center for Social Justice on the campus of Fisk University.

Growing up in Jamaica, Eistrup experienced spirituality as a ubiquitous factor. African cosmology moved like an undercurrent through dance, music, gestures, and proverbs - and in closed circles. Since the mid-90s, she has explored several spiritual spheres of the African Diaspora, first with studies at Haverford University in the United States and then later with field work in the Caribbean and in West Africa.

Eistrup invites you to an open public workshop, held in conjunction with her work titled Charging Change 2nd movement, that will be exhibited at Fisk University in the Fall of 2023, as part of the EADJ program Artistic Activism and the Power of Collective Resistance, curated by Selene Wendt.

Charging Change is based on extensive research about Bakongo cosmology and ideology from 2015-2021. It connects scientific research and museum artifacts from across the western hemisphere with people and stories from among the African Diaspora. Participants of this workshop will be introduced to the visual language of Bakongo cosmology. (As interpreted by Nashville-based dancers through movement and gesture, this cosmology becomes physical and tangible. Some of these dancers will be present to conduct the workshops: Henry Alumona (Dancer and Fisk Student), Shabaz Ujima (Dancer), and Thea Jones (Dancer).

Their dance and the Dikenga cosmogram serve as an introduction to a large-scale public video installation that will be on view at Fisk later this year. Eistrup is committed to revitalizing the Bakongo cosmology, which radiates the core energy, philosophy, beauty, and strength still present in the African Diaspora, the Caribbean, and the United States.

The first phase of Charging Change was presented at Documenta 15, Germany, where Eistrup collaborated with dancers and musicians from Portugal, Cape (or Cabo) Verde, and Brazil.

Eistrup also wishes to thank people from the community for their support: Dancers: Henry Alumona, Shabaz

Ujima (Dance Ensemble), and Thea Jones; Curator

Selene Wendt; Dr. Cobra Mansa, Professor Lakesha

Moore, Visual Artist, and Professor Magdalena

Campos-Pons; the team at EADJ, Professor Jamaal

Sheats, Professor Persephone Fentress, Professor

Wilna Taylor, Professor C. Daniel Dawson, Dancer https://www.michelleeistrup.com/Artist.asp?ArtistID=32148&Akey=FGYAF5RY

Aundra Lafayette, Professor Lena Winfree, Adrienne Latham, Frank Inyima, Adrianna Carter, and Bryston Lee.

You may purchase BRIDGING ART and TEXT. 3 volume publication: https://www.hurricane-publishing.com/#!/products/bat-bridging-art-text http://michelleeistrup.com/link/BAT_Bridging_Art_and_TextBAT, Bridging art and Text info https://connect.fisk.edu/donate

Fisk University opened in Nashville in 1866 as the first American university to offer a liberal arts education to “young men and women irrespective of color.” Five years later the school was in dire financial straits.

George L. White, then Fisk treasurer and music professor, created a choral ensemble of students and took the group on tour to earn money for the University. The ensemble, initially consisting of eleven students, left campus on October 6, 1871. Only nine students completed the first tour. To commemorate this historic day, Jubilee Day is celebrated annually on October 6.

The first concerts were in small towns. Surprise, curiosity and some hostility were the early audience responses to these young black singers who did not perform in the traditional “minstrel fashion.”

One early concert in Cincinnati, Ohio, brought in $50, which was promptly donated to victims of the notorious 1871 fire in Chicago. When they reached Columbus, the next city on the tour, the students were physically and emotionally drained. Mr. White, in a gesture of hope and encouragement, named them “The Jubilee Singers,” a Biblical reference to the Jewish year of Jubilee in the Book of Leviticus, Chapter 25.

Continued perseverance and beautiful voices began to change attitudes among the predominantly white audiences. Eventually skepticism was replaced by standing ovations and critical praise in reviews. Gradually they earned enough money to cover not only expenses, but to send back to Fisk.

In 1872 they sang at the World Peace Festival in Boston and at the end of the year President Ulysses S.

Grant invited them to perform at the White House. Funds raised from this tour were used in purchasing the current land on which Fisk University is located.

In 1873 the group, now eleven members, toured Europe for the first time. Funds raised during this tour were used to construct the school’s first permanent building, Jubilee Hall. Today, Jubilee Hall, designated a National Historic Landmark by the US Department of Interior in 1975, is one of the oldest structures on campus. The beautiful Victorian Gothic building houses a floor-to-ceiling portrait of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, commissioned by Queen Victoria during the 1873 tour as a gift from England to Fisk.

The ensemble returned to England in May 2015 and performed in Birmingham. In recent years, the Fisk Jubilee Singers have performed in Italy, Spain, Ghana and Germany. As they travel, they continue to sing the Negro spirituals, thus preserving this important genre of music and the rich legacy.

The two-time GRAMMY Nominated Fisk Jubilee Singers® have won a Dove Award and have been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame as well as the Music City Walk of Fame. In 2008, the Fisk Jubilee Singers® were awarded the National Medal of Arts by former President George W. Bush at the White House. Other awards of the ensemble include the Governor’s Award, the Recording Academy Honors, and the Heritage Award of the Nashville Music Awards. The Fisk Jubilee Singers® were among the 2015 GRAMMY Hall of Fame inductees and are the 2017 recipients of the SYNERGY AWARD presented by the Nashville Ballet.