- Saturday, March 28, 2015
- 10:00 AM–11:15 AM
- CFAC Auditorium
With Kenyon Adams, Travis Harris, Billy Mark, and Chelsea McInturff. Moderated by Chris Smit.
Several of our presenters discuss music as a response to injustice and as a means to inspire social change.
Bios:
Kenyon Adams is a collaborative artist and arts advocate originally from Orlando, FL. He has been the recipient a National Young Arts Foundation Award, and was named a White House Presidential Scholar in the Arts. Kenyon received his BFA in Theater from Southern Methodist University, Meadows School of the Arts, and is currently an M.A.R. Candidate at Yale Divinity School and Yale Institute of Sacred Music studying Religion & the Arts. He has contributed art and dialogue to the National Arts Policy Roundtable, Center for Faith & Work, Festival of Faith & Music, Laity Lodge and the Jubilee Conference. His artistic collaborations include performances with Bill T. Jones, Charlie Peacock, Cindertalk and a film project with Brooklyn-based innovators Mason Jar Music.
Chelsea McInturff is the Executive Director of Level Ground, a non-profit that uses art to create safe space for dialogue about faith, gender and sexuality. They host national film and arts festivals that seek to assist people in better seeing their other. She is also the Owner of Granfalloon, a gathering place and watering hole for creatives in Chattanooga. Born in Maryland, she now resides in the South by way of Los Angeles. She has film production and studio experience and finds joy in creating immersive experiences for people through art, film, and music. When not working, you might find her eating Chick-fil-A or playing with her cat, Miller.
Travis Harris is a graduate student in William and Mary’s American Studies program. He has a vast array of research interest including African American Religion, African American Studies, Black Popular Culture, Performance Theory and Redemptive Suffering. His scholarship focuses on the intersection of Hip Hop and Christianity. Travis received a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia and a M.Div. from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology of Virginia Union University. During seminary, Travis also worked as the Education Coordinator for the Department of Emergency at the University of Virginia. Additionally, Travis was ordained as a minister of the gospel at First Baptist Church in Charlottesville, VA.
Billy Mark is an experimental interdisciplinary artist whose work is rooted in the art of freestyle. Based in improvisational poetry, his work mines the relationship between the conceptual and the physical, and extends to areas of music, theater, sculpture, movement and installation. His current work explores the production of improvisational books and other longer, multi-discipline forms of improvisation. A graduate from the California Institute of the Arts with BFA in Musical Arts, his writing has been published in The Guidebook of Alternative Nows, SEEN magazine, and his work has been performed at REDCAT (L.A.), Spiel Festival (Austria), Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, Playhouse (Detroit), and Bushwick Open Studios (NY).
Chris Smit is the director of DisArt Festival, director of the Arts & Access Initiative for Kendall College of Art & Design and associate professor of Media Studies at Calvin College. He is the author of several books including The Exile of Britney Spears: a Tale of 21st Century Consumption and Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle
