Jan 26 Metro Arts

Nettie Washington Douglas, a descendant of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and David T. Howard, is carrying the weight of her family's history. Through the Frederick Douglass Family Initiative, she connects her ancestors' stories to current issues and distributes Douglass' writings to schools. Nettie has found her place in her family's storied past and is a living testament to their impact. She recently moved to Augusta with her son and continues to embrace her birth name, Washington Douglass. Her father, Frederick III, took his own life and Nettie discovered the truth about his death as a child. Nettie's life has been marked by triumph and tragedy, but she continues to carry on her family's legacy. This program is intended for a print-impaired audience and is brought to you by the Georgia Radio Reading Service, GARS. Welcome to Metro Arts for Friday, January 26th. I am Kristen Moody for the Georgia Radio Reading Service. Metro Arts is brought to you by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. For our first article, we go to the Atlanta Magazine publication online for The Ancestors of Nettie Washington Douglas still have stories to teach us. She just hopes we are ready to listen. From Atlanta Magazine online, Nettie Washington Douglas, descendant of three legendary black Americans, was born under the heavy mantle of history. Through the Frederick Douglass family initiative, her family is now linking their ancestors' stories to the most pressing issues of today. By Rachel Garbus. He'd only just met the beautiful young woman, but Frederick Douglass III, great grandson of the legendary abolitionist on his father's side and grandson of Atlanta business mogul David T. Howard on his mother's, was certain Nettie was going to be his wife. Until she told him her last name, that is. Of all the women in all the world he lived in, or so the family story goes, I had to fall in love with Book T. Washington's granddaughter. He married her anyway. A year later, their daughter was born, Nettie Washington Douglas, named for her mother and her famous ancestors, a name that bore the weight of the history she carried in her blood. Since before she can remember, people have approached Nettie with an almost holy reverence, mauled by titans of American history perched on the branches of her family tree. People were always pinching my cheeks, picking me up and twirling me, she told me. I was swamped with affection and love, and I didn't really understand why. It was a heavy legacy, freighted with the soaring triumphs and bitter disappointments of black life in America. It weighed on her father, who took his own life before Nettie was born. Nettie's mother tried to shield her from the stress, as Nettie did for her own children when she became a mother. But over time, Nettie has found her place in her family's storied past, becoming a living testament to her ancestors and a voice for their tremendous impact on the world. Through the Frederick Douglass Family Initiative, an organization she founded with her son, Smith B. Morris, Jr., Nettie's family connects Douglass' abolitionism to today's anti-trafficking movement and distributes his writings to schools around the globe. At a time when human freedoms are threatened all over the world, and when we divide country classes over how to tell the history of America, Nettie's remarkable ancestors still have stories to teach us about how we got here and where we are going. You just heard us, we're ready to listen. The Two First Families of Afro-American History. Nettie Washington Douglass is in her 80s today, but you wouldn't guess it. She has lively hazel eyes and the delicate bone structure of a ballerina. When I saw a photo of her mother, I was struck by the resemblance. After three decades in Atlanta, she retired from her job with the Mayor's Community Affairs Office and recently moved to Augusta with her son, Douglas Morris, and his family. I drove out to meet her there in October. Her new house was stunning, with high ceilings and a porch overlooking the Savannah River. The floor was stacked with moving boxes, but some decor had already been unpacked, including an ornately painted porcelain punch bowl and cups. Here, now this was Booker's, Nettie said, ushering me over to the bookshelf where they were displayed. She inspected a chipped cup with a sigh. My grandmother left it with a cousin for safekeeping once, and some of the pieces broke. Booker T. Washington, David T. Howard, and Frederick Douglass all have sprawling family trees, but Nettie's the one who united all their branches. She's also the only living descendant to carry Douglass as her last name. She went by her married name, Morris, for a while, but after she got divorced, Nettie took back her birth name. I'm a Washington Douglass, she told me simply. That's who I am. Here's how it happened. David T. Howard, born and enslaved in Crawford County, Georgia, built a hugely successful undertaking business and became a pillar of Atlanta's Black community. Howard and his wife, Ella, raised 10 children in a prosperous and happy home. They spent summers on a farm just north of the city, where Ella kept a legendary flower garden, and the family raised vegetables, cows, and poultry. It may have been at the farm where Fannie Howard, seven childs, and Frederick Douglass came to Atlanta for a speaking tour, that Howard picked up at the train station on a horse she carried, longing for David T. Howard. She was a tiny child. He was near the end of his life, but Fannie remembered the moment forever. The man with the big hair, she called him, even long after she married his grandson. Joseph Douglass was one of Frederick Douglass's 21 grandchildren, all descendants of Frederick's five children, with his wife, Anna Murray. In many accounts, Joseph was his favorite. He's the only one known to appear in photographs with his grandfather, playing violin as Frederick watches approvingly. The great man who escaped slavery at the age of 20 taught himself the instrument, and Joseph began his own classical training as a child. He attended Boston Conservatory and became the most famous black violinist of his age, traveling internationally and performing for three successive presidents at the White House. He met Fannie at Oberlin College around 1913, when she accompanied him on the piano. Joseph and Fannie had two children, Blanche, who died tragically of an illness at 11 years old, and Frederick III, Nettie's father. I remember asking my grandmother, why did you name him Frederick Douglass III, Nettie told me. We were at lunch, and her hands fluttered above her plate as she talked about her father. It just added so much pressure to his life. Frederick III was uncommonly bright, enrolling at the University of Vermont at the age of 16. When he was in medical school at Howard University, his father died of pneumonia, and according to Nettie, Frederick blamed himself for his father's death. He was going to medical school to save lives, but he couldn't save his own father, she said. In 1941, after completing his surgical training, Frederick took a job at Tuskegee Veteran Administration Hospital, the only hospital to serve black veterans during World War II. Hospital staff usually ate at the cafeteria, but one day in August, Frederick decided to walk to the Student Dining Center on campus. Along the way, he bumped into Nettie Washington, who was the daughter of Booker T. Washington, Jr., eldest son of the famed educator. Her mother was the first Nettie, Nettie I. Nettie II was a student at New York University, but she had come to Tuskegee on a lark to spend the summer with her cousins. She and Frederick fell in love immediately in the chanciest of chance meetings. All my life, people have said, oh, these marriages were planned. Their relatives wanted their children to marry each other, said daughter Nettie, Nettie III. But that's what's so amazing about these stories. If it hadn't been for my mother deciding to spend a few weeks in Tuskegee, I would have never been born. Frederick and Nettie married at Booker T. Washington's home in November 1941. The wedding made national headlines. Two distinguished families united, the Jackson advocate announced. The knot tied last week joined the two first families of Afro-American history, crowed the California Eagle. Nettie got pregnant shortly afterward, then on April 9th, for reasons at once knowable and unknowable, Frederick committed suicide. Nettie III was born the following October, her life marked already by triumph and tragedy. I think he really suffered under the burden of it, Nettie said. Being Frederick Douglass III, carrying that legacy, he suffered. Nettie was told her father had died of natural causes. She discovered the truth as a preteen when she overheard a visitor speaking with her grandmother. She never admitted to her grandmother what she'd learned, as with Nettie's other larger than life ancestors. Her father both did and did not exist, a person she'd never met, but whose legacy she carried in her blood, a shared history that distinguished them as remarkable, for better or for worse. The insistence of history. In the weathered newspaper photo, Nettie looks about three, wearing neat white socks and a bow in her hair. She's watching as her uncle, Booker T. Washington III, shovels earth at a memorial planned for their famous ancestor. Public appearances like these were simply a part of her life, though as a young child, she scarcely understood what they meant. My mother would tell me, stand here, or smile at the camera, she explained. I didn't really know why people were taking pictures of me. When family friends' children were doing book reports, their parents would call her mother to see if Nettie could make a classroom appearance. She would ask, is it for Washington or Douglass, laughed Nettie, who toured classrooms every year for Negro History Week. Her mere existence, a historical marvel, though it didn't hurt that she was adorable. She's been carrying this torch since she was a little girl, said her son, Kenneth. And I know her stories. I know the weight she carried, being an only child. A lot of things that happened in her life were tragic, but she kept pushing on. I'm incredibly proud of her. Though public appearances were commonplace, Nettie's family tried to give her a normal childhood. She grew up surrounded by love, doted on by her mother and grandmothers, who called her by her nickname, Honey. My mother was always quick to tell me that I was special because I was me, Honey, not because of anyone I was related to, she said. But still, she wondered, why me? I remember asking her, what am I supposed to do with this, Nettie recalled. And my mother would say, God chose you. When the time is right, he will let you know what you are to do. After her first year in Tuskegee, where her mother worked at the airfield, the family moved to California. In the green state, everything was new, and no one seemed to care much about the family's legacy. But in the summers, Nettie traveled back east to stay with her paternal grandmother, Fanny Douglas, in Highland Beach, Maryland, the summer resort community her great-grandfather, Charles Douglas, established in 1893. It was there, where her history loomed large, that Nettie first began to forge her own relationship to her Titanic ancestors. The house Charles built for the family, which he named Twin Oaks, was designed by his father, Frederick Douglas. Frederick died before Twin Oaks was built, but the design bears his mark. He'd insisted on one feature in particular, a small second-story porch carved from a tower, where you can see clean across the Chesapeake Bay to the eastern shore of Maryland, the land where Douglas had once been enslaved. He wanted to be able to look back across the bay from whence he came, Nettie said. I used to spend a lot of time up there, just gazing back across the Chesapeake, thinking about what went on there. Growing up amongst Douglas's things, his furniture, his books, his Stradivarius violin, Nettie found the threads that linked her life to his. He was an abandoned child, Nettie said. He knew his mother, but he only got to see her two or three times before she died. She knew how it felt not to know a parent, and it made her feel closer to her great-great-grandfather. We have a way of connecting, Frederick and I, she explained. Nettie attended Howard University, but left early and married a childhood friend, Kenneth B. Morris, whom she'd met in Highland Beach. They raised their three children in Walnut, California, Kenneth, Jr., the eldest, Douglas, the youngest, and in the middle, their daughter, Nettie, four. Sometimes it felt like I hadn't already perceived identity because I was Nettie number four, said Nettie Douglas Johnson from her home in Laverne, California. But as it turned out, I did not. I wasn't able to become whoever I was going to be. As her mother had, Nettie's three tried to give her children a normal childhood outside of their famous legacy. She sometimes visited classrooms to talk about Washington and Douglas, but overall, the kids were like all the others on their block. Most of their friends didn't even know about their relations. As a boy, I never really embraced it, Kenneth, Jr. recalled. I didn't really understand the importance of what my ancestors had done. But Nettie's children also spent their summers with family back east, where history had a way of inserting itself more insistently into the present. Nettie once found a six-month-old Douglas teething contentedly on a polished piece of wood. As she took it away, his great-grandmother, Fannie Douglas, laughed. The boy has good taste, Nettie recalled her saying. That's Abraham Lincoln's cane. Mary Todd Lincoln had given it to Frederick after Lincoln was assassinated, and it had been under a bed ever since. Kenneth and her sister vividly remember a large charcoal portrait of Frederick in their great-grandmother's Capitol Hill home, whose eyes seemed to follow them as they moved. Sometimes Kenneth swore he could even hear it speak. I could hear him say in this huge, booming voice, you will do great things, young man, he recalled. As they got older, Nettie's children became even more aware of the spotlight placed on them by their family tree. Douglas once went to a friend's house as a teenager, where the friend introduced him to his grandfather and mentioned Douglas's relations. His grandfather got on his knees and said, oh, bless you. Thank you for everything your family has done, Douglas remembered. I think that was probably the first time it went from me viewing them as my great-great-great-grandparents to seeing how the rest of the world feels about them. Douglas attended Tuskegee Institute, the school founded by his great-great-grandfather. So of everyone in Nettie's family, he has the closest connection to Washington. It's kind of interesting to be in a family where Booker T. Washington is the side note, he said with a laugh. The two great men knew each other. Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- Nettie had divorced their father and moved to Atlanta, drawn in part to its celebration of her family's legacy. It was the only city with three high schools named after my family, she said. She still gave the occasional presentation about her ancestors, but by and large, the relationship she and her children had to their legacy was more of a personal affair. I was decisively disengaged from my family's story, said Kenneth, until Providence called in 2005. Providence rang via an old issue of National Geographic. Kenneth picked up the magazine while his daughters, then aged 12 and 9, got ready for bed upstairs. The cover said, 21st Century Slavery, he recalled. It was an article about human trafficking. As he read about girls being forced into sexual slavery, he could hear his own daughters laughing and bickering while they brushed their teeth. I remember thinking, that's what young kids should be doing, getting tucked safely into bed, not being forced into bed. Suddenly, the freedom fight of his ancestors' past seemed overwhelmingly close to the present. I understood this platform they had built through struggle, and I had really done nothing with it, just wasted it, Kenneth said. I thought, what if we could leverage the historical significance of our ancestry to do something about the issue? In 2007, he and his mother launched the Frederick Douglass Family Initiative. Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington are both listed as directors emeriti of the organization. But Kenneth told me they focused on Douglass because relatives were already running various Booker T. Washington family projects. Today, FDFI runs a suite of programming focused on human rights and anti-racism. Its PROTECT curriculum, which teaches K-12 students and educators how to flag and prevent human trafficking, has been taught in schools across six states. Through one million abolitionists, FDFI is distributing copies of Douglass' memoir, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, to schools around the world, with a goal of distributing a million copies. FDFI has also partnered with Four Front Books to launch Frederick Douglass Books, a publishing imprint that elevates writers of color. FDFI recently moved to Rochester, New York, where Frederick Douglass lived and ran his newspaper, The North Star, for years. It is home to the Frederick Douglass Monument, unveiled in 1899, the first statue ever dedicated to a black American. Douglass left an enduring legacy that Rochester has embraced, said Rochester Mayor Malik Evans, who grew up on a street where Douglass once maintained a family home. His legacy is a reminder of our past history of the fight for freedom, and we're proud to have the Frederick Douglass Family Initiative based here. The organization is planning a museum along the Genesee River, which will house some of the family's personal archive and highlight not just Frederick's story, but also that of Anna Murray and their five children. Kenneth, who is FDFI's president, noted that Douglass's own family was instrumental in furthering his legacy. His kids were sitting on stools typesetting for their father's newspaper when they were so small their feet didn't touch the floor, said Kenneth. He calls FDFI's work an intergenerational freedom-fighting collective, one that knits the modern branches of the family to those of a hundred years ago. Kenneth and Nettie are working in the centuries-long tradition of the Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass family, said Celeste Marie Bernier, a professor of U.S. and Atlantic Studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who has written extensively on the larger Douglass family. Like their ancestors did yesterday, she said, they are working fearlessly and tirelessly for revolutionary change globally today. In some ways, it's a sorrowful fact that Douglass's message still resonates so powerfully. Not only are there three times as many people enslaved today as during the transatlantic slave trade era, but according to the Human Freedom Index, human rights are eroding worldwide. In the United States, free speech is under threat as school districts ban thousands of books about racism, history, and gender diversity. In 2022, Edmond Public Schools in Oklahoma added narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave, to its banned book list. History tends to repeat itself, said Nettie. I used to think of that as a good thing, but so often we are repeating the wrong thing. She mentioned a story from Douglass's memoir when the man to whom he was enslaved found his wife teaching the young Douglass to read. You can't teach him to read. It will make him forever unfit to be a slave, Nettie said he told his wife. And the light bulb went off in Douglass's head, and that's exactly what he set out to do. She hopes young people today approach censorship with the same kind of curiosity. If it's something they're hiding that they don't want you to know, you must seek that out. Nettie now serves as Chairwoman Emerita. Through the family initiatives, she's found her place in the family's storied legacy, her voice a conduit through the past to the present. My mother told me, God chose you for this ancestry, and he will let you know what to do with it, she said. I'm convinced that's what's going on here with the family initiative. But while she travels the world to share Douglass's legacy, her relationship with her famous forefather remains the most personal ever. I grew up surrounded by things, she told me. He was always a lot to me. She still talks to him frequently, especially before she shares the family story, to ask for his permission and support. In 2013, the District of Columbia gifted a statue of Frederick Douglass to the U.S. Capitol Emancipation Hall, and Nettie was invited to speak at the dedication. It was the largest event she'd ever done, in front of then-Vice President Biden and dozens of members of Congress. She was petrified. As she walked up the hill to the Capitol building, she told me, She consulted Frederick Douglass, whose name she shares, whose blood flows in hers. I said to him, I've done a lot of things for you, but this one is big, and I need you to give me a sign that you are with me. She declined to tell me what it was, family secrets after all, but her great-great-grandfather sent her the sign she'd asked for. She smiled, watching the sun break over the Capitol dome. OK, Fred, she said, let's do this. That was The Ancestors of Nettie Washington Douglass Still Have Stories to Teach Us. She Just Hopes We Are Ready to Listen, by Rachel Garbus. Next, we move to the Burnaway Publication Online for Editor's Letter, Announcing Courtney McClellan as Burnaway's Editor, by Courtney McClellan. Burnaway, a leading voice on contemporary art from the South, is excited to announce the promotion of Courtney McClellan to editor after a comprehensive review of the field. McClellan, a practicing artist, instructor, and writer in the field, served as the interim editor from March 2023. Executive Director Brandon Sheets on the promotion. Burnaway has had a whirlwind of the past five years, strategically aligning ourselves to deepen our presence and work about the South, and soon into the Caribbean. Part of our search for an editor involved someone with knowledge of art and media, a sharp organizational mind, an understanding of the daily lives of artists, and a tremendous capacity for care toward our writers, the public, the art, and the artists we cover. Courtney was a match for all four. Courtney is a great fit as we constantly innovate in our editorial work and field advancing programs. This is a time to thoughtfully experiment, stabilize the parts that work, and burn away the rest so we can continue to serve our readers. In addition to her previous writing for Burnaway, McClellan's essay, Putting Words in Your Mouth and Images in Your Eyes, was published in Ventriloquism, Performance and Contemporary Art, Rutledge, 2023. She also served as an innovator in residence at the Library of Congress, a McDowell Fellow, Roman J. Witt Fellow at the University of Michigan, and the Fountainhead Fellow in the Sculpture and Extensive Media Department at Virginia Commonwealth University. To begin her tenure as an editor, she set out her editorial vision below. Dear Burnaway readers, it is with great pleasure that I accept the post of editor. Growing up in North Carolina, living and working in much of the region, and now residing in Atlanta for 10 years, I know the South, my home, to be an often overlooked site of artistic ingenuity. As a working artist, writer, and educator, I see the challenges facing cultural workers in our area. My experiences have taught me that an engaged network is the only way forward. I am proud to further support our vibrant, shared ecosystem of artists, galleries, residencies, DIY spaces, and museums through my work at Burnaway. I am committed to an artist-led editorial agenda that is both accessible and experimental, because I passionately believe these objectives are complementary, not mutually exclusive. With that outlook, Burnaway will serve a devoted artist community while working to bring new audiences to the conversation. Art writing is vital to any dialogue about artistic production. As the field transforms, Burnaway will champion the power of art criticism as a means to understand the world in which we live. We have already begun to make moves that support these goals through the expansion of the Editor-at-Large program. In the coming weeks, we will announce new editors who will help Burnaway to better speak to the diversity of the region and further delve into the specificity of place. These new voices will enrich our collective understanding of art and life in the South and the Caribbean. In addition to our efforts toward speaking to place, the magazine will emphasize visual art and extend into time-based forms like new media, video, and performance art. Cumulatively, this new year, we will illuminate the creative process, which, among other developments, will include a new column. Along with these new initiatives, Burnaway will continue to do what it does best. We will write about the South and the Southern Diaspora. We will strengthen a community of artists and writers with specific efforts toward breaking down barriers of entry and bringing new writers into the field, particularly writers of color, women, LGBTQIA plus identifying people, people with disabilities, and those working in rural communities. We will contextualize cultural production from the region for a national and international audience. We will build partnerships, like our ongoing collaboration with Art21, because we know that the cross-pollination of ideas and interdependence is vital to our success and our mission. I am thrilled to join Burnaway's leadership, and I am lucky to work alongside dedicated community members and forward-thinking leader executive director Brandon Sheets in building a new vision for the magazine. Ultimately, my hope for the magazine aligns with yours, dear reader. Burnaway will serve as the essential source for discovering and rediscovering the art of the South. More to come. Courtney McClellan. That was announcing Courtney McClellan as Burnaway's editor. Next, review, Tactile Grace, Sonia Clark's We Are Each Other at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, by Bryn Evans. Tilt, bend, gather. Breathe, look, breathe. Lay, linger, let. Scalp, slide, soil. Root, round, moan. Mother, mud-thick, sigh, thought, caked, come. Half-moon heels, dirty dermis. Baby born, brown bearer, held back. Ha, hum, after. We are. 2023. Prayers watch over me as I enter the exhibition space for Sonia Clark's We Are Each Other at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. A constellation of curio line the gallery walls, each representative of an individual prayer or intention. No two are the same. The space beckons a reverence akin to a memorial or shrine. The beaded prayers project is an ongoing communal art project by textile artist Sonia Clark that has engaged over 5,000 participants in dozens of countries. On the walls of the exhibition's opening gallery, beaded amulets adorn brown panels created in community art-making workshops led by Clark since 1998. The project originates from Clark's research, activating the shared etymology of the words bead and prayer. While the Old English word gebed and Middle English word bed signify the bead's purpose to remember one's place in prayer, Clark engages the amulet form as a sign of protection and power from African diasporic traditions. This idea resonates with multiple religious and spiritual practices from around the world. Each amulet holds a written prayer, each one unique to its maker. Green fronds pattern one amulet fashioned into an envelope, a single chartreuse button donning the fabric seal flap. Another features a gray and white cloth wrapped around a small stick. Ruby-colored beads cluster like wild berries along a branch. A miniature brown face tied to the cloth wears the red jewel like a crown, two yellow and red beads shown as eyes to its face. The infinite occurrences could coexist in this space. There are the hopes that exist here together. The panels are textured intentions. Beadwork blessings. Tactile grace. We Are Each Other opens with the Beaded Prayers Project, an intentional gesture that contextualizes Sonia Clark's commitment to community engagement and highlights its centrality to her creative practice. The majority of the works included in the exhibition are crafted in collaboration with Clark's community. The Hair Craft Project, Hairstyles on Canvas, 2013. And the Hair Craft Project, Hairstylists with Sonia, 2014. With 12 hairdressers based in Richmond, Virginia. The ongoing Solidarity Book Project with Amherst College and global participants. Finding Freedom, 2019 to 2020 with students, researchers, friends, and a group of incarcerated men. The exhibition title epitomizes the artist's dedication to communal work and responsibility. Drawn from a quote in Gwendolyn Brooks' poem, Paul Robeson, featured in the Poet Laureate's Collection Family Pictures, 1970, We Are Each Other articulates how integral, meaningful human connection is to our individual and collective survival. Brooks' poem is transliterated as gallery text in the exhibition. Using Clark's twist, a hair-based font named by fellow Poet Laureate Rita Dove, reading the curls beneath a Roman alphabet on the gallery wall, I think of my own head full of thick, shoulder-length locks. After wash day, small coils gather on my shower floor. The curls entwine themselves in my towels and blanket, a comforting nuisance that reminds me that life lives here. Clark created the twist font as a reclamation for African-descended peoples, a literal return to our roots. The font animates the poem, which subtly references Paul Robeson's performance of Oil Man River in the 1936 film adaptation of the musical Show Boat. The song is a moving ballad that juxtaposes the toil and labor of Black folks working along the Mississippi with the river's incessant indifference. Sonja Clark resurfaces Robeson's performance in the musical as a cultural artifact that necessarily recounts the structural racism and violence endured by African-Americans in the Jim Crow South. Clark's strands mimic the flow of the Mississippi while censoring the Black kin who labored on it. While we were carried as chattel through it, we navigated the freedom along it, coils bending liquid and free. Further along in the gallery, the film We Are, 2023, acts as a visualization of Clark's twist iteration of Gwendolyn Brooks' poem, commissioned by the Cranbrook Art Museum, choreographed and performed by Jennifer Harg and directed by Jeremy Brockman. The video runs for nearly 20 minutes in the gallery as Harg gathers Belle Island soil in her hands, rubbing her shaved scalp into the silty dirt. As noted in the gallery text, Clark intended for the performance to exist as embodied writing, a technique that draws on ancestral communication and wisdom, a pertinent gesture due to Belle Island's historical significance as a crossing point to Canada on the Underground Railroad. In the film, airplanes, bird, tide, and dirt from an ethereal soundscape accompanied by Harg's breath. Brown, green, blue, black women noises color the nature scene. Sonia Clark understands the head as a sacred place, the center where cultural influences are absorbed, siphoned, and retained, and the site where we process the world through the senses. Thus, her treatment of hairdressing as the earliest form of fiber art reflects a connection to ancestral artistic practices, a link between the land and the spirit. Haircut for a Poem, 2016, is a participatory project created for O! Miami Poetry Festival. In it, Clark invited folks to recite a poem in the barber's chair in exchange for a free haircut. The exhibition includes a video clip of several men reciting The Distant Drum, 1976, a poem whose speaker states, It is I who weep, laugh, feel pain or joy, speak this because I exist. With this work, Clark invites an interpretation of the barbershop as a shared site of cultural memory in which folks, specifically black men, witness each other as whole beings, hold space, and celebrate their right to exist. The Haircraft Project, 2013-14, similarly honors hairdressing as a communal art practice. With this work, Clark collaborates with 12 black hairstylists, inviting them to create original art using the artist's own hair. The artists were also asked to style hair on a complementary textile panel, sewing strands onto a black canvas. The resulting presentation is a hair showcase where cornrows form the petals of intricately braided flowers, and two-strand twists become a basket for white tulips peeking out from the coif designs. By engaging hairstylists as textile artists, Clark invites museum visitors to reckon with the implicit designations of low and high art or craft, and how these divisions contribute to the separation of vernacular spaces like hair salons from art institutions. Sonja Clark, We Are Each Other, co-organized by the High, the Cranbrook Art Museum in Metro Detroit, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, presents numerous large-scale collaborative works by the multidisciplinary Caribbean American artist. Discussing the exhibition, Clark shares, I am a collaboration, as is each artwork. A collaboration, a generational connection, a tie between us. From the ancestral substance that makes up my bones and blood, to the engagement with community, all of it functions as a means to do the necessary work. Rooted in her deep relationship to kin, community, and craft, We Are Each Other offers a thoughtful survey of Sonja Clark's ouvoir, rich with artistic intention and technical prowess. Sonja Clark, We Are Each Other, is on view at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta through February 18, 2024. That was Tactile Grace, Sonja Clark's We Are Each Other at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, by Britt Evans. Next, we move to Arts ATL Online for review. Atlanta Chamber Players Perform French Composers with Detail, by Jordan Owen. The Atlanta Chamber Players continued their 2023-24 season last Sunday with Tributes from France, a nod to French composers Maurice Ravel and Francis Pollenck at Avet-Akram Synagogue. The performance is the middle third of the conceptual continuity that began in October with an all-American opening and continues in February with German-inspired. For all its cubist architectural leanings, the synagogue made for a robust acoustic space in which the predominantly woodwind-driven ensemble was able to shine in lustrous detail. In such a space, the individual instruments can stand apart from one another and convey their distinct personalities. The sense of distinction between the instruments served well to convey the afternoon's first piece, four movements from Avel's La Tombeau La Couperine, arranged for wind quintet by Mason Jones. The piece has a distinct harmonic rhythm which conveys a sense of breathing. Ravel's keen use of extended chord voicings and precisely placed leading tones creates melodic passages that tighten into moments of near dissonance only to gently return to their harmonious origins. In the voluminous space of Avet-Akram, the players were able to give these details the attention they deserve. La Tombeau is already noted for its numerous incarnations with Ravel who originally wrote the piece as a piano suite that was later adapted for orchestra. A previous arrangement for woodwind quintet was composed by Hans Abramson in 1989. The emotional thrust of the piece varies along with its arrangement. Tombeau means tomb and the work is meant to ruminate on death and mourning. Each movement dedicates to a different friend Ravel lost in World War I. Ravel is, in the literary sense of the word, romantic. As such, she writes wonderful sentimental melodies where her historical appeal transcends her origins. The piece was led by Atlanta Symphony Orchestra principal oboist Elizabeth Koch-Tichon alongside flutist Todd Skitts, clarinetist S.E. McCandless, bassoonist Anthony Jorgensen, and horn player Stephen Wilson. In such an ensemble, the piece becomes light and conversational with the undulating arpeggiated melody passing back and forth among players in a thoughtful dialogue. Out of all that dialogue, the exchanges between Koch-Tichon and Skitts proved most satisfying. Skitts shined in his supporting capacity with the kind of tonal detail that made him a natural sidekick to his oboist counterpart. Skitts and company were joined by pianist Elizabeth Fridgen for Polank's talent for piano and work. It proved to be another opportunity for the flutist to quietly shine. The piece is far more chaotic given the flirting with distance, and Skitts displayed a captivating range of tone choices meant to challenge established oral harmony. Skitts' first singing was daring. Polank's Sextet is a daring piece. Polank was part of the Les Six, a publicly acclaimed society of six composers formed in the 1920s whose music sought to challenge the conventions of German Romanticism and the learning methods of French conservatory, and instead focused on newer musical trends such as jazz. The result is a piece filled with off-filter harmonic extensions and awkward stabs of uncrowned heaviness of jazz, even in its more solemn and sour moments. When such an avant-garde piece is bookended by the lush melodies of Ravel, the result is certainly jarring, but no less captivating. There is a sense of rampant chaos in the background of the piece, while the work as a whole oscillates between playful and diabolic. The final piece of the evening, Ravel's Piano Trio, saw Fridgen trade the wind ensemble for violinist Helen Hwaya Kim and cellist Cheré Kruger. The piece feels like a natural answer to the raucous proclamations of Polank's Sextet. Ravel's piece features some of the Sextet's chaos, but only in the form of accents throughout a piece that is otherwise thoughtful and melancholic. Hwaya Kim leaned into her bowing technique in a manner that conveys the stinging emotional depths of the piece. Her consummate skill allows her to overplay to just the right degree, and the result is a tone that is a touch too harsh. Such a controlled violation of boundaries serves to convey a dark undercurrent within an otherwise gentle emotional palette. The Atlanta Chamber Players will continue its season of thematic globe-hopping with German Inspired on February 18th at First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. The strength of tributes from France bodes well for their final concert of the cycle. That was Revue, Atlanta Chamber Players Perform French Composers with Detail by Jordan Owen. Next, Revue, Atlanta Opera Stages a Heartfelt, Rapturously Sung La Boheme by Paul Hyde. Atlanta Opera is following last fall's dark and violent Rigoletto with a dream production of Puccini's La Boheme at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center through January 28th. This is a vividly staged, rapturously sung, and beautifully conducted account of this most popular and romantic of operas. It's another must-see for opera fans, or really anyone with a heart. It doesn't get much better than this. How appropriate, too, that Atlanta Opera would offer a top-tier production following its recent designation as a Top Ten American Opera Company. The 1896 La Boheme centers on four young artists living and loving in 19th century Paris. One particular strength of this production is that the singers are actually young, acting with a nimble authenticity that's a joy to behold. I thought, as I watched them, that they could be the cast of Rent, the rock opera based on La Boheme. Vocally, the singers are uniformly excellent. Chinese tenor Long Long brings a ringing timbre to the role of the poet Rodolfo. His love interest, Mimi, is played with a rich, luscious voice by Nicaraguan-American soprano Gabriel Reyes. Both display a gift for caressing lyricism in their big arias. Long is a tenor who likes to hold on to a high C, no doubt much to an opera lover's delight. He joins Reyes in the unwritten but often interpolated high C at the end of Act One. Madison Leonard, with a sparkling soprano, is vivacious and comically adept as the flirtatious Musetta. Thomas Glass, substituting for Zachary Nelson, played the role of the painter Marcello on opening night with a robust baritone. Jongwon Han, also a baritone, is a warm-voiced Shenard, the musician. Christian Simmons plays the philosopher Colin with a deep, resonant bass. The comic roles of Benoit and Alcinardo are acted with verve by Philip Cocorino. The staging by Tomer Zovulin and Gregory Louis Boyle is meticulous, offering fresh and unexpected details in an opera that has been produced so many thousands of times. They've filled the opera's comic scenes with an abundance of pleasing hijinks. Aided by Ernard Romm's fine sets and Martin Pakladinaz's evocative costumes, Zovulin and Boyle give us a bohème of stark contrasts. The Act Two scene at the popular café, Momus, teems with ebullient humanity, even including some jugglers and stilt-walkers in the background. And why not? Act Three, however, is mostly barren and dark, a reflection of the moody narrative at this point. The marvel of this staging lies in the nuances. To take one small example, the gesture Rodolfo makes toward his new love interest Mimi in Act One is repeated in Act Three when the two reunite. The old, stodgy stand-and-sting stagings of the operatic past now seem, thankfully, a distant memory. Conductor Jonathan Bradani, making his Atlanta Opera debut, is superb. He beautifully balances urgency and lyricism. His tempos are generally brisk in the comic scenes, but he brings a more expansive sensitivity and heartfelt phrasing to the opera's lyrical episodes. Bradani draws polished playing from the Atlanta Opera Orchestra. The Atlanta Opera Chorus, prepared by Rolando Salazar, and Children's Chorus are energetic and hearty. Even minor characters in this production are impressive. Cameron Leprori offers a strong tenor as the toy seller Perpignan, and Hensley Peters pipes up in peppy fashion as a child who wants a toy. When Musetta makes her first entrance, she carries a small dog in the manner of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde. We learn from the credits that the cute pup is played by Sophia. In this staging, where everything seems well-nigh-perfect, even Sophia is everything a dog should be. That was Review. Atlanta Opera Stages a Heartfelt, Rapturously Sung La Boheme, by Paul Hyde. Next up, What to See, Do, and Hear. Alvin Ailey, Bruckner at 200, Art Openings, and More, by Arts ATL Staff. Dance. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's annual visit to Atlanta is always a celebratory affair, with packed houses at the Fox Theater. This year, the company will give four performances, Thursday through Saturday. Arts ATL dance writer Robin Wharton interviewed two of the choreographers, Amy Hall Garner, who created Century, and Elizabeth Rox Dorbrisch, who choreographed Me, Myself, and You. Both are Atlanta premieres. The company will also perform Hans Van Menen's solo, Ronald K. Brown's Dancing Spirit, and Kyle Abraham's Are You in Your Feelings? In keeping with the company's traditions, Revelations, choreographed by Alvin Ailey in 1960, will close each performance. Thursday and Friday at 7.30 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7.30 p.m., tickets start at $32. Body Traffic, a contemporary dance company based in Los Angeles, has received some great press since its debut in 2007. The dynamic ensemble will be performing Friday and Saturday at the KSU Dance Theater in Marietta, courtesy of the Kennesaw State University Dance Department. This is their second visit to the Atlanta area. Arts ATL dance critic Cynthia Bond Perry reviewed the company in 2019. Tickets start at $15. That's at 8 p.m. Music. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra continues the series Bruckner at 200, Architects of the Spirit, this week. Led by Natalie Stutzman, the orchestra will perform Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7, paired with a Mozart concerto, this Thursday and Saturday evening. In this week's review, Arts ATL music critic Pierre Roux described the first concert as Stutzman at her best, taking apart a familiar piece of music and carefully reassembling the bits into a fresh new whole. Tickets start at $26. That's at 8 p.m. The a cappella group Take Six will perform at the Rialto Center for the Arts on Saturday evening, featuring Claude McKnight, Mark and Joe Kibble, Dave Thomas, Alvin Chee, and Christian Dentley. The group has won 10 Grammy Awards, 10 Dove Awards, and a Soul Train Award. Take Six is known for presenting innovative arrangements of gospel, jazz, R&B, and pop music. Tickets start at $59. That's at 8 p.m. That's all the time we have for this article, which was entitled, What to See, Do, and Hear, Alvin Ailey, Bruckner at 200, Arts Openings, and More, by Arts ATL staff. That concludes today's Metro Arts program, which was brought to you by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. This has been Kristen Moody for GARS, the Georgia Radio Reading Service. Thank you for listening to GARS.