November 25th Event with Cameroon Èkpé and Cuban Abakuá
Monday 27 August at 2:00pm at the Smithsonian Institution's NMAfA’s Lecture Hall
950 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20560
For Directions Click Here<http://africa.si.edu/Washington, D.C. 20560
Chief (Dr.) Ivor Miller will present new research on Cross River civilizations and their manifestations in the Diaspora. Also featured are the music and masquerades of both Cameroon Ékpè and Cuban Abakuá. Musicians 'Román' Díaz, Ángel Guerrero with NY based musician, composer Onel Mulet will participate.
For centuries, the Ékpè ‘leopard’ society of the Cross
River region in southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon was the
supreme institution of governance that also embodied esoteric teachings
about the life-cycle. African migrants in colonial Cuba recreated Ékpè
in the early 1800s to protect members in a slave society and to gain
their freedom. They called it Abakuá, after the Àbàkpà community of
Calabar, Nigeria. During this process, Abakuá scribes documented large
portions of their cultural history in 19th century manuscripts. Hidden
from outsiders until recently, this little-known ‘people’s history’ is
being shared with West African cultural leaders who are using it to
understand their own pre-colonial traditional institutions and arts.
With reference to photographs in the NMAfA collections, Chief
(Dr.) Ivor Miller will present key themes of this story with the support
of traditional intellectuals as well as musicians and dancers from
Cameroon and Cuba. The foci will be on trans-Atlantic cultural
identities, symbols of ‘universal motherhood’, and the functions of
‘life-giving’ drums. The role of the Museum as a link between
continental Africans and African-descendants in the USA to explore their
legacies in the arts will be addressed. Traditional chiefs from
Cameroon who live in the Washington D.C. region will participate.
I have attended couple of lectures by Dr. Ivor Miller. The discussions are normally rich in historic events and evolution of various civilizations over the centuries. Looking forward to see him again!
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