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LEGACY: THEY SPEAK IN DREAMS ON VIEW AT THE OBERLIN COLLEGE GALLERY & PERFORMANCE SPACE AT HERE HERE
MAY 3, 2002-- Tai Collins' Legacy: They Speak in Dreams--the first senior student installation at the Oberlin College Gallery & Performance Space at Here Here in Cleveland--opens Saturday, May 4 at 8:00 P.M. with a cabaret concert performed by a group of student artists, musicians and dancers.
"My story is one of self-discovery and affirmation, a story about the acceptance of my traits by finding their genesis within my family's history and my dreams," says Collins, who created and developed the installation/performance event.
An African American Studies major at Oberlin with a concentration in fine arts, she is a member of the famed Oberlin touring dance troupe Dance Diaspora and the lead singer of Ilu Aiye, a West African/Afro-Caribbean music group.
Drawn from Collin's life and heritage the eight art installations titled Old Soul, Running; Mama Dora; Congo Square; Billye: A Letter for My Mothers; Sentimental Reasons; Mama Eva; Yemaya; and Solitude --evoke such scenes as a Congo graveyard, a wooden porch, a market square in Haiti, and a family yard and kitchen.
During the concert, the evocations will be amplified with songs, taped voices and sounds and movement choreographed by Collins, who also has studied dance in Cuba with some of the most acclaimed and world renowned folkloric groups and performers and with the Marie Brooks' Pan Caribbean Dancers in Harlem.
"Through these art forms, I have discovered my African, Caribbean and Native American heritage to be the foundation of whom I am," says Collins, who is from New Orleans. "The music and dance, the voice and the body connect me to the silent past, the strength of my ancestors and the knowledge that is innateŞThey are a source of healing and a method of resistance--a way or survival. I found the family I could not name through Music."
A member of the Teenage Girls' Documentary Project in New Orleans, Collins, while at Oberlin has conducted dance and black history workshops in schools throughout Lorain County and at the Elyria YWCA, worked as a counselor at Common Groundƒs Earth Camp and as a teacher at the Oberlin Seventh Day Adventist School.
Legacy: They Speak in Dreams is sponsored by two College student organizations: the American Indian Council and the Black Student Union (Abusua).The exhibition will be on view May 4-May 13. Oberlin College Gallery & Performance Space at Here Here is located at 1305 Euclid Avenue. Exhibition hours are Fridays 5:00-9:00 P.M. and Saturdays and Sundays 12:00-5:00 P.M. The show is free and open to the public.
Media Contact: Betty.Gabrielli
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