Enlightenment, empowerment and engagement are the ways by which guests at this year’s Tulane Black Arts Festival will explore Black arts this week in New Orleans. Produced by the Tulane Black Student Union, the annual Black History Month celebration takes place Monday, February 17 through Sunday, February 23 on Tulane University’s uptown college campus and at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center in Central City.

The 2014 Tulane Black Arts Festival brings a week’s worth of multi-media programming with some heavyweight keynote speakers, performers and workshop facilitators. The fest presents both local and national Black arts leaders at its daily events, as well as opportunities for hands-on engagement — one of the program’s central themes.

TULANE BLACK ARTS FESTIVAL 2014 HIGHLIGHTS

New and independent media in particular play an integral role in this year’s gathering. The week opens tonight (Monday, February 17) with a lecture by actress and transgender activist Laverne Cox of the Netflix original series Orange is the New Black entitled, “Ain’t I A Woman?” Cox became the first African-American trans woman to to produce and star in her own television show when she created TRANSform Me for VH1 in 2010, not long after she was presented a GLAAD media award for her work on I Want to Work for Diddy (the first major reality television show to star an African-American trans woman). But her role in last year’s critically acclaimed Orange is the New Black provided a buzzed-about intimate lens for perspectives on Black women and transgender women in society today. Cox will also participate in a question and answer session immediately following her lecture this evening at Tulane’s McAlister Auditorium, which begins at 8 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Wednesday evening (February 19), New Orleans’ own queen diva and transgender equality advocate Big Freedia is the keynote speaker at the 7 p.m. discussion on “The Intersection of Black Arts, Cultural Appropriation, Gender and Sexuality” with Tulane professor of cultural anthropology and African-American studies, Marc Perry.

Now a reality TV star in addition to an international bounce music artist, Freedia is on the frontlines of America’s sudden infatuation with “twerking” vis-a-vis bounce music culture. The New Orleans-born genre and its inherent dance form have found themselves appropriated over the past year or more by major celebrities and pop culture fans alike. The catch is that the bounce music scene, of which Freedia has been a central part of years, was previously a taboo and frowned-upon culture by mass media until its appropriation by pop culture celebrities of late. Perry and Freedia will lead a discussion on the topic from 7 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. in the Kendall Cram Room inside Tulane’s LBC building. Then, the first 50 students or community guests to sign up will have the opportunity to take a “twerking” workshop with Big Freedia the Queen Diva herself inside the Qatar Ballroom following the talk at 8:30 p.m. Doors are at 6:30 p.m. and both events are free and open to the public, but on a first-come, first-serve basis due to limited capacity.

Thursday’s workshop in Tulane’s Reiss Room (LBC) will focus on the “Arts as a Tool for Community Activism” with an activity led by Ayanna Molina and Shack Speaks of the Southern “True Love Movement” collective that challenges the popular idea of “art for art’s sake” and illustrates various art mediums’ roles in creating solutions to personal social justice issues. The February 20 workshop takes place from 5 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. and is also free of charge.

Following Thursday evening’s workshop, a presentation not to be missed is the February 20 film screening and discussion with New Orleans’ “Project Be” founder, Brandan “B-Mike” Odums, and short documentary filmmaker, Patrick Melon. Last summer, Odums made local and national news with his profound graffiti art series inside the abandoned and soon-to-be demolished Florida Housing Projects in the city’s ninth ward. Dubbed “Project Be” (or #ProjectBe on its widespread social media threads), the large-scale visual art project depicted Civil Rights leaders and the Black heroes of Odums and the other young visual artists that participated in the paintings.

A statement of history, people, place and place-making, “Project Be” would become one of the region’s most talked-about public art projects of the year among art critics. Yet Odums and the Project Be artists still found themselves up against potential criminal charges for painting on government property without authorization, even though the buildings had already been set for demolition. In fact, the artists and exhibit visitors both risked trespassing citations with each visit to “Project Be.”

The Tulane Black Arts Festival presentation of Strong Light: A Documentary on Project Be will be the world premiere screening of the film, and will include a panel discussion led by Odums and Melon. Panelists for this larger dialogue on art, space and activism in New Orleans include local poet laureate Kalamu ya Salaam, writer Jewel Bush and spoken word artist FreeQuency. The February 20 film screening and discussion takes place in Tulane’s Kendall Cram Room (LBC Building) from 7 p.m. until 8:30 p.m.

On Friday, February 21, the Tulane Black Arts Festival collaborates with “Fridays in the Quad” for a free showcase on the university’s LBC Quad from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Saturday evening (February 22) spotlights the performing arts with a showcase featuring headliner Sunni Patterson and special guests from New Orleans’ burgeoning Black music and poetry scene. Tarriona “Tank” Ball of the rising soul-funk band Tank and the Bangas, along with poets A Scribe Called Quess?, Akeem Martin, Ari Unwritten, FreeQuency, Kataalyst, Tony Wilson, Shay Briggs and more are all set to perform. The showcase is 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the Kendall Cram Room of Tulane’s LBC Building, is free and open to the public.

Finally, the Tulane Black Arts Festival week culminates with its annual visual arts exhibit on Sunday, February 23 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center (1712 O.C. Haley Blvd). The 2014 visual art exhibition features works by local artists Al Beauti, Asia Vinae-Palmer, Brandan Bmike Odums, Brenda Jones, CFreedom, Charlie Vaughn Jr., Debbie Anderson Rusher, Devin Reynolds, Marcus Akinlana, Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief Demond Melancon, Reuben Cheatem, Soraya Jean-Louis McElroy and more.

All Tulane Black Arts Festival 2014 events are free an open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Some events have limited capacity and are therefore first-come, first-serve. Tulane University is located at 6823 St. Charles Avenue. For a building locations, click the campus map here. For more information: www.strikingly.com/tulaneblackartsfestival