This artboard features a dynamic dance performance accompanied by percussion. This was one of many events organized by the New Thing Art & Architecture Center, a Washington, D.C. inner city cultural organization offering multidisciplinary artistic workshops and performances to empower an urban community. The poem appears to be ‘The Drums of Jiaiti,’ attributed to the New Orleans poet Marcus Bruce Christian who came to prominence during the 1930s and drew inspiration from 19th Century poets, evident here as the poem shares the style of Walt Whitman’s ‘Beat! Beat! Drums!’ The New Thing coupled these verses with an image of Haitian drumming, celebrating a positive Afrocentric heritage.
Cite As:
Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution.