Black Lives Matter: From 1619 to Now University of Kentucky Department of Theatre and Dance
With the Department of Theatre and Dance set to return to its beloved Guignol Theatre stage, it is proud to announce its 2021-2022 Main Stage Season of thought-provoking, culturally conscious productions alongside a first-time collaboration between the university’s dance and musical theatre students.
The department will take a more serious turn with “Black Lives Matter: 1619 to Now," a documentary drama curated by UK faculty artists and scholars scheduled to run Feb. 24–27. 2022 will mark 10 years since Trayvon Martin was murdered and the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was created. This work acknowledges the notion that Black Lives Matter has been stated simply and shouted loudly through the years, decades, centuries. The enslaved African people, the abolitionists, anti-segregationists, anti-lynching, pro-civil rights advocates, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Black Power, Black Arts Movement, freedom fighters were all, in their way, calling out that Black Lives Matter.
Though this new production, UK's Department of Theatre and Dance wants to provide its audience of students, faculty, staff and Central Kentucky community members with a thoughtful, insightful, factually accurate and emotionally compelling, rendering of American history that places the BLM movement of the past 10 years in its full context in a powerful live documentary drama.