The St. John’s Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) and Culture and Identity Based Programming Council hosted a Harlem Renaissance Experience in the D’Angelo Center on Feb. 24th from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The event showcased appreciation for a significant era for African Americans in New York in celebration of Black History Month.
Guests were encouraged to dress in “roaring twenties” attire and had to RSVP to receive a secret code allowing them into the event space, which was decorated to imitate a speakeasy.
The performances began with the St. John’s Jazz Band playing live music. Afterward, guests were treated to a Harlem Renaissance-inspired performance from the University’s step team, Step Ya Game Up. The Jazz Band continued playing songs sporadically throughout the event.
Attendees were also served a soul food dinner, including chicken, collard greens, cornbread and macaroni and cheese. To keep in line with the speakeasy theme, non-alcoholic mocktails were also available for guests.
In between performances, attendees visited a display from the Nu Mu Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, a photo booth with Harlem Renaissance-themed props and photography exhibits created by St. John’s students Akosua Osei and Marcus Hardy.
Hardy’s exhibit featured pieces from three different projects he had worked on in the past year; “Moon: It’s Just a Picture,” “How They See Us” and “Haraya x Red House.” Photographs included in this collection were chosen to showcase how powerful the likeness can be despite harmful stereotypes.
“It is about allowing our blackness to shine even through the horrifying stereotypes that go through America,” Junior and game development and emerging media major Hardy said. “This showed a renaissance in what made blackness really prominent to me.
Osei’s collection featured photos from her “Broken Pieces of a Mirror” and other portraits she has taken from the past year. These photos were chosen in connection to the Harlem Renaissance to highlight how the black identity is not monolithic and how candidness is used to show someone’s true essence.
“Life is full of choices, and you can do whatever you want, so with my art, I try to exude that,” Osei, the fashion studies student and Bronx native, said. “I don’t like when people pose because you don’t see their true selves. I like it when people are naturally themselves, and you can just see their true essence.”
Guests also had the opportunity to play a jazz-themed round of Just Dance on the ballroom floor.
The St. John’s Office of Multicultural Affairs is hosting many more events throughout the remainder of this semester.
