Friday April 25
6:00 pm
Location: Blaffer Gallery, 120 Fine Arts Building
Information: 713-743-5749
For more information about Ronald K. Brown's performance on May 10 please call Society for the Performing Arts at 713-227-4772.

An exhibition preview reception and Contemporary Salon with Ronald K. Brown, exhibition co-curator and Founder and Artistic Director, Evidence, A Dance Company; Ray Carrington III, Photographer and Founder, "Eye on Third Ward"; Wendy Watriss, Co-founder and Artistic Director, FotoFest; and Deborah Willis, exhibition co-curator and Chair and Professor of Photography and Imaging, Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. The Salon will be moderated by KatherineVeneman, Curator of Education, Blaffer Gallery. The exhibition, which consists of 32 photographs by Charles "Teenie" Harris (1908 - 1998), provided inspiration for Brown's new monumental choreographic work One Shot which will be presented by DiverseWorks at Society for the Performing Arts on May 10.

Leading up to the exhibition and performance, Ronald K. Brown will conduct teaching residencies at the University of Houston and will work with elementary school children in the Third Ward at Project Row Houses' after-school program.

Charles "Teenie" Harris’s works, taken during his career with the Pittsburgh Courier between 1936 and 1975, document the historic and daily events of Pittsburgh’s African American community, and their impact and intimacy can be translated to many urban landscapes throughout the United States. Harris’s photographs are considered unsurpassed in their evocation of the essence of Black urban America in mid-20th Century.

During his career, Harris produced more than 80,000 photographs - including images of Louis Armstrong, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. The Harris archive is considered the largest and most complete portrait of African American urban life in existence. The curators selected photographs for exhibit that highlight the themes of legacy, community and opportunity resonant in the dance work. Harris's photographs are also integrated into the dance performance. The exhibit organizer is the August Wilson Center for African American Culture and the photographs in the exhibit are from the Charles "Teenie" Harris Archive of Carnegie Museum of Art, both in Pittsburgh, PA. The exhibit will travel to 17 locations in the 2007– 2008 season.