This year, fast-fast and slow as it has been, is coming to an end. The Blacker Blackness classes will continue until the Winter break but I’m wrapping up my Bijlmer Parktheater activities of this year on Sunday December 5. That morning, from 11.00h-13.00h, our awe-mazing head of PR & marketing Kimberley Piqué, the good Sista’s from the Bijlmer Bookstore and I are co-hosting a kid’s event in the foyer of Bijlmer Parktheater: #BPTKids . More info will follow soon but when I tell you it will be hosted by Jennifer Muntslag and José Montoya, you already know the kids (age 2-7) will love it.

November events
1. Thursday 18, Bijlmer Parktheater: Live recording of two Project Wiaspora-episodes
Event text (as written for Bijlmer Parktheater): As part of their Project Wiaspora podcast, initiators Simone Zeefuik and Richard Kofi, financially supported by the Stimuleringsfonds, developed a new series: Wiasporan Proverbs. These proverbs consist of six truths, four of which are recorded live in the main room of the house where Zeefuik and Kofi both work as programmers: Bijlmer Parktheater. Each episode is a mix of conversations and performances. The two Wiasporan Truths they’ll record with their guests on Thursday, November 18, are “What’s the scenario?” and “What’s the future tense of being Afro-European?”. “What’s the scenario?” is about how we’d like to see the representation of NL-based, Afrodiasporic communities in films and plays. In the episode “Past, present… What’s the future tense of being Afro-European” Kofi, Zeefuik they will visualize the future of Afrodiasporic communities in Europe. For this Wiasporan Truth, they’ll focus on national institutes and independent initiatives.
Featuring: Ira Kip, Lyse Ishimwe and Adéọlá Adérè̩mí.
Time: 20:00h-22:00h
Click here to purchase your ticket(s).

2. Saturday 20: Panel about Billie Holiday & the film The United States vs. Billie Holiday
“Me, personally… my opening scene would start with a closeup of her right hand. We see it holding a dangling cigarette, its top marked vaguely by red lipstick, and a piece of paper. We can’t read the handwriting but we can make out that the text comes with notes and marks. It’s quiet. Quiet as the camera slowly zooms out and she lays the paper down on something. Perhaps a table, probably a chair.” On my Instagram, I posted part of my reimaginations of this film that I have major issues with: The United States vs. Billie Holiday. The movie centers around the song Strange Fruit and how performing it, resulted in an institutionally racist standoff between Billie Holiday and the U.S.A. What I truly, and when I tell you deeply, am looking forward to, is talking about Billie Holiday with three of my favourite folks: Ira Kip, Aïda Sium and Tracian Meikle. We’ll do so on Saturday November 20 at Rotterdam’s LantarenVenster cinema. We’ll talk about our love for Billie Holiday, the choices we would have made, the urgency of unlearning certain gazes and Hollywood’s unfaced challenges of properly portraying this Icon. Our conversation will be in English.

Location: LantarenVenster (address: Otto Reuchlinweg 996, 3072 MD Rotterdam).
Time: 14.00h-17.30h.
Click here to purchase your ticket(s).
Please note: Your ticket is for the film screening and the panel. If you have a Cineville card, please choose the “Reserveren”-option. There, you can select your free ticket.
This event is a co-production of HipHopHuis, Bijlmer Parktheater, Recognition and LantarenVenster.