Dare County Arts Council is proud to announce that The Courthouse Speaker Series, a new program under the umbrella of The Courthouse Sessions, will kick off on March 16th at 7pm with A Conversation with North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green. Thanks to a generous grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, this program brings cultural scholars from a variety of disciplines to our local population and online audiences.
The goal of The Courthouse Speaker Series is to create a lasting, sustainable platform to listen, learn and interact with scholars in a safe, responsible setting. Our presenters will share new ideas and expand the understanding of important issues which will provide a richer cultural awareness and experience for our community.
“The arts is a platform for building community. I’m honored and happy to be the inaugural conversation in this coastal North Carolina program,” said Jaki Shelton Green. “The more we tell ourselves our stories, the more we find ourselves inside of each other’s stories.”
For now, the presentations will be broadcast on Dare County Arts Council’s Facebook page as a series of conversations one Tuesday each month at 7pm from March through December.
Below is a list of the scholars scheduled for 2021:
● March: Jaki Shelton Green, North Carolina’s First African-American Female Poet Laureate
● April: Heather Frese, Author of The Baddest Girl on the Planet
● May: Michael Dane Lewis, Author of Bank on Self Investment, COA International Student
● June: Elisha T. Minter, Black Storyteller and Writer
● July: Christina Weisner, Assistant Professor of Fine Arts, Sculpturist
● August: TBD
● September: Tom Maxwell, Writer and Musician, Founder of Squirrel Nut Zippers
● October: Rosalia Torres Weiner, LatinX Artist, Activist, and Community Leader
● November: Sherrill Roland, Interdisciplinary Artist, Founder of The Jumpsuit Project
● December: Ruth Wyand, Guitarist, Singer, and Songwriter
Check our website or Facebook for more information on specific presentation dates. Share this information with your friends so we can continue to learn and grow together this year.
This project is supported by the North Carolina Humanities Council whose mission is to connect North Carolinians with cultural experiences that spur dialogue, deepen human connections, and inspire community. (nchumanities.org)
Please email Dare County Arts Council’s Executive Director Chris Sawin at DareArtsInfo@gmail.com with any questions.
For more information, please visit DareArts.org/speakerseries
