Overview
Film screening: At your home, via OWN The Oprah Winfrey Network, November 25 through December 13
– Or scroll below to the Photos & Video section to listen to Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations podcast.
Panel discussion: 7PM on Wednesday, December 16, via Zoom video conference
After everything that has happened in 2020, where do we go from here?
Join us for the next PSEG True Diversity Film screening at NJPAC, when we’ll look at the tumultuous events of this past year, and talk about how these extraordinary times have affected artists, from dancers and filmmakers to painters and playwrights.
Before we meet, we’ll screen Where Do We Go From Here, a two-part series on the OWN Oprah Winfrey Network, which explores the impact of 2020 on all our lives with a range of Black leaders, artists and journalists, including Stacey Abrams, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Academy award-nominated filmmaker Ava DuVernay, journalist and Pulitzer prize-winning founder of the “1619 Project” Nikole Hannah-Jones, historian and author Ibram Kendi (“How to be an Anti-Racist”) and actor David Oyelowo (“Selma”), among many others.
This season, the films NJPAC will present through the PSEG True Diversity Film Series will focus on social and racial justice, in response to the uprisings against systemic racism that have spread around the globe in 2020. To continue these presentations safely during the pandemic, we have redesigned this series to work like a book club. We’ll all watch the selected films at our homes, then come together on a Zoom video conference to discuss the film with panelists who can offer context and insight.
We encourage everyone to view Where Do We Go From Here and then join us for not one but two virtual panel discussions.
The second of these panels, at 7PM on Wednesday, December 16, will focus on how 2020 has affected artists and the arts. NJPAC’s own Donna Walker-Kuhne, the Arts Center’s Senior Advisor for Community Engagement — as well as the president of Walker International Communication Group, and an adjunct Professor at New York University, Columbia University and Bank Street College — will moderate the discussion with a panel of artists and arts administrators, exploring how artists will continue to produce new work and examine themes of social justice in the new year, and how the arts can be made sustainable in a country upended by a pandemic and economic instability.
Our panelists:
Hope Boykin: An educator, creator, mover, and motivator, Hope has danced with PHILDANCO and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, where she completed 20 seasons. She has choreographed for numerous dance companies including Philadanco, Minnesota Dance a Theater, and Dallas Black Dance Theatre. She also serves as the Artistic Lead for the Kennedy Center Dance Lab (KCDL), a two-week summer dance program for high school students, and is an Artist-In-Residence at USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance.
Aaron P. Dworkin: A 2005 MacArthur Fellow and President Obama’s first appointment to the National Council on the Arts, Aaron served as dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD). A lifelong musician, Aaron is also a prominent spoken-word performer who has collaborated with artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Damien Sneed, Anna Deveare Smith and others.
Linda Harrison: The Director and CEO of The Newark Museum of Art, Linda has guided the museum through numerous changes during her tenure, including the development of a real estate strategy for the museum’s five-acre campus, turning it into a vibrant live, work and play creative space that will contribute to the City of Newark’s transformation.
Sharnita Johnson: The Arts Program Director at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Sharnita directs the Foundation’s Arts portfolio, which fosters a diverse and vibrant arts ecosystem, creates broad-based public support of the arts, and supports communities engaged in creative place-keeping in New Jersey. She also co-chairs the newly launched New Jersey Arts and Culture Recovery Fund.
