Photo credit: Scott Paulus
Patrice Harris, executive director of Black Arts Fest MKE
Although it prides itself as the city of festivals, Milwaukee has gone without a key one for the last half decade. The city hasn’t had a showcase of African and African American culture on its lakefront since 2013, when the African World Festival held its final event at the Summerfest grounds. This year a new festival aims to fill the void: Black Arts Fest MKE, a daylong showcase of art and music on Saturday, Aug. 4 with headliners including MC Lyte, Tony! Toni! Toné! and blues legend Bobby Rush. Black Arts Fest Executive Director Patrice Harris spoke with the Shepherd Express about the event.
Congratulations on the festival. It seems like it came together quickly.
I think I started March 21 or 22, so late March, only about four and half months before the festival, although I had been involved in conference calls prior. Being the sole employee there’s a lot to do. But I’m passionate about special events, so even though it’s a lot of hours I really strongly believe this is a festival that the community has missed, and from what I’ve been told there is a very strong positive buzz. Everyone that I talk to—sponsors, volunteers, food vendors, whoever—they’re all like, “There’s such a good buzz!” You hear it on Jammin’ 98.3 every time you turn on the radio, because they’re our media partner. It’s in the papers, it’s online, so I’m excited that there’s a good buzz about it.
Do you see Black Arts Fest as a continuation of the African World Festival, or is it its own thing?
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It’s a different organization. We have somewhat of a different approach, but with the same objective of celebrating African and African American culture and our heritage. While the black community is the primary audience we want to make it very inclusive to everyone else. There’s just a lot to celebrate and to learn. We have a very strong cultural aspect to it. We have a stage called the Cultural Expression Stage, with African dance, drumming, spoken work and a hip-hop performance, because that is part of our culture, too. So we’re trying to span culture, traditional to contemporary.
One of our big initiatives is to introduce the culture to children in a creative and fun way. Discovery World is doing something looking at black inventors and modeling an activity after their inventions for kids. We’re going to have face painting where kids can get different tribal designs. We’re also doing workshops with Danceworks and TRUE Skool. Danceworks is going to do tap, salsa and other rhythmic dances, where there’s a little performance in the beginning then the kids in the audience are brought up to learn some of the steps and to do a joint performance at the end, and TRUE Skool will do the same thing with hip-hop.
What do you think distinguishes this festival from some of the other festivals at the Summerfest grounds?
I don’t know that there’s anything fundamentally different. Every ethnic festival, we all support each other. In developing this festival, other festivals have been willing to answer questions and willing to help recruit volunteers, so it’s a very supportive community. Everyone has very strong partnerships and we don’t compete with each other. It’s really about showcasing all the different cultures in the city. I think they bring so much to the city. Everyone can go, whether they’re going to Black Arts Fest MKE or German Fest or Irish Fest or Indian Summer. It’s an opportunity not just to celebrate your own culture, but to reach beyond that and learn about other cultures.
You know, race relations in the country have not been the best of late. Even locally, sometimes the way African Americans are portrayed is different from the way other races might be. So we really want people of all races to come out, so hopefully we can help dispel the perception that all African Americans are this way or that way, and show that our community is broader than what people might see in the news. But mostly we just want people to come out and have fun so that we can do it again next year!
Do you see the festival expanding to multiple days in the future?
That is our plan. Maybe next year will be one day and have a bigger footprint, or maybe it’ll be two days with the same footprint or a bigger one. But the goal is to continue to grow the festival until we achieve a three-day festival. Will that be next year? I’d venture to say not likely. But maybe in three years or four years that will happen. It just depends how much the community comes out to support the festival, because their support drives our ability to produce the event.
To learn more about Black Arts Fest MKE, visit blackartsfestmke.com.
