Alice Walker to appear on panel at Chatham
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
African-American poet, activist and author Alice Walker will participate in a panel about the Candomblé religion on Thursday at Chatham University in Shadyside. The discussion will be held in Campbell Memorial Chapel, with the Eddy Theater as an overflow venue.
Ms. Walker, who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for her novel “The Color Purple,” is narrator of an award-winning documentary, “Yemanjá: Wisdom From the African Heart of Brazil.” The film explores Candomblé, which grew out of traditional practices brought to the New World by enslaved Africans. It continues as a major cultural influence. The film will be screened at 6:45 p.m. as part of the Just Films documentary series, followed by the panel at 7:50 p.m. The evening is free and public.
Other panelists are University of Colorado faculty member Rachel Elizabeth Harding, who studies indigenous spiritual traditions and is herself a Candomblé priestess, and film producer, director and co-writer Donna Roberts. The moderator will be Huberta Jackson-Lowman, Florida A&M University professor and president-elect of the Association of Black Psychologists.
Candomblé flows from a matriarchal tradition, but men also participate, Ms. Roberts said. “The vast majority of devotees are women, and the vast majority of the high priestesses are women, elder women of color who are at the apex of leadership.”
She said the cultural practices form a “story for our times,” addressing issues ranging from reverence for elders to respect for the natural world.
“Life, spirituality, art, culinary traditions — it’s all integrated. In the West those things are separated. [Candomblé] is a very holistic culture. It was a very powerful form of resistance to Western culture, a way to preserve language, songs, spiritual traditions” when slaves were being pressured to assimilate.
The film has played at Lincoln Center in New York City and in Cannes, France. It was awarded best documentary at the GullahGeechee Heritage & Film Festival in South Carolina and was nominated for best international film at the BronzeLens Film Festival in Atlanta.
Ms. Roberts, her son and husband Gerald Lee Hoffman moved to Pittsburgh three years ago. Mr. Hoffman was videographer and still photographer for “Yemanjá,” and a selection of his photographs is exhibited in “Goddesses of Nature” at Chatham University Art Gallery, which will be open before and after the event.
Also exhibited are paper artworks made by local youth in a workshop directed by Mr. Hoffman. Nature was used as inspiration, he said. The children were asked, “if they were a river or air or the wind, how would they look?”