This 2nd semester has been a love/hate relationship thus far with me and my school, Columbia College Chicago... You would have thought The Dream produced it. But this week we fell in love all over again as the Department of Multi Culture Affairs brought us a lecture with Debbie Allen as apart their Black Heritage Month. The evening started with a brief documentary on her career and then a contemporary dance performed by one of Columbia's own. Lights dimmed, Dr. Allen took stage in what I considered to be a very intimate session on conversation pieces ranging from the absence of the media reporters from Haiti post earthquake, to the No Child Left Behind Act, to the Grammy's, to... Tiger Woods? Yep Tiger... She went there.
She touched on her struggles growing up in Houston and how she and her mother and sister (Felicia Rashaad) packed up their things and moved south of the border to Mexico when she was 8 during the time of segregation. She all of a sudden felt free. She describes this experience being influential to her in the arts. Seeing a little boy who couldn't have been any older than 5yrs old herding farm animals across a street, served as a metaphor for responsibility. Dr. Allen explains that you have know who you are as a artist, in order to share who you are with the world through your art. It was one of the most inspiring lectures that I've attend so far at Columbia and was enough to keep our relationship on the love side for awhile!
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