Pinkster Festival June 4 & 5

                                                                        Congolese Dancers                                                            

Photo from TransArt & Cultural Services

The Pinkster Festival on June 4 and 5  is a contemporary expression of this historical celebration that occurred for over 200 years in the Hudson River Valley.   This year it is taking place in Highland  and Kingston NY and offers African and African American music, dance and foodways, re-enactments, a Sojourner Truth play, festival vendors and much more.

 

For more information go to the website of this year's producers of the Pinkster Festival TransArt & Cultural Services:   TransArt & Cultural Services:  You may be asked to click through.

Activities begin at 2 PM in Highland Park NY at the Sojourner Truth Statue/Walkway Over the Hudson Park Visitor’s Center, with the Congolese Dancers performing African dance in remembrance of the traditions the earliest captured Africans brought with them to the Americas. Then at 2:45 pm at the same site a short play about abolitionist and suffragist Sojourner Truth, "Raw Truth," will be presented, followed at 4 pm by an on-line offering "Seeking Truth," a virtual museum that tells the life story of Sojourner Truth.

On Sunday at 10:30 am at the Old Dutch Church, 272 Wall St. Kingston NY 12401, the festivities begin with a presentation by the Pinkster Players "Joy is an Act of Resistance," then a panel discussion including Lavada Naron, culinary scholar and interpreter of African American Traditions at NYS OPRHP, and Chief Baba Neil Clarke, scholar of African American history and music and well-known percussionist. The panel will talk about the Pinkster Festival in the context of the history of slavery in America, of slavery's negative impact on the continuity of cultural traditions of enslaved people, and on the cultural identity of African Americans today.

Gather at noon on Sunday for the Pinkster Walk at 1 pm, proceeding from the Old Dutch Church to St James Church and ending at the Academy Green for the festival proper. There until 6 pm you will find contemporary and historic music and dance, including the Congolese dancers, the Sojourner Truth play, the Pinkster Players, Afro-Dutch foodways, a percussion ensemble, and many festival vendors.

Come enjoy one of the oldest traditional festivals in the Catskill-Hudson River region!

For more information about the the Pinkster Festival, the history of slavery and its cultural impact, see the next article. "More Resources".