UAB Briefs: All-star marching band, Latin dance, socially conscious art
Welcome to another installment of UAB Briefs.
In this weekly online feature, we keep track of interesting people and events on campus.
Know people, places and programs on the UAB campus that deserve a mention?
Email Iron City Ink at sydney@starnespublishing.com or jchambers@starnespublishing.com.
All-Stars on the march
More than 200 outstanding high-school band students will participate in an All-Star Marching Band that will perform with the UAB Marching Blazers at halftime of the UAB football game versus Coastal Carolina University on Saturday, Sept. 16, according to a UAB news release.
In addition to the halftime performance, the high school all-stars will rehearse with the Marching Blazers on game day and take part in the Blazer Walk and pre-game performances.
The event is open to all high-school marching band members, including woodwinds, brass, percussion, color guard, majorettes and dancers or drill team members.
Celebrating Latin cultures
Acclaimed troupe Ballet Hispánico will present the best in Latin dance at UAB’s Alys Stephens Center on Friday, Sept. 22, at 8 p.m., as part of a month of ¡CELEBRACIÓN! events presented by the university, according to a UAB news release.
Ballet Hispánico brings communities together to celebrate and explore Latin cultures through innovative productions, transformative dance training and community engagement.
The troupe has performed for more than 3 million people in 11 countries on three continents.
There will be a talk called “Lifting Up Latina Voices” presented in the lobby at 6:30 p.m. before the performance.
Ballet Hispánico artistic director Eduardo Vilaro will also present a post-performance discussion and Q&A on stage.
Tickets are $25, $35 and $45. Student tickets are $10. A limited number of $25 tickets are available for UAB faculty.
Call 975-2787 or go to alysstephens.org.
Innovate, innovate
The Innovate Birmingham Workforce Partnership – created to build a bigger pool of technology talent for the metropolitan area – graduated its second cohort of students at the Birmingham Museum of Art on Sept. 8.
The members of the graduating class included students from the IamBham and McKinsey Social Initiative Generation IT boot-camp programs.
Participants in the boot camps were selected after rigorous screening and interviews.
Through the 12-week Generation IT class, students obtained the CompTIA A+ certification in computer support.
In the 14-week IamBham program, students worked toward a UAB certification in web development.
Innovate Birmingham graduates have gone on to jobs with such organizations as UAB, Honda and Protective Life.
Innovate Birmingham, funded in January 2017 with a grant from the federal Department of Labor, was formed to create inclusive, sustainable pathways to IT jobs for under- and unemployed youth.
Innovate Birmingham works with a network of network of more than 15 community organizations and more than 25 employer partners.
Making sense of race and history
Selected works from the acclaimed, socially conscious American artist Titus Kaphar – whose work has been featured in such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post and Time magazine – will be on display at the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts at UAB from Sept. 22-Dec. 9.
The exhibition is called "Titus Kaphar: Misremembered."
An opening reception is planned at AEIVA for Friday, Sept. 22, from 6-8 p.m.
And at 5 p.m., prior to the reception, Kaphar will talk about this work. Both events are free and open to the public.
Kaphar recreates existing historical paintings by hand, and then alters them through cutting, stitching and other means, according to AEIVA curator John Fields.
“He is revealing new historical narratives that blur fact and fiction while creating new historical contexts, which we can use to address contemporary issues of racial injustice,” Fields said.
Two major series of works, many of which have never been exhibited in the South, will be featured in "Misremembered."
The exhibition will include Kaphar ambitious multimedia installation “The Vesper Project,” a life-sized, two-room, dilapidated house.
“Misremembered” also pulls from Kaphar’s “Destiny” series, which presents painted composite portraits of women who share the given name Destiny and are currently serving time in the criminal justice system.
Also featured is “Unfit Frame,” a mixed-media painting recently purchased by the Birmingham Museum of Art.
A Michigan native, Kaphar now works in New Haven, Conn., and his work has been shown both nationally and internationally.