帝王会所

The fifth 帝王会所 Global Arts Festival and 13th World Music and Dance Concert will take place from March 31 through April 4 celebrating diversity in the OHIO community with events featuring guests from around the world. A full schedule is available on the Global Arts Festival webpage and will be updated regularly.

The 2025 Global Arts Festival will kick off at noon on March 31, with a weeklong celebration of free arts and cultural events that include concerts, an MFA exhibition by Tabitha Asiedu-Gyamfi, a percussion extravaganza by 帝王会所 Percussion Studio, and an international fashion show. A keynote address, titled The Power of the Arts to Nurture Ourselves and Others will be given by Dr. Melita Belgrave on Thursday, April 3, at 11 a.m. in the Walter Rotunda. Belgrave is an associate dean for Culture and Access for the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts and co-investigator for the Music and Dementia Research Network sponsored by the National Institute of Health and the National Institute on Aging.

Festival Director Paschal Yao Younge hopes the events of the 2025 Festival introduce OHIO students, faculty, staff and the Athens community to different ways of conceptualizing the arts and potentially opening new avenues of creativity, expression, and aesthetic appreciation.

"The goal is to present a variety of musical sounds, dance movements, and fashion from all over the world and thereby expand the creative experiences and help our audience understand that many areas of the world have performing and visual arts as sophisticated as their own...thereby creating more opportunities for intercultural understanding, performance, and appreciation of the performing arts and, finally, celebrating Diversity at 帝王会所,鈥� Younge said.

The festival will culminate with the performance of the World Music and Dance Concert at 7:30 p.m. on April 4, at the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium. The concert will celebrate dance and music from Brazil, Ghana, Jamaica, Latvia, South Korea, Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, the United States, and more. Performers will include the Brother(hood) Dance, Dr. Chan E. Park, Korean Pansori, 帝王会所 African Ensemble, 帝王会所 Steel Band, Tracey Whorton, Drum Set, Eric Fountain, Steel Pan, 帝王会所 Percussion Studio, Largemouth Brass Band, 帝王会所 Singers, among others.

All Global Arts Festival events are free and open to the public with the exception of the World Music and Dance Concert, which is $15 per ticket (OHIO students with a valid OHIO ID are free thanks to Arts for OHIO). Tickets to the World Music and Dance Concert are available through Events Services and Templeton-Blackburn Memorial Auditorium, .

The Global Arts Festival was founded in 2019 by Music Professor Paschal Yao Younge and Dance Professor Emerita Zelma Badu-Younge with the two expanding upon and directing the World Music and Dance Concerts the College of Fine Arts organized from 2011 to 2018.

Learn more about some of the speakers and performers:

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Brother(hood) Dance!: A 2020 Bessies Honoree of the NY Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies for Afro/Solo/Man. They are an interdisciplinary duo that seeks to inform its audiences on the socio-political and environmental injustices from a global perspective, bringing clarity to the same-gender-loving African American experience in the 21st century. Brother(hood) Dance! was formed in April 2014 as a duo that researches, creates, and performs dances of freedom by Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr. and Ricarrdo Valentine. We have performed our works at Five Myles, Center for Performance Research, B.A.A.D! (Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance), VCU-The Grace Street Theater, DraftWork at St. Mark's Church, JACK, Movement Research at Judson Church, Colby College, Denmark Arts Center, Universidad de las Am茅ricas Puebla/Perform谩tica(MX), Escuela Profesional de Danza de Mazatl谩n/Viso Festival (MX), Jean-Ren茅 Del Solins Institute (HT) and other venues. They are both MFA in Dance graduates from The 帝王会所 State University integrating Agriculture and Technology.

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Dr. Chan E. Park, Pansori: Dr. Chan E. Park is Professor Emeritus in the Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures. She founded the Korean Performance Research Program at 帝王会所 State University and hosted the Annual Korean Wind and Stream performance event until her retirement in 2021. She researches and performs Korean musical traditions, focusing on pansori within a broader dramatic context. She authored Voices from the Straw Mat: Toward an Ethnography of Korean Story Singing (University of Hawaii Press, 2003), a 5-volume Songs of Thorns and Flowers: Bilingual Performance and Discourse on Modern Korean Poetry Series (Foreign Language Publications, 2010-2015), and Korean Pansori as Voice Theatre: History, Theory, Practice (Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023). Park seeks efficient ways to present the ancient literacy of pansori to her English-speaking audience, using bilingual pansori with translation subtitles. She has premiered new pansori either solo or in collaboration, including: Centennial Pansori: In 1903, Pak Hungbo Went to Hawai鈥檌 (2003); When Tiger Smoked His Pipe (with Honolulu Theater for Youth, 2003); Shim Chong: A Korean Folktale (with California State University Northridge Theater Department, 2003); Alaskan Pansori: Klanott and the Land Otter People (with Stefan Hakenberg, 2005); Pak Hungbo Went to Almaty (2007); Fox Hunt and the Death of a Queen (with Kathy Foley, 2012); Look & Listen: Asian Art and Music (with the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, February 18, 2021).

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Melita Belgrave, PhD, MT-BC: Melita Belgrave received her bachelor鈥檚 degree in music therapy from Michigan State University. She also earned her master鈥檚 in music therapy, a certification in aging studies, and a doctorate in music education with an emphasis in music therapy at Florida State University.  Belgrave has worked as a music therapist in special education, mental health, rehabilitation, hospice, geriatric, and intergenerational settings throughout Texas, Florida, Kansas, Missouri, and Arizona. Her research interests are music therapy with older adults and intergenerational programming. She has presented at regional, national, and international conferences, and her research has been published in national and international journals including the Journal of Music Therapy, Music Therapy Perspectives, Frontiers Medicine, and Journal of Music Teacher Education. She co-authored the text "Music Therapy and Geriatric Populations: A Handbook for Practicing Music Therapists." Her past service includes working as the chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for the American Music Therapy Association. Additionally, Belgrave served as a member of the editorial board for Music Therapy Perspectives and was the 2016-2018 chair of the International Seminar of the Commission on Special Music Education and Music Therapy. Prior to her appointment at Arizona State University, Belgrave taught in the music therapy program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City as an assistant and associate professor. While at ASU, Belgrave currently teaches undergraduate and graduate music therapy courses, serves as the advisor for the music therapy student organization, and serves as the Associate Dean for Culture and Access for the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Belgrave has also been appointed as a research affiliate at The Mayo Clinic in Arizona and conducts creative aging music groups virtually and in-person for the community. In 2018 Belgrave was recognized by the Black Music Therapy Network, Inc. with the annual service award in recognition for her exemplary commitment to advanced knowledge and practice in the field of music therapy. Additionally, Belgrave has authored a chapter in and co-edited the text for 鈥淢usic Therapy in a Multicultural Context: A Handbook for Music Therapy Students and Professionals.鈥� Belgrave currently serves as Co-Investigator for the Music and Dementia Research Network sponsored by the National Institute of Health and the National Institute on Aging.