Calendar of Events
Welcome to the Delta Cultural Center's Calendar of Events page. The museum hosts special blues music events and programs throughout the year, such as Delta blues festivals, gospel festivals, folk art exhibits and much more. Don't miss the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival in October, formerly known as King Biscuit Blues Festival. This Delta blues festival is the largest free blues festival in the nation!
Please check back often to find upcoming events at the Delta Cultural Center, or subscribe to our Delta Currents E-Newsletter to get regular email updates.
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King Biscuit Time
Each weekday
Helena-West Helena - DCC Visitors Center 141 Cherry Street Helena-West Helena
12:15 p.m. - 12:45 p.m.
http://www.deltaculturalcenter.com“King Biscuit Time,” the nation’s longest-running blues radio program, is hosted each weekday at the DCC Visitor’s Center by “Sunshine” Sonny Payne, from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m.
Admission is free; the public is welcome to attend.
“Delta Sounds,” hosted by DCC Assistant Director Terry Buckalew and Payne, is broadcast each Friday at 1 to 1:30 p.m.
Gallery hours at the DCC Visitors Center at 141 Cherry Street and the nearby DCC Depot at 95 Missouri Street are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.
For more information, interested persons can contact the Delta Cultural Center at (870) 338-4350 or toll free at (800) 358-0972, visit the DCC online at www.deltaculturalcenter.com, or email info@deltaculturalcenter.com.
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'Imaging Blackness' Movie Poster Exhibit
Through Friday, August 7, 2009
Helena-West Helena - DCC Visitors Center 141 Cherry Street
http://www.deltaculturalcenter.comHELENA-WEST HELENA – “Imaging Blackness,” an exhibit tracing the growth of African-American participation in the movies, is currently on display at the Delta Cultural Center.
More than 40 vintage black movie posters from 1915 through 2002 are utilized in the exhibit of artifacts from the archives of the Indiana University Black Film Center at Bloomington. “Imaging Blackness” will continue at the DCC through Friday, August 7.
The 1915 date is important in framing the exhibit, not because it represents the earliest film portrayals by black actors, but because of the film productions that sprang up in reaction to director D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation.” This 1915 landmark film was lauded as a masterwork by many and lambasted by others for a storyline that lionized the Ku Klux Klan and portrayed blacks in a variety of base stereotypes.
The exhibit includes posters for “Sleepy Sam, the Sleuth” (1915), “The Green-Eyed Monster” (1920), and “The Flying Ace” (1926) as silent era examples of films with positive depictions of blacks made primarily for African-American audiences. Later posters advertising “The Bronze Venus” (1938), starring Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte in “Island in the Sun” (1957), and Sidney Poitier’s Oscar-winning performance in “Lilies of the Field” (1963) explore the evolution of black film roles in Hollywood’s movie industry.
The wider depiction of black actors in the 1970s is explored with director Gordon Parks’ acclaimed “The Learning Tree” (1969) and several posters for “blaxploitation” movies including “Cotton Comes to Harlem” (1970), “Superfly” (1972), and action star Pam Grier’s “Coffy” (1973).
More recent posters include the dramas “A Soldier’s Story” (1984), “The Color Purple” (1985), and “Beloved” (1998), as well as the documentaries “Say Amen, Somebody” (1982) and “Jim Brown: All-American” (2002).
As a part of the exhibit, two documentaries on the history of black filmmaking will be screened at the DCC Visitors Center at 141 Cherry Street daily throughout the display of “Imaging Blackness.” The public is invited to attend the exhibit and documentary screenings of “A Century of Black Cinema” and “Small Steps – Big Strides: The Black Experience in Hollywood”; film presentations begin at 9 a.m. daily. Admission is free.
Gallery hours at the DCC Visitors Center at 141 Cherry Street and the nearby DCC Depot at 95 Missouri Street are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. “King Biscuit Time,” the nation’s longest-running blues radio program, is hosted each weekday at the DCC Visitor’s Center by “Sunshine” Sonny Payne, from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. “Delta Sounds,” hosted by DCC Assistant Director Terry Buckalew and Payne, is broadcast each Friday at 1 to 1:30 p.m.
For more information, interested persons can contact the Delta Cultural Center at (870) 338-4350 or toll free at (800) 358-0972, visit the DCC online at www.deltaculturalcenter.com, or email info@deltaculturalcenter.com.
“Imaging Blackness” is a program of ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, with the Arkansas Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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'Imaging Blackness' Summer Film Series Underway
June 20 through August 1, 2009
Helena-West Helena - DCC Visitors Center 141 Cherry Street
1 p.m.
http://www.deltaculturalcenter.comHELENA-WEST HELENA – Delta Cultural Center is beginning a Saturday summer movie series just in time to aid visitors seeking an air-conditioned escape from the summer’s heat.
The DCC is presenting seven movies featuring African-American performers and filmmakers at mid-day Saturdays over the next several weeks to complement the “Imaging Blackness” exhibit of film posters currently on display at the DCC Visitors Center.
All movie presentations are free of charge and held on Saturdays beginning at 1 p.m. in the "Delta Sounds" Gallery at the DCC Visitors Center at 141 Cherry Street. The public is welcome and warmly encouraged to attend.
Films are:
June 20: "A Soldier’s Story" (1984, rated PG) with Howard E. Rollins Jr., Adolph Caesar, and Denzel Washington, a racially charged murder mystery set at an Army base in the segregated South, filmed in part in Arkansas at Fort Smith and Clarendon;
June 27: Spike Lee’s acclaimed civil rights documentary "4 Little Girls" (1997, not rated);
July 4: Bandleader and Arkansas native Louis Jordan’s musical "Beware" (1946, not rated);
July 11: "Cooley High" (1975, rated PG), a poignant coming of age story set in an early 1960s urban Chicago neighborhood;
July 18: The fictionalized biography of boxer Jack Johnson, "The Great White Hope" (1970, rated PG-13), starring James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander;
July 25: "The Wiz" (1978, rated G), the urban adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s "The Wizard of Oz," featuring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsy Russell, Ted Ross, and Richard Pryor; and
August 1: Director Otto Preminger’s screen adaptation of "Porgy and Bess" (1959, not rated), starring Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, and Sammy Davis Jr.
The "Imaging Blackness" exhibit traces the growth of African-American participation in the movies, utilizing more than 40 vintage black movie posters from 1915 through 2002 from the archives of the Indiana University Black Film Center at Bloomington. “Imaging Blackness” will continue at the DCC through Friday, August 7.
“Imaging Blackness” is a program of ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, with the Arkansas Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Gallery hours at the DCC Visitors Center at 141 Cherry Street and the nearby DCC Depot at 95 Missouri Street are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. “King Biscuit Time,” the nation’s longest-running blues radio program, is hosted each weekday at the DCC Visitors Center by “Sunshine” Sonny Payne, from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. “Delta Sounds,” hosted by DCC Assistant Director Terry Buckalew and Payne, is broadcast each Friday from 1 to 1:30 p.m.
For more information, interested persons can call the Delta Cultural Center at (870)-338-4350 or toll free at (800)-358-0972 or visit the DCC online at www.deltaculturalcenter.com.
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Arkansas Blues & Heritage Festival
Thursday, October 8, through Saturday, October 10
Helena-West Helena - Historic Downtown Helena
http://www.bluesandheritagefest.comThe Arkansas Blues & Heritage Festival, organized by the Sonny Boy Blues Society and financially sponsored by numerous businesses and organizations, including the Delta Cultural Center, is held annually along Helena's historic Cherry Street by the Mississippi River levee.
Among acts already named to appear at the 2009 event are: Hubert Sumlin, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Reba Russell, Dave Thompson, Anson Funderburgh, Sam Carr, Bob Margolin, Michael Burks, Lucious Spiller, Bobby Rush, John Hammond, Cate Brothers, John Primer, Hamilton Loomis, Pinetop Perkins, Billy Boy Arnold, Red Holloway, Dave Riley.
Check back at this website -- and the festival's own website -- for more performer announcements.
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