Honoring Black Lives: A Reimagine Candlelight Vigil
Reimagine has been hosting candlelight vigils throughout the pandemic in order to break down taboos and hold space for all that we've lost. Tonight's program marks the beginning of Black History Month with a conversation between award-winning poets Camille Dungy and Anaïs Duplan, music from cellist Keith Tutt, II, and appearances from other special guests.
About Camille Dungy
Camille T. Dungy is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Trophic Cascade (Wesleyan UP, 2017), winner of the Colorado Book Award. She is also the author of the essay collections Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (Simon & Schuster, 2023) and Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood and History (W.W. Norton, 2017), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Dungy has also edited anthologies including Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry and From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great. A 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, her honors include NEA Fellowships in poetry (2003) and prose (2018), an American Book Award, two NAACP Image Award nominations, and two Hurston/Wright Legacy Award nominations. Dungy’s poems have been published in Best American Poetry, The 100 Best African American Poems, the Pushcart Anthology, Best American Travel Writing, and over thirty other anthologies. She is University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University.
https://camilledungy.com @camilledungy
About Anaïs Duplan
Anaïs Duplan is a trans* poet, curator, and artist. He is the author of the book I NEED MUSIC; Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture; Take This Stallion; and the chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus. He was a 2017-2019 joint Public Programs fellow at the MoMA and the Studio Museum in Harlem, and in 2021 received a Marian Goodman fellowship from Independent Curators International for his research on Black experimental documentary. In 2016, he founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program for artists of color, based at Iowa City’s artist-run organization Public Space One. He is the recipient of the 2021 QUEER|ART|PRIZE for Recent Work, and a 2022 Whiting Award in Nonfiction. Duplan is a professor of postcolonial literature at Bennington College, and has taught poetry at The New School, Columbia University, and Sarah Lawrence College, and others.
https://worksofanais.com/ @an.duplan
About Keith Tutt, II
Keith Tutt, II, is an award-winning producer, professional cellist, songwriter/composer, and master teacher. His musical journey began on the cello at the age of four. By the age of seven, he was studying with world-renowned National Cello Institute founder Richard Mooney. Over the years, Keith's repertoire has expanded to include multiple instruments, programming, and producing. This diverse musical background has enabled Keith to work with a variety of critically acclaimed artists across multiple genres. His string arrangements have been heard on Grammy award-winning albums, and His production has also earned him numerous accolades.
His latest focus has landed him in the wellness sector where he provides an immersive sound-aided release experience, called sonikwell™. Using the unique properties of the cello aided by electronic replication to provide balance, release, and rejuvenation to emotionally intense, high-stress environments.
Keith was born and raised in Southern California, where he currently resides.
www.keithtuttii.com @keithtuttii
About Reimagine
Reimagine hosts community-driven experiences that bring creativity, connection, and essential conversation to face adversity, loss, and mortality, and channel the hard parts of life into meaningful action and growth. Reimagine envisions a world where we can embrace life fully—from this moment through the end—and collectively contribute to a more just and compassionate society. Reimagine experiences encompass arts + entertainment, healthcare + social services, spirituality + religion, and Innovation + design. www.letsreimagine.org
