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Activist, musician, and storyteller Paula Larke will perform 9:30 p.m. Thursday, March 23, in the Farinon College Center snack bar. The concert, entitled “The Honor Path: Honoring Women and Women Honoring Themselves,” is part of Lafayette’s celebration of Women’s History Month. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Office of Intercultural Development at (610) 330-5819.
Larke will perform and speak 5 p.m. Friday, March 24, at the Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Easton, 508 Charles Street. “An Evening with Paula Larke” will be an interactive event that includes music and storytelling as means of building community. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call (610) 253-5846.
As a visiting artist-in-residence, Larke will also host workshops on activism and social change with various Lafayette student organizations.
“Her musical and oratorical ability to paraphrase and encapsulate content keeps participants on the same page and energized. She calls on participants to stretch beyond self-imposed limits and find creative solutions to obstacles and conflicts,” states her web site.
Her work touches on social messages such as school bullying, violence prevention, racism, heritage, literacy and education, community development, and addiction recovery. She also tells and gathers tales from diverse cultures. Her stories and songs illustrate Biblical and universally spiritual principles.
An accomplished musician, Larke plays electric bass guitar, banjo, and the djembe, an African drum. She infuses her art with humor, lyrical percussion, traditional wit and wisdom, and contemporary irreverence to urge social change. A veteran of Broadway and off-Broadway productions, she has performed nationally for over 25 years. She presents chants, songs, and spirituals that originated from such locations as Georgia Sea Islands, Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountains, North Carolina’s Piedmont Plateau, and Tuskegee, Ala. Her latest CD, Precious Gifts, was recorded while she was artist-in-residence at Riverside Church in New York.
Larke’s Lafayette residency is sponsored by the Office of Intercultural Development, Landis Community Outreach Center, foreign languages and literatures department, women’s studies program, Nia multicultural women’s support group, Association of Black Collegians, arts group Writing Organization Reaching Dynamic Students, David A. Portlock Black Cultural Center, and Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Easton.