EMBRACING OUR ROOTS: ROOTED AND RISING -A conversation with Mary Moore Easter and Leslie Parker
Embracing Our Roots consists of conversations where young arts leaders will join our elders in conversation about their histories of significant milestones in Minnesota’s history within their community. The series is a collaboration between More Than a Single Story, The Givens Collection of Literature and Life, and In Black Ink to highlight conversations between Black artists across generations.
Panelist Bios
Mary Moore Easter, author of five poetry collections and a memoir, continues to comment on her world, inner and outer. Her most recent collection, Dancing on the Precipice, a good description of not falling over the edge, chronicles healing to dance, travel, family, politics and new love following core-opening surgery at 85. Honors: Cave Canem Fellow; recipient of book and dance awards; Carleton College’s Mary Easter Dance Studio in honor of her legacy in that place. Poetry Memberships ongoing: Penchant, Twin Cities Black Women Writing and others.
Leslie Parker was born in the traditional homeland of Dakhóta and Ojibwe and raised in the Rondo neighborhood which led her to refining her dance practice in her second art home base of the Lenape people (aka Brooklyn, NY). Parker, a dance artist, educator, performer, improviser, organizer, choreographer, and director is a 2017 Bessie award recipient, a Jerome Hill Artist
Fellow 2019-2021, 2022 Mcknight Choreographer Fellow and 2024-2026 Jerome@Camargo artist-in-residence in Cassis, France. She holds a MFA from Hollins University in partnership with Dresden Frankfurt Company and Kunstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt, Germany. She lectured, choreographed, improvised, and taught dance at Spelman College, Florida State
University, TU Dance Center, University of Michigan, Sarah Lawrence College, University of Minnesota, Alabama School of Fine Arts, Keshet Dance School and Performing Arts, Carleton College, Point Park University, Temple University, and Hollins University. Parker has worked and studied with local, national and international choreographers globally.