Calendar

Following the style of the beloved one-woman holiday show Courtenay’s Cabaret: Home for the Holidays, Broadway stars Courtenay Collins (The Prom) and Terry Burrell (Ethel) will host free virtual get-togethers each week with songs, stories, and maybe a cocktail or two. We’re Still Here: A Virtual Cabaret will be streamed live on the Alliance’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.

Artist and master craftsman Joseph Tetteh-Ashong (Ghanaian, born 1947), also known as Paa Joe, is the most celebrated figurative coffin maker of his generation. In the tradition of figurative coffins—or abeduu adekai (which means “proverb boxes”)—the structures represent the unique lives of the dead.

This exhibition comprises a series of large-scale, painted wood sculptures commissioned in 2004 and 2005 that represent architectural models of Gold Coast castles and forts, which served as way stations for more than six million Africans sold into slavery and sent to the Americas and the Caribbean between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Once they were forced through the “Gates of No Return,” these enslaved people started an irreversible and perilous journey during which many died. Relying on traditional techniques and materials, Joe crafts his sculptures to represent vessels ferrying the dead into the afterlife that speak to spirits separated from bodies in trauma.

The High Museum of Art has been engaging visitors of all ages in participatory art experiences on the Carroll Slater Sifly Piazza since 2014. This year’s site-specific commission Murmuration was designed by the architectural firm SO – IL. Inspired by Atlanta’s reputation as the “city in a forest” and by the High’s proximity to the city’s abundant greenspace Piedmont Park, SO – IL has designed a 2,350-square-foot mesh canopy that evokes the environment of neighboring trees. This sculptural pavilion, complete with water pools, feeding stations, and perches, also reflects upon the loss of billions of birds in recent decades. Visitors are invited to “perch and nest” alongside the birds in this outdoor mesh canopy.

Throughout a career that dates back to the early ’80s, Will Downing has been among the steadiest and most productive artists in R&B. Not cut out to hop aboard commercial production trends for the sake of attaining mainstream success, he has tended to stick resolutely to a sophisticated and modern sound based in soul and jazz. He mixes refined originals with spirited covers, and combines his deep and rich voice with a restrained “song first” approach. Downing doesn’t have many major singles by the standard measurement — his version of Angela Bofill’s “I Try” is his only Top 20 Billboard R&B hit to date — but he has been a mainstay of the urban adult contemporary radio format. Six of his albums have reached the R&B Top 20.