Tommy Washbush
A modern gray stairwell with stained glass windows in geometric pattern and an art display on a big wall adjacent to the stars.
The stairwell leading down to the theater at the Center for Black Excellence And Culture.
When The Center for Black Excellence and Culture opens its doors on West Badger Road on May 6, there will be new performing arts and gallery spaces in Madison that address what the organization calls a “decades-long absence” of space to "celebrate and advance Black culture.”
“We’ve always had Black art in this community,” says Dana Pellebon, the Center’s performing arts coordinator. “This will be a space where we are no longer scattered. It’s going to be a space that feels like us, that looks like us, that represents the culture that has been operating grassroots for years.”
The Center is opening after years of planning by Madison’s Black leaders, who helped raise more than $32 million from roughly 1,300 donors for the effort. Construction and furnishing took nearly two years. The Center hosts a library, Black studies reading room, recording studio, and women’s empowerment center. The building’s central gallery, display spaces, 280-seat fine arts theater and smaller black box theater are also ready to welcome artists from around the city, the state and the broader Black diaspora.
The May 6 grand opening event at the Center will feature a dance performance by The House Urban Arts Initiative Inc., a Black and brown youth-focused dance and theater organization, at 5:30 p.m. in the black box theater. Theola Carter, Anthony Brown, DLO, G Stylez, Rob Dz and Pellebon herself are also slated to perform.
The Center’s theaters, says Pellebon, will be spaces where Black artists and organizations can rehearse, perform and collaborate. “It is meant to be a great repository,” says Pellebon. “A sustainable, centralized space for Black artists to connect with each other and the community.”
“Once the Center opens, we are booking, we are ready to go,” she adds, noting that the Children’s Theater of Madison, Whoopensocker and Loud’ N Unchained have already expressed interest.
Performances beyond the grand opening are yet to be announced: “We are curating, working through options, and being very intentional about showcasing the full range of Black arts, from comedy to dance to theater and poetry,” says Pellebon.
Pellebon is focusing on performances that tell positive stories.
“We want to do stories about joy, about love, about everyday life. There is a tendency in stories about people of color to focus on struggle,” she says. “We live in trauma, but we don’t always need our trauma played out on stage. Instead, we want to see our joy, our mundane.”
Tommy Washbush
The theater in the Center for Black Excellence And Culture.
The Center has a main theater, above, and a black box theater.
In addition to the theater spaces, the Center houses several galleries for visual artists, including photography, prints, paintings, drawings and mixed media. The galleries, which include a central gallery, will host rotating exhibitions.
Annik Dupaty, the Center’s visual arts coordinator, says she will initially focus on 2D work throughout the galleries. 3D projects, like sculpture and pottery, will come later.
The central gallery’s inaugural exhibition, Neo Black Renaissance: A Vision in One’s Mind, will be up in time for the grand opening and run through August.
The exhibition, says Dupaty, “is about how we, as Black people, see ourselves and how we want to be seen. Through this exhibition, we can take back power to define ourselves and tell our own stories through the visual arts.”
Permanent visiting hours for the central gallery have not yet been announced.
Exhibiting artists from Madison include brothers Comfort Wasikhongo and Odalo Wasikhongo, Marlon Banks and Brooklyn Doby. Artists Jessica Patterson (Chicago), Fatima Laster (Milwaukee), and Shalicia Johnson (Fitchburg) are also showing.
Dupaty says the central gallery is not a museum or a commercial gallery — “it is something in between.” Much of the art in the exhibitions will be for sale, and art collectors who wish to support Black artists are encouraged to make purchases. Though viewing without purchasing is also encouraged.
“It’s not just a beautiful jewelry box,” says Dupaty. “You can actually take home some of the jewels at the end of the exhibition.”
