Join us ! BLEMF 2025 offers a weeklong series of concerts & discussions, educational workshops for kids & adults, our 2nd annual BLEMF Community Showcase & New Neighbors Children’s Art Exhibit, and more. Both live & online. Explore our program & mark your calendars!
New Neighbors Children’s Art Exhibit
A partnership with Exodus Refugee Immigration
Evenings at FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
Throughout Festival Week, enjoy artwork created by children of families who have recently joined our community, having left their troubled homelands in other parts of the world. The exhibit will encircle the mainstage space at FAR Center from Opening Night, Sunday, May 25th through Thursday night, May 29th. We are thrilled to mount the New Neighbors exhibit for the second year in a row, and we are more grateful than ever to our new young friends for sharing their artwork with us and for contributing their talents to our festival. Thank you and welcome to Bloomington!
Live Concerts & Pre-Concert Talks
Pre-concert discussions take place prior in the same venue.
No tickets or RSVP to attend!
All in-person concert venues are handicap-accessible.
Live Concerts & Pre-Concert Discussions will be livestreamed and available for streaming soon after the festival. See this section below for how to view online.
Virtual Concerts & Public Screenings
All virtual concerts & preconcert discussions will be released for streaming on Opening Night, Sunday, May 25th, and will be available until June 7th. Enjoy them from the comfort of your own home, or from where ever you may be!
Or join us for free public screenings at 5:00 PM Tuesday-Thursday at the Monroe County Public Library (Kirkwood) Auditorium. Bring your friends & family along to enjoy the performances in a comfy & fun theater setting in the heart of downtown!
Schedule:
2:00pm - Workshop
Sword Fighting on the High Seas
A Pirate’s Life for Me!
Thrust and slash your way to victory in our most active and popular workshop, at BLEMF for a fourth year. With our favorite certified, professional stage combat instructor, kids and adults learn moves and postures, get comfortable with basic dueling choreography, and engage in battle with a partner. History tells us that Black mariners—men escaped from slave ships who sought the freedom of life on the water—sailed and fought heartily as part of the pirate crew, bringing our fascination with pirates and sword fighting in line with our festival theme. If you dare to enter the pirate’s den for this seafaring adventure, you get to keep your own (foam!) sword to vanquish your foes at home or in distant lands!
Led by Andrés X. López
Workshop runs 2:00pm-4:00pm
Theatre Building
Movement Studio - A350
Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center
275 N. Eagleson Avenue
Register Here For Sword Fighting
5:00pm - Public Screening with Pre-Concert Discussion
THE New York Baroque Dance Company
Francis Johnson's New Cotillions, in Honor of Our Illustrious Guest General Lafayette
(New York, NY) Credited as the leader of the Philadelphia School of composers, Francis Johnson (1792-1844) was the first African American to publish sheet music, producing a catalog of more than two hundred pieces; he was the first Black musician and possibly the first American musician to tour Europe with a band; and one of the first musicians to participate in integrated public concerts, all in the face of rampant and aggressive discrimination. At the peak of his renown in the fall of 1824, Johnson was given the high-profile commission to create new dances for the Marquis de Lafayette’s 1824–1825 tour of America as “Guest of the Nation.” Multifaceted dancer and choreographer Julia Bengtsson and dance researcher Alan Jones lead The New York Baroque Dance Company in a celebration of this anniversary, reconstructing and performing Johnson’s “New Cotillions” with a program that showcases the “Pas de châle,” Spanish dance, a hornpipe, and the 19th-century minuet and waltz.
Pre-Concert Discussion screened at the start of the program
Monroe County Public Library — Downtown
Auditorium
303 E. Kirkwood Avenue
7:00pm - Live Concert
6:15pm - Pre-Concert Discussion
The Lisette Project
A Song’s Journey from Haiti & Back
(Ithaca, NY & Oakland, CA) Inspired by the history of a popular song written in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) that endured across centuries and continents, this deeply researched program explores how the melodies and lyrics of “Lisette quitté la plaine” underwent significant changes in the midst of the Haitian Revolution, accompanying migrants to the United States and specifically to New Orleans and reflecting their lived experiences. Coupled with long forgotten arias, duets, anthem parodies, and folk music, this lecture recital traces Black liberation in Haiti and the United States through music written at pivotal moments in history, following “Lisette” back to modern Haiti in the early twentieth century, where it was mobilized as a symbol of Haitian pride and resistance during American occupation. With internationally renowned singers, baritone John Bernard Cerin and soprano Michele Kennedy, and keyboardist and esteemed musicologist Nicholas Mathew, this beautiful and stimulating program will be an experience to remember!
Pre-Concert Discussion with Jean Bernard Cerin & Nicholas Mathew of The Lisette Project and Rebecca Dirksen, ethnomusicologist & specialist on Haitian music & culture
FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
505 W. 4th Street
