Flow, An African American Arts Experience is returning this October with a cross-venue subscription events series.
Flow began in 2020 and aims to cultivate an environment for more Black-centered arts on a local and national level by building an audience that appreciates Black artistry.
The event series, hosted by ArtWave — Cincinnati’s primary source for arts funding — will feature a Flow Pass subscription presented by Fifth Third Bank. For $200, passholders will have access to five events celebrating Black artistry, culture and creativity, as well as subscriber-only gatherings.
The event series kicks off on Oct. 5, with a viewing of Gee Horton’s “Coming of Age” mural series on Vine Street as a part of BLINK 2024. The event features an artist talk as well as a walk around the neighborhood with BLINK directors to preview various in-progress murals.
Following the kickoff, the second Flow Pass event, Simply The Best: The Music of Tina Turner, will be held on Jan. 17 with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Passholders will experience five decades of Turner’s music during this special show.
On March 11, passholders can enjoy a performance by Step Afrika! at the Aronoff Center for the Arts. The dance company is one of the top ten African American dance companies in the U.S., and will be performing it’s signature work, The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence.
The fourth Flow Pass event is an artist talk with Charles Gaines on his project, The American Manifest. This chapter of the project focuses on the role of Cincinnati’s waterways in the Transatlantic slave trade and will feature an outdoor art installation at Smale Riverfront Park, an exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum and original musical composition by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. This event will occur this summer, with a date and time to be announced.
The final Flow Pass event, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, presented by Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, will take place on June 19. The performance tells the story of a hair braiding shop in Harlem owned by a group of West African immigrant women.
“The return of Flow Pass is another opportunity for us to cultivate and grow a core audience that is asking for more Black-centered arts created and presented by local and national partners,” Alecia Kintner, ArtsWave CEO and President, said in a press release.
Flow Pass subscriptions can be purchased at artswave.org/flow. For more information about this project, visit artswave.org.
