About the event

Join poet/dancer/choreographer Mary Moore Easter and dancer/choreographer Leslie Parker as they reflect on their experiences and perspectives on Minnesota’s Black dance community. Their insights on topics such as African dance forms, street dance in Rondo and in Minneapolis neighborhoods as well as modern and contemporary dance companies, will illustrate the many ways dance has helped shape identity for African American communities over the decades. Embracing our Roots: Rooted and Rising is a partnership between More Than a Single Story, The Givens Collection of African American Literature and Life, and the In Black Ink publishing arts initiative. Pertinent materials from the Givens Collection will be on display.

Embracing Our Roots: Rooted and Rising

Embracing Our Roots consists of monthly conversations where young arts leaders will join our elders in conversation about their histories of significant milestones in Minnesota’s literary history within their community. The series started with a collaboration between More Than a Single Story, Black Table Arts, and In Black Ink to highlight conversations between Black artists across generations.

About the speakers

Mary Moore Easter

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

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.

Event details

What: Embracing Our Roots: Rooted and Rising with Mary Moore Easter and Leslie Parker
When: Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026, 1-3 p.m.
Where: Elmer L. Andersen Library, Givens Conference Suite 120, 222 21st Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55455  More information and directions | The nearest parking lot is Lot 86. Visit the link for more information and parking rates