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Places, Things and ATLiens to Watch in 2023
For the debut edition of Mo AYE-TEE-EL, we decided to devote the entire issue to highlighting notables that (we predict) will make an
impact on Atlanta this year. To that end, we hit up a bunch of our favorite writers and thought leaders, and they offered up their picks for
some of the city’s most significant artists, organizations, events, trends and more. So, flip through, and dive in to see who and what you
need to keep your eyes, ears and other senses peeled for in 2023.
T he making of an art revival is underway — and it's going to be a big one if
Oronike Odeleye has anything to say about it. (Spoiler alert: She does.) As the
newly appointed artistic director of the National Black Arts Festival, Odeleye's
vision is to return the festival to its heyday; she's boldly frank about what it's going to
take to make that happen.
NABF entered Atlanta's cultural landscape in July 1988 and will be celebrating its 35th
anniversary this year. It was conceived as a biennial summertime event to celebrate
the best and brightest Black artists in visual art, literature, theater, dance, music and
beyond. In its early years, it hosted esteemed talent like Maya Angelou, Harry Belafonte
and Wynton Marsalis, among many others. For more than a decade, hundreds of artists
and attendees from across the globe converged on Atlanta for this nine-day celebration
of Black excellence that took place in venues all over the city.
When it started out, the event was largely funded by local and state government, as
well as foundations and corporate donors. The organization's budget was not as reliant
upon community/individual donors. Then, economic turbulence hit. Funding shifted and/
or disappeared, and NABF organizers had to get creative. The bigger, broader nine-day
festival was shortened to just a few days. Ultimately, it was transitioned to its current
schedule of programming spread through the year, a model that Odeleye plans to modify
to bring more visibility and impact as she and the NBAFteam work to build out the funding.
"NBAF has gotten a lot of flak over the years for not doing the festival, but my response
to people who always bring that up is: 'When was the last time you donated to do a
festival?"' says Odeleye, the former festival director for ONE Musicfest who has more
than 20 years of experience as an arts and entertainment administrator. "They didn't
stop doing the festival because they wanted to stop doing it. It'sjusta huge undertaking.
We really have to build toward having a funding base that supports it, an audience base
that supports it, a city and a state that support it in order to get it back up. ... I'm very
excited about the challenge of it."
Creatively, one of her top priorities will be stabilizing NBAF's programming schedule.
"Right now, we do a lot of programming to speak to a lot of the different artistic
disciplines, but all of the programs are one-off, happening randomly throughout the
year," she notes. "It makes it hard for our audience to know what to look to NBAF for.
They don't know exactly what it is that we're doing, when we're doing it and things
like that."
Odeleye and her team have selected Black History Month and Black Music Month
as starting points for an annual cadence of programming with hopes to gain traction
toward a bigger festival; these will be immersive, interactive and interdisciplinary one-
day events that Odeleye will build upon as NBAF works to grow its loyalty and capacity
back. But she's candid about the fact that her initiatives need support. "I tell everyone
that I feel really blessed to be in this position, and I'm excited about this job," she says,
"But, I didn't just get a new job, we all just got a new job. It's going to take all of us as a
community to help with this task.
"And, we're accepting all resources, help, money, funding — all the things — so that
we can build this back. It's a big lift, and we need to absolutely know our community is
behind us."
Mo AYE-TEE-EL | A Special Section
FEBRUARY 2023