The Performing Arts Series is proud to receive the 2024 Diversity Event of the Year award from Miami University for the Electric Root Festival. The recognition shines a light on the event for its mission of sharing the joy that Black arts can bring to everyone and its collaboration bringing students, faculty, staff, and community members into the planning process supporting a strong sense of ownership for everyone involved.

The power of the Electric Root Festival comes from its grassroots development. It was conceived during the pandemic when the Performing Arts Series developed the Black Arts Initiative. Zooming Black artists into classrooms, meetings and events across campus to talk with members of the Miami community about political and social issues of the day through their perspectives as Black artists. Patti Liberatore, Performing Arts Series Director and Gwenmarie Ewing, Series Assistant Director envisioned the initiative would one day culminate in an in-person Black arts and culture festival at Miami to celebrate and center these artists and their world-changing ideas. The realization of that vision was the Electric Root Festival, an arts and culture event for all celebrating Black joy with radical hospitality. 

Key partners from the start included the students and staff of Miami Activities and Programming who helped implement the event, faculty collaborators who integrated the festival into their classrooms, and the Electric Root artist collective who started the journey with us—Jono Gasparro, Shariffa Ali and Michael Mwenso. 

The Electric Root Festival’s second year saw an even deeper involvement of campus partners. Professors used the festival’s key tenet of Radical Hospitality throughout the semester to teach anti-racism and involve students in preparing activities and promotional items for the festival. Undergraduate research projects were developed around Radical Hospitality and Miami students presented on the topic at regional and national conferences. The artists of Electric Root were invited to be featured speakers at the Across the Divide diversity conference. Local Black artists joined the festival line-up and participation increased across the board. 

The festival will take over the Oxford Uptown Parks for the third year on May 4th, 2024 and continues to grow with a new artist-in-residence C. Anthony Bryant who will be directing the first Electric Root Festival Community Choir. Through a newly formed Radical Hospitality Community of Practice, a group of faculty are developing academic writing to bring the core tenets of the festival to new academic settings, while the Performing Arts Series works to make the event sustainable for years to come.

Learn more about the festival through the website electricrootfestival.com.