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Penn State College of Arts and Architecture
Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State

Dean B. Stephen Carpenter II and Michael Mwenso to hold encore ‘Meeting’ Sept. 20–24

Penn State College of Arts and Architecture Dean B. Stephen Carpenter II will return to a creative-to-creative conversation with artist-historian Michael Mwenso in the ninth episode of the virtual series “Meeting the Moment.”

The prerecorded discussion will be available to watch beginning at noon Monday, Sept. 20, and will stream on demand until noon Friday, Sept. 24. The event is free, but registration is required. Visit “Meeting the Moment” for more information. 

A grant from the University Park Student Fee Board helps make the program free of charge.

“Meeting the Moment” is the first event in the center’s “Up Close and Virtual” fall 2021 season. It also is part of the Center for the Performing Arts Fierce Urgency Festival, the center’s commitment to celebrating Black artists and sharing their stories, with a theme this season of “Hope-Resist-Heal.” Learn more about the festival. 

Carpenter is a professor of art education and African American studies. His research interests include professional development through art for pre-K–12 educators and the global water crisis as curriculum. His mixed-media assemblages, installations and performance artworks aim to confront and disrupt social, historical, cultural and political constructs. He introduced Mwenso on the first episode of “Meeting the Moment” in September 2020. 

As curator and events programmer at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Mwenso has shared the stage with Cécile McLorin Salvant, Jon Batiste, Aaron Diehl, Sullivan Fortner and Jamison Ross. He also leads the jazz-funk ensemble Mwenso and The Shakes.