EATONVILLE, Fla. – A weekslong festival honoring Eatonville author Zora Neale Hurston is underway.
The Zora! Festival is in its 35th year, educating residents and visitors on Hurston’s life and legacy.
“Her legacy is a phenomenon which has undergone remarkable development and expansion in recent decades, embracing among others, topics in ethnic identity, social interaction, feminist theory and cultural continuity,” the event’s website reads. “Her unique insights into folklore, performance and creative expression have invited new interpretation and inspired emulation, while the corpus of her own works has grown as a result of research and discovery.”
[Watch last year’s coverage below]
The festival kicks off with a birthday celebration filled with poetry, music and more. There will be other events throughout the month, leading up to an outdoor festival on Jan. 26-28 to wrap up the celebration and focus on family fun and a day of reflection.
Here is the schedule:
- Jan. 7 = “Happy Birthday Zora!”
- Jan. 20 = Opening Exhibition
- Jan. 21 = “Art-Ful” Eatonville
- Jan. 22 = Dinner & A Class With Chef Jenn
- Jan. 24 = Cultural Heritage Tourism Workshop
- Jan. 24-27 = Afrofuturism Conference
- Jan. 25 = Progressive Reception
- Jan. 26-28 = Outdoor Festival of the Arts
- Jan. 27 = An Evening Inspired By Zora
Hurston is the dazzling mind behind such literary classics as “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” “Mules and Men,” “Spunk” and “Dust Tracks on a Road,” a nonfiction piece which stands alone in a sea of stories.
Since 1990, over 1.5 million people have come to the mecca that made this modern artist for the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities.
To purchase your tickets or learn more about the festival, click here.
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