On Sunday, August 28, this series of public events celebrated the closing of the exhibition and the launch of the Praise House Project at Emory. Dr. Julie B. Johnson, chair of the Dance Department at Spelman College, and Tamara Williams, associate professor of dance at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, joined Charmaine Minniefield for a conversation about movement as medicine, embodied memory, and the ring shout as resistance. The conversation was followed by a performance by the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters from Darien, Georgia, led by seventh-generation shouter Griffin Lotson. The ten-member group has been performing professionally since 1980, educating and entertaining audiences around the United States with the "ring shout," a compelling fusion of counterclockwise dance movement, call-and-response singing, and percussion.
