Former leaders of the African American Arts Institute at IU reflected on 50 years of performance and administration during a small conference Nov. 17 at the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center in the Grand Hall.
Lillian Dunlap became co-director of the AAAI in 1974 when she moved to IU. She was one of the first graduate students recruited to help form the institute. When looking back on her recruitment, Dunlap cites Herman C. Hudson’s persistence for her inclusion in the AAAI’s ensembles.
An influential figure at IU, Hudson is credited with founding the Department of Afro-American Studies and helping establish all three of the ensembles that made up the AAAI: the African American Dance Ensemble, the African American Choral Ensemble and the IU Soul Revue. His key role in developing these programs was bringing in Black scholars from other universities with both knowledge and experience in their fields.
“Dr. Hudson always wanted to accomplish a lot,” Dunlap said.
When Dunlap came to the university, the ensembles had just been formed. She was not a student at IU at the time. Instead, she was studying at Defiance College. It was Hudson who convinced her to come work at the culture center to help him form and develop the institute.
Hudson then looked for a few candidates who would be able to develop and run the ensembles. That is how he crossed paths with Portia K. Maultsby, a graduate from the University of Wisconsin. At the time, Maultsby was just about to take her exams for her doctorate when Hudson asked her to come to IU to form and develop the Soul Revue.
Some administrators had negative views of what they thought it would be," Maultsby said when speaking of the general attitude toward Black events on campus.
Charles Sykes, a graduate from the Jacobs School of Music and technical supervisor and horn coach for the IU Soul Revue, also spoke at the gathering Nov. 17. He served as the longest-running executive director of the AAAI with 34 years under his belt.
“We already had a system in place,” Sykes said. “What we had to do was use it and manipulate it each year.”
Sykes recounted the trouble the institute had filling its staffing positions. Working at the institute was too heavy a load for one person, which led to a single position being split up between three people. Later, the university administration forced them to stop using this hiring practice. Three decades after he first took over as executive director, Sykes still looks back on the process of taking over all three ensembles, along with many other responsibilities in the institute.
“That’s why it’s so important to have Black and minority administrators who can mentor you,” Maultsby said. “I wouldn’t have gotten that from the music school.”
During their conversation, Skyes, Maultsby and Dunlap contemplated how the institute could evolve more in the future, including establishing the AAAI beyond the scope of the three ensembles.
“The Arts Institute from the very beginning has been designed to be growing and being much more than just the performing ensembles,” Dunlap said.
