Lasana D. Kazembe, Ph.D. is a scholar of Urban Education, Global Black Arts Movements, and the Black Intellectual Tradition. His research interests intersect Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, the Arts and Arts-based Learning, and social & racial justice in education. He has published numerous scholarly articles on education, race, culture, and history.
A Poet and Spoken Word artist, Dr. Kazembe has performed at colleges and universities throughout the U.S., and venues in Canada, and Africa. As ... view more »
Lasana D. Kazembe, PhD is an award-winning poet, educator, and critical Black scholar whose work examines culture, race, history, the arts, and the social context of education. In his research and teaching, Dr. Kazembe explores the ‘lost-found’ sacred epistemologies (i.e., history, expressive forms, imaginaries, folklore, futurities) of Africana peoples and situates them as sites of memory, critical pedagogy, cultural production, and social action. A major aspect of his work examines the history, political thrusts, aesthetic foundations, and audiopolitics of 20th century Global Black Arts Movements. Dr. Kazembe is an Associate Professor in the IUPUI School of Education, and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the IUPUI Africana Studies Program. He also served as inaugural Artist-in-Residence for The Cabaret (a performing arts venue in Indianapolis, IN).
A committed Culture Worker, Dr. Kazembe develops and facilitates learning enrichment opportunities that intersect education, creative arts, and Africana history & culture. His aesthetic sensibilities are steeped in the deep, rich, and sentient genealogy of the African Diasporic experience. With and within this space, he inspects, reflects, and leverages history, memory, meanings, traditions, culture, art, and accumulated folk experiences. His work is interlaced with storied traditions found in jazz, blues, spirituals, Hip Hop and the deep well of Africana/Black American cultural traditions spoken and written.
His newest project is, Paul Robeson: Man of the People, a jazz poetry opera that explores the life, activism, and artistic legacy of Paul Robeson.
“The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre”: The Travelin’ Genius of Richard Wright from Natchez to Chicago – A Blues Poetry Opera is a live, multimedia theatrical presentation chronicling the story of Mr. Wright from his migration from Mississippi to the decade he spent in Chicago from 1927-1937. The performance involves a ten-piece ensemble that features spoken word poetry, singing, saxophone, piano, upright bass and drums. Musical interludes enhance and animate the 90-minute, six-movement opera. The work derives its title from a lost short story published by a 15-year-old Richard Wright, and aims to contextualize Mr. Wright alongside culturally significant aspects of history including the Great Migration, the evolution of Black literature and protest writing, protracted struggles against White supremacy and anti-Black racism, the Black Freedom Movement and Black Radical Tradition. The blues poetry opera is an imaginative assertion of how Richard Wright attempted to understand and navigate the world in which he was thrust and the world that was thrust upon him. In its artful projection, the presentation attempts to interrogate his history and complicate his gaze as a Black man in a White-dominated world where the very idea of Black people is viewed and situated as threatening, subaltern, and problematic. From Wright\'s gaze, however, there is the quest; the assertion; the hunger to be and find himself in spite of the White gaze, the menace of dubious democracy, and anti-Black racism. The presentation, a poetic mediation on Wright, aligns with creative and political themes featured so prominently in his work – most especially his commentary on the beauty, pain and complexity of the Black experience in the United States.
A Look Back at Indy Jazz Guitarist Wes Montgomery – IBJ interview with Lasana D. Kazembe & Rob Dixon, Indianapolis Business Journal Podcast (aired January 30, 2023).
Honoring Juneteenth; Teaching Juneteenth, The Equity Experience Leadership Group Podcast (aired June 20, 2021).
In the fifth installment of Words & Music: An audio series exploring the life and work of Indiana writers, Jim Walker talks with poet Lasana Kazembe and jazz musician Rob Dixon who collaborated to create the multi-media performance, Firedance. Both artists are based in Indianapolis. Kazembe, a professor at IUPUI, is The Cabaret\'s inaugural Artist in Residence. Firedance is an original work Kazembe and Dixon created and performed at the Cabaret in May of 2022. This multimedia, multi-disciplinary event featured live musical performance with storytelling, dance, and live painting on stage. This work drew on the African cultural concept of Serudj-Ta, meaning: to repair and remake the world - the restorative practice by which we replenish the world in order to make it more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
