Orange County

ZORA! Festival announces 2022 lineup: What to expect

EATONVILLE, Fla. — ZORA! Festival organizers announced programming for next year’s celebration on Friday.

Themed as “Celebrations for the Generations,” organizers said the 33rd annual festival will kick off beginning with “Gathering and Gabbing: Zora Neale Hurston Book Club,” featuring author Valerie Boyd, on the birthdate of the event’s namesake on Friday, Jan. 7.

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The 2022 month-long ZORA! Festival continues through to Sunday, Jan. 30, with weekday highlights that include the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts opening exhibition “Afrofuturism in the Visual Realm”; Art in Eatonville; Yards and Gardens Eatonville; Africa-America Women’s Forum; Afrofuturism Conference; and the ninth annual ZORA! STEM Conference for Middle School Students.

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The 2022 festival will also mark the return of the daytime Outdoor Festival of the Arts at its new location, “The Preserve in Eatonville,” which is a natural habitat that has a historic and literary connection to Zora Neale Hurston. Organizers said there will be main stage performances by George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Pieces of a Dream, and jazz trumpeter Tom Browne.

New this year are “Traditions” Weekend: Middle and High School Students Celebrate Black Music Month from June 17-18, and “HATitude! Cultural Flair,” an African and African American design event on Oct. 29.

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Sarah Wilson

Sarah Wilson, WFTV.com

Sarah Wilson joined WFTV Channel 9 in 2018 as a digital producer after working as an award-winning newspaper reporter for nearly a decade in various communities across Central Florida.