Celebrate spring at Pinkster Festival
at Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow

Dancing, drumming, dramatic vignettes at Sunday, May 17, event

SLEEPY HOLLOW, NY (April 28, 2009) - Inspired by the grand cross-cultural springtime celebrations jointly created by Dutch settlers and enslaved Africans during colonial times, the Philipsburg Manor community will host its annual Pinkster Festival on Sunday, May 17, from noon-6 p.m.

Pinkster features dancing, drumming, African folktales, and cooking demonstrations. Musical performers will include a roaming fiddler and a player of the kora, which is a traditional West African instrument.

Drumming demonstrations will be led by Maxwell Kofi Donkor, a Ghanaian native and renowned drummer who is also an award-winning sculptor and art educator.

Kofi has shared the stage with drummers such as Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, Sikiru, Camara, and Babatunde Olatunji and his Drums of Passion.

"Drumming is part of me. I love it. I leave strengthened by the spirit of the drum," said Kofi.

Other Pinkster performance highlights include storytelling by Joyce Gilliam Brown and African Colonial dance by Judith Samuel and the Children of Dahomey.

Insight into the roots of African cuisine are also part of the day. Culinary historian Michael Twitty will talk about the history of African food, and Frederick Douglass Opie, author of Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America, will speak and sign books at 5 p.m.

"We've put together an exciting, packed day of festivities for Pinkster, touching on all aspects of African cultural expression in the colonial era," said Thom Thacker, site director of Philipsburg Manor.

Besides the special performances, ongoing activities include demonstrations of coopering and open-hearth cooking, crafts, games, plus tours of the working gristmill and manor house.

Traditional West Indian and African-Ameican cuisine will be available for purchase throughout the day. Tickets for the event are available online at http://www.hudsonvalley.org/.

During the colonial era, Pinkster was a joyous, festive occasion that celebrated the arrival of spring. For the African community riven by enslavement, it was a profound occasion that offered a chance for family members and friends, many of whom were split off and spread out from each other, to come together.

"It was a chance for people, especially those forced to toil in rural, isolated areas, to get together, to see their own relatives and friends," said Mr. Thacker.

Pinkster was also unusual in that both Africans and Europeans took part in the festivities, which featured some elements of role reversal among the races. The enslaved community, for example, would "roast" their white owners during the festival. At Philipsburg Manor's Pinkster Festival, one of the day's highlights is the Pinkster parade, which takes place at 1 p.m.

Before the parade and later in the afternoon will be two "Grand Events," theatrical presentations that dramatize the pageantry of colonial Pinkster celebrations. The first "Grand Event" illustrates the good-natured, competitive side of the Festival as the Pinkster King, Kwajo, uses wordplay in a game of tall tales as he squares off against a local tenant farmer, Mr. Davenport. The final "Grand Event" asks for visitors to help elect next year's Pinkster leader.

"Pinkster" comes from the Dutch word for Pentecost and was originally a Dutch spring holiday that combined religious and secular traditions. But despite the holiday's Dutch origins, Africans in New York and New Jersey were so successful at incorporating their own cultures into the celebration that by the early 1800s Pinkster was actually considered an African-American holiday.

The Pinkster Festival is sponsored by Consolidated Edison Company of New York. Admission to Philipsburg Manor is $12 for adults; $10 for seniors; $6 for children 5-17; and free for children under 5 and HHV members. Philipsburg Manor is at 381 North Broadway (Route 9) in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. For information: 914-631-3992, http://www.hudsonvalley.org/.