Cincinnati Sounds: Exploring a City's Spaces, Places, and Sounds

This event will feature a screening of the documentary, Cincinnati Sounds: Exploring a Musical City’s Spaces, Places, and Sounds, moderated conversation and storytelling, and a shared meal of local cuisine.

Cincinnati, particularly its West End, is a significant American cultural marker as Black Americans traversed US southern and northern geographical, political, and racial borders during the Great Migration. The film documents our community-based week-long exploration of American musics, sounds, geographies, and landmarks––some carefully preserved and curated, others remaining only in public memory. It weaves together workshop highlights and autoethnographic reflections of a newly formed community including interdisciplinary scholars from across the US and internationally in anthropology, English, ethnomusicology, folklore, geography, musicology, performance, urban community planning, Cincinnati artists, and local ambassadors. Community members detail experiences that weave multivalent narratives of urban cultures, histories, practices, and values.

Sounds and musics of American historical and cultural landmarks––the Royal Theatre, Seven Hills Neighborhood House,…