Black Art 2026 Performance Highlights
- 4 minutes ago
- 5 min read
By: Luigi Avila
Edited By: Daysha Campbell
Photo credits: Yearbook and CADY Studios.
Brilliant Black Art on Display
The annual Black Art Showcase took place on January 23rd & January 24th, 2026 at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts' DuBow Theatre. The yearly event was created by the Black Art club, where each arts area at DA is represented. Black Art creates pieces to represent this year’s theme of Homecoming while discussing black history and culture.
The environment inside the DuBow Theatre before the show started was lively. Alumni, teachers, and other DA stakeholders were gathering and socializing. While they waited for the show to start, they talked about their own time in the club, past DA performances, and upcoming DA performances. As the showcase began, the audience interacted with each performance by singing along, clapping, and standing up during the end of performances. They showed their support in this young community of artists.
Highlights of Each Arts Area
Throughout the night, a variety of arts areas showcased this year's theme: Homecoming. Each art area demonstrated solo performances and collaborations.
Vocal
Vocal opened the show with the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson, a lyricist and composer from Jacksonville. James Weldon Johnson was an African American author, educator, diplomat, and civil rights leader who served as the first Black executive secretary of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). "Lift Every Voice and Sing," is widely known as the Black National Anthem, an anthem, of hope, resilience, and freedom. All audience members stood up with respect as the vocal students and audience sang together. The Vocal students' voices intertwined effortlessly throughout the song.
The impact of Lift Every Voice was strong as Aqua Bynum, a junior in Musical Theatre, said, “A guy stood up immediately and it was followed by the entire audience standing and honoring the moment. It just felt very powerful and everyone came very easily and was respectful to recognize the show.”
Dance
Dance followed right after Vocal with a Hip-Hop routine. The crowd recognized a lot of songs that were being played (“Lollipop” by Lil Wayne and “Don’t Tap That Glass” by Tyler the Creator). They shouted compliments, while clapping and singing along.
Jamonie Williams is a Senior in Dance, and is the Director for Black Art Dance. When asked why she selected the songs performed during the show, she answered, “I was thinking about representation, emotion, and truth. I wanted music that honored black experiences and allowed us to tell a story that felt real and powerful but also fun.”
Creative Writing
Creative Writing performed after Dance. One of their pieces was titled “Buffalo Soldiers”, a military piece with very intense emotions; it held audiences captive, and had the crowd cheering with the talent showcased, by the end of the performance.
Senior Creative Writer and Black Art Director Giana Bradshaw explained why she selected Buffalo Soldiers to perform. “When we were narrowing down the themes and topics of our potential pieces to do, we still wanted to include homecoming topics with very powerful meanings, and the military was a topic that kept coming up, especially among the black community.” She continued by explaining, “We often talked about a racist military, and we wanted to turn that around kind of using the idea Black Buffalo Soldiers, who were real people.” Giana then said, “We wanted to talk about the idea of coming home and the military movements using imagery of a marching band and music to convey the hard journey of coming home."
Piano
“Misty” by Ella Fitzgerald was performed by Jahneen Alexander, a junior in Piano. During the piece she sang beautifully, she was accompanied by Thaddeus Diogene on piano, Caden McCloud on upright bass, Dakari Butts on drums, and Matthew Coleman on saxophone. This shows that no matter what arts area an individual is in, they can showcase their talent in a diverse set of ways.
Olivia Benard, a junior in Cinematic Arts, attended the show and expressed her feelings of the piece by saying, “The piece was beautiful; it made me proud of [Jahneen] because she is a classmate of mine for years. She is such a sweetheart and watching her perform. I'm not surprised with how talented she is.”
Step
The Step Team performed “3, 2, 1” while wearing the colors green, yellow, and red to distinguish the step team during the performance. They used coordination and moves to entertain the crowd and get the audience excited and energized, receiving cheers for all their moves.
Eve Parker, a junior in performance theatre, found the Step performance to be very impactful; she said, “I really liked it. I love step in general, but it had a nice vibe to it, I think their volume was nice and loud, and it was just one of those performances that I could feel it in my chest.”
Cinematic Arts
Cinematic Arts did a great job representing the Jacksonville community in the showcase. They had a documentary titled “The Salon”, where they featured an entrepreneur's journey into owning her own Salon. This helped expand the showcase beyond the DA community.
“I decided to make the documentary because Jamie [The entrepreneur] was my hairdresser at the time and her story really inspired me to showcase it at the show,” said Mya Smith, a junior in Cinematic Arts, and the Black Art Director for film.
Collaborations
Throughout the night, several collaborations took place, with a standout performance between the orchestra and musical theatre. The Orchestra played the Micheal Jackson instrumental while Joseph Wright sang the lyrics. The audience clapped and sang along. This musical theatre moment proved to be one of the most memorable of the evening. In collaboration, they performed two Micheal Jackson songs, “Human Nature” and “Smooth Criminal”. During “Smooth Criminal”, two other performers came on stage to support the performances and add to it with choreography and additional energy. This was one of the most energetic pieces of the night.
One of the audience members, Sterlind Williams, a freshman in Visual Arts, described the Michael Jackson performance as, “Very musically impressive with the orchestra performing and with the performer singing and dancing along.” They then added, “It impacted me by helping me appreciate the way that the same music can be translated into multiple forms. I just really enjoyed it and think it was a great addition to the show overall.”
Black Art 2027
This show was a success, a beautiful victory for Black Art with the stunning performances, collaborations that took audiences breath away, and student talent that reigned beyond the stage and the school campus.
Don’t miss the Black Art Show at DA in 2027, where we will be taken to Eatonville. Eatonville is a historic town near Central Florida, known as the first all-Black town in the United States. Eatonville is also historic because it was the birthplace to people like of Zora Neale Hurston, a pioneering American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker central to the Harlem Renaissance.