An innovative style of partnership: Black Panther with the Seattle Symphony
Black Panther Community Advisory Board member Yusef Seevers leading a pre-concert Movement and Connectivity Workshop with audience participants on January 5, 2025.
Photo by James Holt
In honor of the Black Panther with the Seattle Symphony concerts that happened January 3–5, the Seattle Symphony partnered with several local community organizations and members — Arte Noir, Speak With Purpose, Wa Na Wari and Yusef Seevers — to create a Community Advisory Board (CAB), with the intention to thoughtfully engage and activate audiences who came to see the Marvel Studios film as accompanied by live orchestra.
Over the course of three planning meetings, the CAB dreamed up a wide-ranging offering of events for the community, including a free conversation and performance hosted by Seevers titled “A Life of Music: Conversation with Massamba Diop,” on Thursday, January 2, at Made Space Seattle. Events and activities were offered before the performances on January 3, 4 and 5, each exploring different subjects that coincided with the Black Panther film: an African Print Fashion Show with Ayo Collections; Youth and Afrofuturism-focused spoken word performances by Speak With Purpose scholars paired with a lecture by Myah Rose Paden, a frequent Seattle Symphony Pre-Concert Talk guest, mezzo-soprano and host on Jazz24 & KNKX; and a Movement and Connectivity workshop hosted by Seevers, with live dancing and drumming that engaged concert attendees in movement while introducing them to traditional West African rhythms.
In addition to these pre-concert performances, lobby activation included local Black Panther-themed art curated by Arte Noir, an Artists Market featuring craft vendors Avenue South, Bee’s Roots & Remedies, M. Curry Designs and Outsider Comics, a photobooth area curated by The Elite Collective, where attendees could walk away with physical and digital prints free of charge, and a looping video interview featuring Black Panther costume designer Ruth E. Carter speaking on her designs for the movie.
We also saw this project as an opportunity to connect with local community members in a more intentional way, realized via an Opening Night Afterparty that was catered by Gold Coast Ghal Kitchen and featured live performances from Gansango Music and Dance and DJ TOPSPIN aka BLENDIANA JONES.
The video below beautifully captures the partnership and collaboration that happened during this process, and serves as an example of the innovation that can occur with genuine and intentional engagement.