In Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and New Orleans, women in masquerade carry the power and culture of the women before them, ensuring their histories live on in future generations. Through performances involving elaborate ornamentation, women create and use ornate suits to commemorate, uphold, and progress the role of women in cultural traditions on the continent of Africa and throughout the diaspora.

This program, presented in connection with the exhibition New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations, offers a fresh perspective on how women’s power and presence span the scope from silent architects shaping practice to influential leaders in cultural expression. Cherice Harrison-Nelson and Tribal Queen Bee will be joined by moderator Kristiana Rae Colón for this important conversation on the legacy of women across global masquerade arts.

Admission and registration for this event are free.

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NOTE: Registration guarantees you a seat until the beginning of the program. Standing room will be allowed.

Bios

Cherice Harrison-Nelson is an educator, artist, and arts administrator who co-founded and curated the former Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame. She is the co-editor of eleven publications and coordinator of numerous exhibitions and discussions focused on West African-inspired cultural traditions in New Orleans. She contributed to original, hand-beaded Carnival Day ceremonial attire, worn by her son and later acquired by the Smithsonian Institution, Anacostia Museum in Washington, DC. Production credits include the award-winning narrative short film, “Keeper of the Flame.” She is the recipient of several honors, including: Fulbright Scholarship to study at the University of Saint-Louis in Senegal and the University of Ghana at Accra, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Teacher of the Year, Mayor’s Arts Award, and 2016 United States Artist Fellowship. She approaches her art with the specific intent to engage observers through performance that simultaneously explores femininity, classism, and confining norms. She uses imagery from her family history, ancestral homeland, and personal experiences. To quote, “I am not masking when I debut my ceremonial attire on Carnival morning, I am revealing my authentic self, naked and rooted in the strength of my personal history. I cannot mask as myself.” She has a solo exhibition, Maroon Queen, on view through August 31, 2025, at the New Orleans African American Museum in the Historic Treme neighborhood.

Tribal Queen Bee was born Littdell S. Banister in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 5, 1934. She is the Tribal Queen of the Creole Wild West Tribe (hailing from Uptown New Orleans) and is the Senior actively masking Queen in the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian tradition. Tribal Queen Bee is 90 years old and started masking in 1973. After starting her six-year-old son, Honey, on the Indian path, Tribal Queen Bee joined the Creole Wild West tribe, where her son is now Flag Boy of the Tribe. Due to his young age, Queen Bee chaperoned Honey for three years as he traveled throughout the Black Masking Indian terrains. The Tribe’s Big Chief invited her to join the group because she was committed to the practice and consistently present in the culture’s circles, and thus began her journey as a Mardi Gras Indian. She later ascended to the position of Tribal Queen, which, as she explains…”It’s different from a Big Queen. A Big Queen is the Chief’s Queen and must always be next to the Chief. A Tribal Queen is over the entire Tribe.” Tribal Queen Bee and her son Flag Boy Honey have been masking for over fifty years.

Kristiana Rae Colón is a poet, playwright, actor, educator, producer, curator, creator of #BlackSexMatters, co-founder of the #LetUsBreathe Collective, and Writer/Producer on Showtime’s hit series The Chi. Her plays have been produced in London, New York, Chicago, and the USA. Kristiana’s collection of poems titled “promised instruments” won the inaugural Drinking Gourd Poetry Prize and was published by Northwestern University Press. Her play Tilikum won a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Play. Published plays include “Octagon” and “but i cd only whisper”. She appeared on the fifth season of the Home Box Office (HBO) Def Poetry Jam. Kristiana writes, produces, and organizes to cast spells for the embodiment of liberated futures.