Exploring Francis Johnson: Artists in Conversation

Hear from a visual and performing artists about how archival research on Black bandleader Frank Johnson shaped their creative practice.

Join artists Santé Johnson, Brent White, and Lauren Putty for a moderated conversation on how archival research shapes creative practice. Together, they explore how artists’ research questions overlap with — and diverge from — traditional academic inquiry, and how archives like HSP can better support artistic processes. The panel also reflects on the enduring power of Francis Johnson, whose life and music inspired The Arrival: Soirée Musicale and Dance Like It’s 1829. Through their recent projects, the artists discuss what makes Johnson such a compelling figure and how his legacy continues to spark new artistic vision.

Tickets include admission to the talk and the exhibit Changing Faces of Independence on view through April 24.

Historical Society of Pennyslvania members

Please visit here for Free member tickets.

We wish to provide complimentary tickets to current secondary, undergraduate, and graduate students. Please email us at programs@hsp.org and tell us where you are enrolled as a student and in what program.

Funding:

This program is made possible through a grant from the Philadelphia Funder Collaborative for the Semiquincentennial, a fund of the National Philanthropic Trust. Additional support for these exhibits and related programming is provided by the Lily Foundation.

About the Speakers:

Textile artist Santé Johnson created The Arrival: Soirée Musicale as part of a city-wide project Radical Americana organized by The Clay Studio. The work explores the life and music of musician, composer, and international band leader Francis Johnson, a member of Philadelphia’s 19th century Black community. Informed by archival research at both HSP and Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library, The Arrival: Soirée Musicale both depicts moments in the musician’s extraordinary career and draws attention to the vital contributions of the trades class of textile and embroidery workers.

Putty Dance Project will premiere, Dance Like It’s 1829, a dance and music project led by choreographer Lauren Putty White and Musician/composer Brent White. The new work celebrates the city’s shared history through movement — exploring how dance has always been a language for connection across race, class, and neighborhood, and how Philadelphians have found freedom, belonging, and joy through rhythm.

Inspired by the calls from the sheet music of the Lafayette Ball of Francis Johnson’s music and an early nineteenth-century lithograph that caricatured a Black ball in Philadelphia, Dance Like It’s 1829 begins there — not to reenact the past, but to uncover it. Through choreography, improvisation, live music, and storytelling, it focuses on the early Black assemblies of the 1820s and the music of Francis Johnson and William Appo — two of Philadelphia’s pioneering Black composers and bandleaders.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, founded in 1824, is one of the nation’s largest archives of historical documents. We are proud to serve as Philadelphia’s Library of American History, with over 21 million manuscripts, books, and graphic images encompassing centuries of US history. Through educator workshops, research opportunities, public programs, and lectures throughout the year, we strive to make history relevant and exhilarating to all. For more information, visit hsp.org.