
Contact
Poplar Grove Community's Zoot Suit Night
Special | 3m 4sVideo has Closed Captions
Poplar Grove Community is hosting Zoot Suit Night, a 1940s themed event on June 10th.
Zoot Suit Night is a 1940s themed evening of dancing and music, coinciding with the 80-year anniversary of the Zoot Suit Riots that came to symbolize unity and action against racial and social inequality. Community Activist Daniel Tuutau (Two-Taow) is here with more details.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Contact is a local public television program presented by PBS Utah
Contact
Poplar Grove Community's Zoot Suit Night
Special | 3m 4sVideo has Closed Captions
Zoot Suit Night is a 1940s themed evening of dancing and music, coinciding with the 80-year anniversary of the Zoot Suit Riots that came to symbolize unity and action against racial and social inequality. Community Activist Daniel Tuutau (Two-Taow) is here with more details.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
How to Watch Contact
Contact is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
(bright music) - Zoot Suit Night is a 1940s themed evening of dancing and music, coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the zoot suit riots that came to symbolize unity and action against racial and social inequality.
Community activist Daniel Tuutau is here with the details.
Hi, Daniel, and you are wearing a zoot suit.
- I am, I am.
(Mary laughs) - So tell us why you're organizing the event.
- Well, a while back, I came to the realization there's 2 ways to have a nice neighborhood.
1 is to move to a nice neighborhood, and 2 is to work on your own until it gets better, and I can't afford to move, so I had to go with option 2.
So my background is in performing arts, in music, dance, theater, and so I'm using my skillset to sort of create events within my neighborhood to try to sort of create community and bring people together.
So I started last year with Park Performances, with some little concerts at my local park, and this year I've expanded to create a new event called Zoot Suit Night, which is a chance for, you know, like you said, for the community to come together and enjoy dance and music.
- And you're in the Poplar Grove community?
- Yeah, yeah.
So I live there in Poplar Grove, which is, most people don't know, it's nestled right between Glendale and Rose Park in that area of the west of Salt Lake.
And so I started off just living there for about a decade, a little longer than that, and recently I became the community council chair, just trying to do my part to sort of build up the community.
- And, like, you're doing it.
And tell us about the zoot suit.
- So the zoot suit is a characteristic men's cut suit.
It's known for having the high waist, wide legs, tight collar, you know, peg leg design, long coats, wide lapels, big jacket.
It was popular in the 1930s and 40s, specifically amongst the working class and minority groups, but it also had a big sort of resurgence during the 1990s.
A lot of people probably know it from the 1994 movie The Mask with Jim Carrey.
That made it kind of popular again.
- Yeah.
And so is this free and open to the public?
- Yeah, so this event is completely free.
You know, we designed it as a way of just having the community come together.
We're gonna have, you know, a lot of great stuff going on at this event.
- Well, I'm so glad you're doing it, and thanks for being a good community member, okay.
- My pleasure.
Thanks so much.
- And if you'd like to know more about that upcoming Poplar Grove Community Zoot Suit Night, it's June 10th from 7 to 10 at the Poplar Grove Park.
Go to parkperformances.com.
That's parkperformances.com.
I'm Mary Dickson.
Thanks for watching Contact.
(bright music) - Local events, arts, culture.
It's what brings us together.
Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.
Here on Contact, we introduce you to local events and organizations that serve your neighborhood.
If you work for a nonprofit and would like to appear on our show, please visit pbsutah.org/contact.
Support for PBS provided by:
Contact is a local public television program presented by PBS Utah