The Embrace fine art fair is back for a second year. Legendary pop singer Roberta Flack will perform on opening day, South African jazzman Abdullah Ibrahim will play a concert, and poet/performer Sekou Sundiata will preside over lunch at Pascal's restaurant, the famous meeting place of civil rights leaders.

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RELATED LINK: • National Black Arts Festival offers a real link to roots National Black Arts Festival stories: National Black Arts Festival offers a real link to roots  Art fair to enliven NBAF lineup again

Those are a few of the highlights of this year's National Black Arts Festival, which runs July 20-29 in more than a dozen venues around Atlanta.

A thread running through the entire festival this year is DNA testing, which has grown in popularity as a way to trace black family heritage to African regions and sometimes to tribes. African Ancestry, a Washington, D.C., firm that has traced the roots of Oprah Winfrey and Henry Louis Gates Jr., among others, will offer tests to festivalgoers at a variety of locations for a reduced fee of $250, said festival executive producer Stephanie Hughley.

NBAF officials have been gathering samples from celebrities such as baseball legend Hank Aaron and Atlanta hip-hop artist Antwan " Big Boi" Patton. The revelation of where in Africa these and other celebrities' ancestors lived will take place during the festival.

Other highlights:

• True Colors Theatre artistic chief and Broadway director Kenny Leon will direct "Ceremonies in Dark Old Men," a groundbreaking 1965 play by the late Lonne Elder III, an Americus native and Oscar nominee for the "Sounder" screenplay. It plays at the Balzer Theatre nightly, except July 23.

• Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks will talk with Atlanta playwright and novelist Pearl Cleage on the 14th Street Stage July 22 in between performances of one of her "365 Days/365 Plays," a nationwide series of short plays.

• Jennifer Holliday reprises her Tony Award-winning role as Effie in "Dreamgirls" at the Fox Theatre, July 19-29.

Last year's festival was attended by an estimated 280,000 people. For tickets and more information, go online to www.nbaf.org.