Wanda's Picks Radio Show: Rhodessa Jones speaks of The Ressurrection of SHE

Rhodessa Jones in The Resurrection of SHE opens at Brava Theatre in San Francisco, CA,
March 28-April 7, 2013.
http://www.brava.org/artists/brava-presents/resurrection-she-frisco-soweto/#.UOTFlK48ono

In celebration of National Women's History Month Brava! RHODESSA JONES, will perform her new solo work, The Resurrection of SHE at Brava Theatre where she is Artist in Residence. The Resurrection of SHE opens March 28 and continues through April 7. The work is a performance piece that peruses the decades long artistic career of Rhodessa Jones. Subtitled, “The Rhodessa Jones Story” the performance unites the art of documemoire, archival memory, and musical theater performance.  Rhodessa will peruse the many stories that have informed and constructed her life as an artist including her background as a child of migrant workers who traveled the east coast picking vegtables and fruits.  Stories told around the camp fires of these camps will be unveiled as autobiographical performance.

 As one of San Francisco’s preeminent performers, Rhodessa’s work with her company Cultural Odyssey and The Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women have put her in the forefront of artists working in the field of “arts as social activism.” Rhodessa will collaborate with musician/composer Idris Ackamoor to perform the work.   Idris is also the theatrical Director of SHE!

At the center of The Resurrection of SHE will be the ongoing work that Rhodessa conducts with disenfranchised populations around the world including her most recent work in Johannesburg, South Africa working with female inmates at the Naturena Women’s Correctional Center, her recent work with HIV positive women in San Francisco, and her decades long work conducted with incarcerated women in San Francisco and around the world.

 “SHE” is a passageway into lives normally hidden from and forgotten by society - a revelatory journey of redemption and hope. “SHE” carves out a route to healing and towards a healthier future.

RHODESSA JONES is Co-Artistic Director of the acclaimed San Francisco performance company Cultural Odyssey. An actress, teacher, singer, and writer, Jones is also the founder and director of the Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women.  On January 29, 2013 San Francisco Mayor Lee presented the 2013 Mayor's Art Award to Rhodessa Jones for her “lifetime of artistic achievement and enduring commitment to the role of the arts in civic life”. Rhodessa was selected as an "ARTS ENVOY" by the U.S. Department of State, Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau in June/July 2012. She received grant support to journey to South Africa to continue her work in collaboration with Urban Voices Festival inside the Naturena Women's Prison in Johannesburg, South Africa and then journey on to participate in the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa. She has received many awards for her work including a United States Artist Fellowship to support her work in 2007, an Honorary Doctorate from California College of the Arts, a San Francisco Bay Guardian GOLDIE Lifetime Achievement Award, an Otto Rene Castillo Award for Political Theater, and a San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Award.

Music: Meklit Hadero's "Walls," Ruthie Foster's "Truth," and Rene Marie's "Just My Imagination." Visit http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2013/03/06/wandas-picks-radio-show