Wanda's Picks Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the African Diaspora via the writing, performance, both musical and theatrical (film and stage), as well as the visual arts of Africans in the Diaspora and those influenced by these aesthetic forms of expression. I am interested in the political and social ramifications of art on society, specifically movements supported by these artists and their forebearers. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work honest and filled with raw unedited passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay!

1. Ann L. Chinn, Executive Director, Middle Passage Ceremonies and Portmarkers Project (MCAPP) joins us to talk about the progress of her project which creates monuments to honor African people's entrance into this country on slaveships

The Executive Board of Directors is chaired by Executive Director, Ann L. Chinn. She is the Project founder and has worked as an advocate for children and families in Washington, DC, a textile artist, a retailer, organizer of a collective artists’ market, and historian.

 

Photo: Kegan Marling

KAT COLE

 CO-DIRECTOR

Kat Cole has had the pleasure of performing for 13th Floor Dance Theater, Amie Dowling, EmSpace Dance, and kelly kemp company/number 9 dance. For over 5 years she served as Development Manager and later Program Manager for CounterPulse, and frequently works as a production manager and grant writer for several artists and dance companies in the Bay Area. Her work in the performing arts has led her to delve further into visual storytelling, and she is currently an MFA in Film student at California College of the Arts. Current works include a documentary short about family and acceptance as told through the partner of a transman, and an upcoming project on a foot painting artist born with quad phocomelia. She has been a guest speaker at the University of San Francisco and Eventbrite, and her article about grassroots self-production was published in In Dance.

ERIC GARCIA

CO-DIRECTOR

Eric Garcia is a choreographer, performer, filmmaker, teacher, and activist whose feet are deeply rooted in the Bay Area. He proudly serves as Production Coordinator with Fresh Meat Productions, Sean Dorsey Dance, and the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. He has previously served as a Development Associate for Quinn Associates, and has held administrative/production positions for artists and organizations such as Dancers' Group, Z Space, and CounterPULSE. Inspired by personal narrative and storytelling, Eric has collaboratively worked with groups of incarcerated men, senior adults, and self-identified non-dancers on various multi-media and site-specific projects. Eric also co-hosts DRAG SPECTACULAR SPECTACULAR, a sporadic cabaret of drag curiosities at The Rite Spot in San Francisco. Eric has performed works by Katie Faulkner, Sean Dorsey, Amie Dowling, 13th Floor Dance Theater, Sharp & Fine, FACT/SF, The Anata Project, LEVYdance, Project Thrust, and many others. He was the Spring 2017 choreographer-in-residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and a 2016-17 Emerging Arts Professionals SF/BA Fellow. He is the recipient of the 2017 CHIME Award with Margaret Jenkins Dance Company.


3. Della Reese made her transition Monday, Nov. 20. To honor her life, we play an interview recorded when she was visiting San Francisco for a concert at the Razz Room at Hotel Nikko (Feb. 8, 2012).

Link: http://tobtr.com/s/10395635

2.  Kat Cole and Eric Garcia, Detour Dance Company, join us to talk about the world premiere of presents the world premiere of FUGUE, a site-specific dance theater event that traverses the streets of San Francisco’s Mission District collecting stories of queers, people of color and longtime residents of the city en route to a fabled “new city," Dec. 1-10.