Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Friday, Nov. 30, 2018

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!

We open with the winner of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Playwrights Festival (https://www.lhtsf.org/), Brie Knight and close with an archived show taped April 11 this year.

PANCAKE QUEEN by Brie Knight - Philadelphia, PA

Pancake Queen is a fantastical, witty, and harrowing historical imagining of a time in 1893 when former slave, Nancy Green, was hired by a Missouri miller, Randolph T. Davis, to portray the first iteration of the marketing icon, "Aunt Jemima."

About Brie Knight:  A Philadelphia based playwright, Brie received her M.A. in Theatre from Villanova University and is an alum of the Philadelphia Playwrights' Lab, The Foundry

1. Theresa Dorcelus, Juris Doctorate Candidate 2020, Southern University Law Center, joins us to highlight the case of John Cluchette, who was once again denied parole by Gov. Brown.

2. Rakiah Anderson, "Black Lives, Black Lungs," doc and panel at Laney College Forum, Fri., April 13, 2018, 510.604.7589.

3. Edythe Boone & Miranda Bergman, Maestra Peace Mural Book Project Kickstarter

4. Deborah Vaughn, Latanya d. Tigner, Andea Vonny Lee, join us to talk about Dimensions Dance Theater's 45th Anniversary, Kick High, Turn Fast: Celebrating 45 Yrs. of Dance at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Street, Oakland. Call 510.465.3363, www.dimensionsdance.org
Shortlink: http://tobtr.com/10712569

Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Nov. 23, 2018

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!

Today we host a tribute to Ntozake Shange. (We open with a prerecorded interview with the late

playwright, poet, novelist and co-director, Cassandra Henderson. October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018) was an American playwright and poet. As a Black feminist, she addressed issues relating to race and Black power in much of her work (PoetryFoundation.org).

Shange is best known for the Obie Award-winning play for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf. She also penned several novels including Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo (1982), Liliane (1994), and Betsey Brown (1985), a novel about an African-American girl who runs away from home. Among Shange's honors and awards were fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund, and a Pushcart Prize. In April 2016, Barnard College announced that it acquired Shange's archive.[3] Shange lived in Brooklyn, New York (wikipedia).
We open with an Archived Interview with Ms. Shange and co-director of the Black Repertory Group's production of the play, for colored girls years ago.

Afterward we speak to writers and artivist scholars about Ms. Shange's impact on the personal and political American landscape via her skillful use of language, character, and color.  In imagined and unimaginable dimensions, she crafted with her work an embodied aesthetic example of black womanhood, humanity and how art makes one visible. Art is a light that burns brighter when suppressed.  

Link to show: http://tobtr.com/s/11075781

Studio Guest bios:

Halifu Osumare, Ph.D. Professor Emerita, African American & African Studies, University of California, Davis www.hosumare.com

Dr. Osumare writes:"I'm definitely down for the podcast on Ntozake. We knew each since 1973 in the Bay, before "For Colored Girls," and she gave me my African name. We have worked together off and on over the years, including me directing and choreographing several her plays for LHT and elsewhere. We last hooked up on May 17 in New York, where we gave a joint reading of our new books: she of her last book, Wild Beauty, New and Selected Poems and me of Dancing in Blackness, a Memoir.

I definitely want to pay tribute to my dear friend."

Lisa Marie Brimmer

Lisa Marie Brimmer is a queer, black, transracial adoptee artist and writer living in Minneapolis, MN.  Most recently their work has been published in anthologies: Whisked: Cooking up Community, Fierce Lament, and A Garden of Black Joy. They are a co-editor of the forthcoming Queer Voices of Minnesota:Poetry, Prose, and Pride. They have presented at Split This Rock! in DC, The Center for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas in Graz, Austria, and in Oakland for the Alliance for Study of Adoption and Culture in Oakland, CA in 2018. This fall they directed a Midwestern premiere of Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko’s WAAFRIKA 123, Nov. 2-11, with 20% Theater. @croptop_ceo & LisaMarieBrimmer.com

Lisa writes: 

“To be up front, I didn’t have a personal connection with Ntozake, but I did have mentorship relationship with Laurie Carlos (FCG - "Lady in Blue") for a few years before her passing here in Minneapolis. Carlos brought her experience with Shange into the room, almost as much as we brought to her. I always connected to the ways that Shange brought migration north into her work, and brought her work into her work: If i can cook/you know god can…., Sassafras, Cypress, and Indigo. These two titles especially salient for me in this expansion year in which I have met more diaspora outside of Minneapolis near and far. In her words I felt Shange left me oasis after oasis. In poetry, yes, her poetry.

"She made space for peoples and women and black folks in plural… that’s how I think of her is as one who carves… connected to rivers and mapping mapping mapping. Shange’s force pushes you to be made available… in the most honest sense of the word. I’m indebted. She made it possible to shift in and out of tenses. So, to me, Shange made space for story and an approach; the kind that allows bare feet on the ground, and patchouli on the crowns of heads… and I don’t know if it was always there, if it was hidden to me, or if I didn’t know it could be had- she made it known that it could be had.” 

  

Claudia Alick's Tuna Casserole

Claudia Alick is performer, producer, and inclusion expert. Named by American Theater Magazine as one of 25 theater artists who will shape American Theater in the next 25 years, Alick has served as the founding Artistic Director of Smokin' Word Productions, is a NY Neofuturist alum, published playwright, recipient of NYC Fresh Fruit directing award, TedXFargo speaker, the Lilla Jewel Award for Women Artists, featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and former Community Producer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. At OSF for ten years she produced events such as “The Every 28 Hours Plays”, "The Green Show", The Daedalus Project, OSF Open Mics as well as producing/directing audio-plays with OSF such as the Grammy nominated "Hamlet".

Her personal projects include her podcast “Hold On…Wait for it”, vlog “This Week in Cultural Appropriation”, StreetPoetry, and one-person Show “Fill in the Blank” exploring disability and the medical industry. Claudia served on Oregon Arts Leaders in Inclusion, the steering committee of TheGhostlight Project, the steering committe for Black Theater Commons, and is currently co-president of the board of Network of Ensemble Theater, She is currently the executive producer of the transmedia social justice company CALLING UP.  Visit: http://www.claudiaalick.com/




Nanna Mwaluko, no stranger to Wanda's Picks Radio Show, is Trans, queer, non-binary, Tanzanian-American, poet-playwright-fiction-essayist NICK HADIKWA MWALUKO: Plays include: 37, S.T.A.R: Marsha P. Johnson; two queer African trilogies Waafrika and Waafrika 123; the QTPOC trans masculine THEY/THEM (TBA/Theater Bay Area); the queer apocalypse Homeless in the AfterLife; Blueprint for an African Lesbian; SH/Eroe; Asymmetrical We; Brotherly Love; Trailer Park Tundra; Once A Man Always A Man; Mama Afrika; Queering MacBeth; Life Is About the Kill; That Day God Visits You; Ata; To Dyke Trans; Gayze and many more. Residencies include Resilience and Development (R&D) Writers’ Lab with Crowded Fire Theater Company in San Francisco (2017-2018); New York City’s EWG (Emerging Writers’ Group) at the Public Theater sponsored by Time Warner Co.; New York City’s Groundbreakers Group, Djerassi Artist Residency in northern California, Freedom Train Productions, Ragged Wing Ensemble and more. Nick is a 2018 finalist for Africa’s Gerald Kraak Award; a two-time recipient of the Creativity Fund issued by the Public Theater and Time Warner, and a 2017 Spring grantee of a Theatre Bay Area (TBA) Individual Artist Cash grant. Nick graduated Magna Cum Laude at Columbia University for undergrad and completed an MFA at Columbia University as a Point Scholar, the nation’s largest LGBTQIA scholarship fund, and was awarded a Columbia University Fellowship for theater at the same time.  Nick was at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop but dropped out.  WAAFRIKA 1-2-3, Nick’s queer African triptych, premiered at TheaterFIRST in Berkeley on May 2018 and will be staged up in the Twin Cities in November 2018 thanks to 20% Theater Company.

Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Wed., November 21, 2018

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. Toni-Michelle Williams is an activist and co-director of Solutions Not Punishment Coalition (SNaPCO) in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a celebrated community organizer in prison abolition/prison reform issues, and the criminalization of poverty and Black transgender people. She is in town for Violence Against Trans Women: State of emergency at Commonwealth Club of CA in SF, 11.26/2018, 6:30 p.m.

Playwright, Sikiru Hutchinson, Ph.D.

2. Sikivu Hutchinson, Ph.D. is an educator and author who has written and published extensively on the African American experience in Peoples Temple and Jonestown; CHARLOTTE WILLIAMS (Hy Strayer) charlotteevelynwilliams.com; ELVINET PIARD (Jess McPherson/The Night Watchwoman) is trained in communication and performing arts, Elvinet is an L.A.-based actor and voice-over artist. They join us to talk about the upcoming production of “White Nights, Black Paradise,” written by Sikivu Hutchinson, directed by William White, Fri., Nov 30 – Sun, Dec. 02 at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood.http://www.blackjonestown.org/events/

ELVINET PIARD 

 

Charlotte Williams

3. We close with an archived interview with Ntozake Shange, playwright, “for colored girls who’ve considered suicide when the rainbow was enuf" and co-director, Cassandra Henderson. The performance was at Black Rep in Berkeley.

Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Friday, November 16, 2018

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. From the Archives Dec. 9, 2016 features: Oakland East Bay Symphony re: Let Us Break Bread 2016 celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party http://tobtr.com/9645829

2. From the Archives: Stanley Nelson, dir. "Vanguard of the Revolution (2015)."

2. The Honourable Tony Ince was first elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly as MLA for Cole Harbour-Portland Valley in 2013 and was re-elected in 2017. He has served as Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage. He has worked as a Department of Community Services Counsellor, a sales representative and as an actor.

Minister Ince was born and raised in the north-end of Halifax Nova Scotia. In addition to working for the Department of Community Services as a youth and family counsellor, he has chaired the African Canadian Advisory Board for Nova Scotia Community College and is a past member of the African Nova Scotian Advisory committee for the Halifax Regional School Board.

As a teacher and educator, he has instructed history and drama, and been involved with instructing equity and diversity programs within Ontario high schools. He has a passion for social justice and fairness and a strong commitment to issues affecting youth. Tony Ince was also an actor. He has worked in the television and film industry since 1994; --having appeared in many movies and commercials. Recently, Mr. Ince was part of the Stryker-Indigo New York Production Team during filming of the documentary BLACK ICE.

Mr. Ince is introduced by his friend, Arif Khatib, businessman, filmmaker, radio show host and founder of the Oakland-based Multi-Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame (originally the African-American Sports Hall of Fame.

Show Link:
http://tobtr.com/s/11071959

Wanda's Picks Radio Show Friday, Nov. 2, 2018

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. Lead singer and lyricist BUTTERFLY WILLIAMS and music producer WINSTON BERGER join us to talk about their group OLOKUN is a psychedelic power pop duo based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Their debut album SURVIVAL KIT 

2. Byb Kongo Bilene, Kiandanda Dance theatre, join us to talk about the Mbongui Square Festival fundraiser, Nov. 11, 6-8 PM at Eastside Arts Alliance, 2277 International Blvd., Oakland.

Visit www.mbongui2019.eventbrite.com

3. Aldo Billingslea, Interim Artistic Director, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, joins us to talk about Playwrights Festival Competition, Nov. 17-18 at the Burial Clay Theater, 762 Fulton Street, San Francisco. Visit lhtsf.org 415-474-8800

4. Jessica Care Moore and Yahzarah joins us to talk about Black Women Rock at YBCA, Sat., Nov. 2, 9 PM. & the moderated panel: They Say I'm Different with artists at The Lab, 2948 16th Street, San Francisco, Sunday, Nov. 4,10 AM-12 noon. Visit ybca.org


 Show link: http://tobtr.com/11007679