Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Friday, December 27, 2019

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 rebroadcast a Kwanzaa Special Dec. 2012. We begin with a reflection on the Bay Area Kwanzaa Committee and Sister Makinya Kouate,


Radio show link:
https://wandasabir.blogspot.com/2012/12/wandas-picks-radio-show-habari-gani.html

Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Wednesday, December 25, 2019

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 an interview with Steeve Valcourt, Lokou Musik, from Haiti who are opening at the New Year's Eve concert at the Fillmore in San Francisco, 9 p.m., for The New Orleans Legends, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The two ensembles are serving textured gumbo, that is African Diaspora culture whether Hispaniola or Orleans Territory, Nawlins or Citi Soleil, Jacmel or Nord, Lagos or Kinshasa, Kingston or Mantanzas it's all the same story, the rhythms remain. HaitiaNola (2019) is the latest project on Cumbancha.

From the Archives: Taiwo Kugichagulia-Seitu joins us to talk about God Tell It, Dec. 21-22, 2012.

Show: http://tobtr.com/11626635

Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Friday, Dec. 20, 2019

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!

From the archives: Oakland Ballet presents: Graham Lustig's Nutcracker Dec. 21-22 at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland.

https://wandasabir.blogspot.com/2019/12/wandas-picks-radio-show-wednesday_11.html

Show link: http://tobtr.com/s/11626633

Robert Townsend's Living the Shuffle at The Marsh in Berkeley, 2021 Allston Way, through Sat., Dec. 14

Be the Change!
By Wanda Sabir


Friday evening was HHREC or the Health and Human Resources Education Center's Annual Holiday Party. Located on San Pablo and 19th Street in Oakland this organization celebrated another year of programs that promote African American wellness, especially that of Black women and Black youth (Downtown TAY). Wellness programs include the quarterly Be Still Retreat, Fitness Workshops, Black Women's Media Project, Sister Lola Hanif's Sacred Space, We Move for Health Run/Walk, and a magazine for Black Women, the current issue on "Depression."

While there one of the former participants in Downtown TAY, Venus Morris reminded me of Robert Townsend's Living the Shuffle at The Marsh in Berkeley, 2021 Allston Way, through Sat., Dec. 14, 8:30 p.m. I'd forgotten he was performing there, and certainly wanted to see his work before it closed. We learned that evening Townsend (b. Feb. 6, Bob Marley’s birthday) is coming back February 2020 for an extended month long run.

Robert Townsend, director, actor, producer, is epic and so congenial. The intimate theatre on Allston Way (formerly Anna's Jazz Island) was sold out, but for those folks who showed up, Marsh staff were able to get them in. And he was great!

Living the Shuffle is the story of a boy with talent, a man with dreams, faith and a vision. Themes covered are spousal abuse, single parenting, divorce, positive self-image-- all couched within the context of humor.

When one thinks of the term "shuffle," it is more than the walk of a tired elder. It is the way Black men were made to move to avoid condemnation, even death by white Americans. Stepping off sidewalks into the dirt roads, donning hats, bowing heads, lowering eyes -- humiliation is the shuffle Black Americans descendants of enslaved Africans have been cast since freedom rang.

For whom did that bell toll?

Shuffle, shuffling is an inherited act. It is a persistent-traumatic stressor complicated and normalized by 21st century totems like sagging pants. Stumbles follow easily when shuffling is what one does with one's feet, particularly if one’s clothing enables falls. Shuffling implies laziness and immorality. Fallen people shuffle, shoulders hunched -- shifty mortals who can't look a person in the eyes shuffle.

However, shuffling can also be an attitude. In Townsend’s Living the Shuffle it’s never showing one’s hand, keeping one’s thoughts private, and having multiple deals available at any given time.  It is improvisation, it is jazz, it is what African ancestors did so well in this new world— syncretism. Like his ancestors, African people, Townsend too is gifted at finding the mean(s).

Townsend channels spirit. He is kinetic energy, always thinking and always moving—shuffling his hand and returning and replacing cards which do not serve him or his people. A man with vision, always ready with a deck, Townsend doesn’t wait for a hand, he reshuffles the deck and stands where he chooses to stand a counter-narrative to presiding dominant cultural archetypes. We see this over an over again as photos are projected onto a screen as Townsend appears in his first film, the "popular urban classic: 'Cooley High (1975), co-stars with Denzel Washington in 'A Soldier's Story (1984), with 'Diane Lane in 'Streets of Fire' (1984) and 'American Flyers' (1985) with Kevin Costner.'" (Marsh program notes).
After Don Reed, whose popular work, E14th Street is up at the Marsh in Berkeley, Dec. 21 (8:30 p.m.) and Dec. 22 (5:30 p.m.) introduces his friend, who gave him his first job in Hollywood, we realize these two men, these brothers control this thermostat, so we can sit back and enjoy the excursion.

Townsend's life story illustrates that prays are answered almost immediately if one listens. We watch the youngster listen to his stepfather yelling and screaming at his mother. He worries and wonders what he can do and remembers what his mother told him about prayer.

Throughout Living the Shuffle, the combination of faith and a mother's courage and support, plus strong friendships are the foundation for this director, actor, producer, whose professional start was when he was about 14 years old at Chicago's Experimental Bag Theatre, an after school improvisational theatre program.

Townsend is encouraged in school by a teacher who sees the youngster's interest and talent. He’s had lots of practice. His mother tells him to come home after school to protect him and so her son knows all the TV shows by heart and if anyone misses an episode he can reenact all the characters almost verbatim.

When Townsend discovers Shakespeare, it’s love at first sight.  He goes to the library and steals as many recordings of performances he can fit beneath his shirt. Once home, he begins to study the language and stories performed at the Royal Shakespeare Company in England. It is this scholarship that impresses his teacher when Townsend reads a character in Sophocles's Oedipus Rex.

Later when his family moves to another neighborhood in Chicago where Townsend  says he had to walk a different way home from school each day to avoid the gangs and certain death, we also see the actor on the basketball court playing pick up games with local youth. It is a place where kids across turf affiliations could play.

Townsend's values sportsmanship. The court is a place where truce is called. It is also a place where this youth shows that one can choose other ways to resist than violence. Though he never says he is fearless, the younger Townsend's values did not allow him to consider fighting back with violence. He like Gordon Parks "chose a different weapon." Townsend's was wit, humor and skill-- all the improvisational tools he honed practicing his character roles from TV. These personas learned on his own and later polished in private study and in school or workshops gave him worlds he could tap into, alternative spaces he could examine extracting necessary tools needed in critical moments to defeat or slay innumerable mortal dragons.

His hero’s journey was protracted.

Living the Shuffle is physical theatre at it's best. Townsend is bouncing an imagined ball around the stage, running backward as he and a shorter teammate "kill it" every time to the chagrin of the other captain who has crooked teeth.

Themes of fairness and honesty follow Townsend to college where the young thespian looks to fine tune his craft and go to New York a star.  He shares this dream with the faculty chair of the department at the Illinois college who tells this young student who has had nothing but encouragement all his life that he would never be successful. This party line continues when Townsend transfers to another school in New Jersey. The student eventually dismisses their comments because "they don't know him or what he is capable of."

He and friend, Keenen Wayans Sr. decide to start their own production company, producing and writing their own material and they are successful. Townsend's independent film, Hollywood Shuffle (1987), a case study, is a film he financed with his own credit cards. He wrote, starred and produced it. Perhaps the reason why this film remains a classic is for the very reason Black imagery seems to be the property of anyone with a dollar 484 years after Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortez first colonized Baja California in 1525 utilizing 300 enslaved Pan Africans; 400 years after the English colony in Virginia was established in 1619 through Black material merchandising-- Africans from Angola traded for provisions at Point Comfort, now Fort Monroe National Monument in Hampton.

Even though Black people, the descendants of formerly enslaved Africans are technically free, the rights to our personas remains available in public domain. A copyright free zone, Black bodies and the capital such personas create remains opens season for those with big bucks, deep pockets or political agency.

Blackness is top on cultural exploitation lists -- national and global, so Robert Townsend's remarkable Living the Shuffle journey is unfortunately as relevant today as it was a brief 32 years ago.  When juxtaposed with Queen & Slim, a film that exploits Black vulnerability with white fear, we see Black prey and white hunters situated in gorgeous cinematography as cameras pan Circle Food Market in New Orleans, the site of an historic slave auction block. On the run, Angela and Ernest flee domestic armed forces (police) trying to get to safety. It is just 7 days, yet feel like a lifetime as the two characters captured on the police officer’s body camera are tracked like an elaborate modern Hunger Games. It is a United States against Blackness—they race tangentially against fugitive slave acts rescinded and lose.

This trope is the same refrain on repeat. It is in the recent film Harriet too, when the brute is cast “black” and brutality in “purity or whiteness.” There is seemingly no escaping the prescription, unless like Robert Townsend shows in Living the Shuffle one rolls out an alternative reality and lives his truth.

From classes at the Negro Ensemble Theatre to Pepsi Commercials to creating roles from nonspeaking "extras" to production of Eddie Murphy: Raw (1987) to his friendship with mentor Sidney Poitier, Living the Shuffle is ultimately about paying attention to the voice inside and never forgetting who you are. When he looked around, Townsend noticed a world which did not reflect what he was seeing in the mirror, so he stopped looking for Hollywood to validate a reality it could not see.

Jordan Peele says in his 2017 film, also starring Daniel Kaluuya (protagonist in Queen & Slim) to Get Out[!]  His appeal is to those Black folks to get moving and create a their own world. At the end of "Queen & Slim" why do the protagonists have to die? They unlike the criminals they are compared to -- Bonnie and Clyde, who rob banks, should get away. Why can't they get on the plane and fly off to Cuba where we see them hanging out with Assata Shakur? In a postscript, why can't we see the young family as parents living quietly in a forest with a baby running free?

A friend said, Black people can't dream.  In Living the Shuffle, “be the change” is not a just a campaign slogan, it is an imperative for life.

When we look at successful persons like Townsend, it is not often that the public knows the back story. Townsend literally climbed a mountain and that feat—his career, a career still unfolding, is something he reflects on as he takes us with him into his dreams or clouds as he talks us through the spaces where we cannot look down and then when the incline makes it difficult to continue up.

We catch our collective breath, then breathe deeply.

Standing at the apex of a journey he could imagine once he realized what he was good at and plus he enjoyed the most, Living the Shuffle shows Townsend a free man among a free people.  His friend, Don Reed, East 14th,[1] producer, Living the Shuffle, is a free man.  Brian Copeland[2] is also a free man. The Marsh seems to be a place that showcases free Black people. Might be a good idea to take out a subscription. Visit https://themarsh.org

What does Sam Cooke write in his classic song, "Change Is Gonna Come," covered by Aretha Franklin? The subject in the song says he is weary of standing alone. Townsend gets weary too, but is encouraged along the way by his mother and mentors and friends.

He speaks of all the auditions he goes with no call backs and meets another brother who is unable to pay his bills and is rethinking his career and passion. He offers to loan this actor, Denzel Washington some money, then when he is at a low point he calls his mother who asks him if he is praying and when is the last time he went to church. 

A Change Is Gonna Come
Sam Cooke

I was born by a river, oh man, in this little old tent, oh
Just like this river, I've been running ever since
It's been a long, long time coming
But I know, but I know, a change is gotta come
Ooo yes it is
Oh my, oh my, oh my, oh my

It's been too hard living, oh my
And I'm afraid to die
I don't know what's up there
Beyond the clouds

It's been a long, long time coming
But I know, but I know a change is gotta come
Oh yes it is
Oh my, oh my, oh my

There's a time I would go to my brother, oh my
I asked my brother, "Will you help me please?", oh my oh my
He turned me down and then I ask my dear mother, oh
I said "Mother!"
I said "Mother! I'm down on my knees"

It's been a time that I thought
Lord this couldn't last for very long, oh now
But somehow I thought I was still able to try to carry on
It's been a long, long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come
Oh, yes it is

Just like I said, I went to my little bitty brother, oh my little brother now
I asked my brother "Brother help me please?", oh now
He turned me down and then I go to my little mother, my dear mother, oh my
I said "Mother!"
I said "Mother! I'm down on my knees"

But there was a time that I thought
Lord this couldn't last for very long, oh my
Somehow I thought I was still able to try to carry on
It's been a long, long time coming
But I know, but I know a change is gotta come, ooo
It's been so long, it's been so long, a little too long
A change has gotta come
So tired, so tired of standing by myself
And standing up alone
A change has gotta come
You know and I know, and you know that I know
I know that you know, honey
That a change is gonna come oh yeah oh, I gotta

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Sam Cooke

A Change Is Gonna Come lyrics © Abkco Music, Inc


Here is Sam Cooke performing his song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPr3yvkHYsE




[1] East 14th is at the March in Berkeley, Friday, Dec. 20 and Sat. Dec. 21

[2] The Waiting Room, Grandma and Me: Ode to Single Parents, Not and Authentic Black Man, The Jewelry Box . . . A Genuine Christmas Story.

Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Friday, Dec. 13, 2019

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. Rozz Nash, People's Conservatory joins us to talk about KOLA: An Afro Diasporic Remix of the Nutcracker  https://www.thepeoplesconservatory.org/events

2 Cinderella @ African American Shakes guests: Funmi Lola who is playing Cinderella and Jan Hunter who is playing the Grandmother htps:/t/www.african-americanshakes.org/productions/cinderella/

3. Geronimo Whitaker joins his sons Joshua Bicaso Whitaker, SpirithausGallery owner and Justice Whitaker, filmmaker to talk about the closing reception, 12/15,  for Trauma Cycle: the Art of Geronimo Whitaker4. Soulful Christmas Dec. 13-22 at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 762 Fulton Street, San Francisco, with Yvonne Cobbs, musical director; Bertram Watson, Rhonda: https://www.lhtsf.org/

http://tobtr.com/s/11607529

Performing Diaspora 2019: She-Verse & mouth/full Dec.11-14 @ CounterPulse

Gabriel Christian and Chibueze Crouch
 in mouth/full

Performing Diaspora 2019 at CounterPulse is really wonderful this year. It's always wonderful but the three artists: Cherie Hill's IrieDance in She-Verse and Gabriel Christian and Chibueze Crouch in mouth/full this weekend, Thursday-Sat., Dec. 12-14, 7:45 p.m.-9 p.m. (Don't be late) -- is "more" wonderful. 

How often are Africans or Black people VIP because they are African or Black people?! We are royalty because of our melanin. We are called out for an exclusive, pre-show experience that sets the tone for the evening, perhaps for the rest of our lives, definitely for 2020.

It is experiences like Performing Diaspora 2019 that hold us when the days are chilly with whiteness-- a crisp breeze that seeks to rob us of our Black Souls, even when we know, that is not really possible as we grab doorknobs and other objects that have more permanence than flesh to buffer ourselves against what happens when stage coaches return to pumpkin state. All Cinderella had was a dream, right?

How easy it is so easy slip into antebellum attitudes, what with white folks claiming "fragility," feigned helplessness, as an excuse for structural racism. "We're just too weak ethically to do any better, so adjust your attitudes Black people," is the unspoken reality of Blackness in America if you are a descendant of enslaved Africans. 

The two-ness W.E.B. Du Bois writes about in his "Souls of Black Folks" is what saved and saves America from complete destruction.  There are places we can go to be free. Within the craziness, artists like Cherie Hill; Gabriel Christian and Chibueze Crouch have opened with their work windows into spaces where Blackness -- just everyday Blackfolkness is a ticket or key or pass code into rooms others seated behind us out of sight and mind/full/ness cannot enter.

Theatre is ritual. It is a place where we can imagine and then practice another reality. She-Verse and mouth/full are the scaffolding. Blackness our shelter. It is our protection from artificial Gama rays. In the theatre that evening "darkness" was currency. It was our shelter as we ascended to Giovanni's room where magic was conjured. Spells were cast and we were sworn to secrecy. The ritual is for us.

And we return changed.

Lights are on us as we see magic carpets . . . take our seats in the pews, some seated closer to the literal pulpit than others . . . and then the paradigm shifts. We are back on the slave ship-- the actors are wearing clergy robes. We are protected by the light, by the red and white barriers, by the altars and stained windows, by the sacrifices -- ancestors' lives, bones paving the railroad cross the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.

We have lifetime vouchers -- already stamped, to spirit ferry passage-- not Spirit Airlines, rather links to a People who could fly and another branch of the family who walked from Ibo Landing back home. They just walked into the water back to Africa. They were magical like that. 

Cherie Hill's IrieDance in She-Verse 

Cherie Hill's She-Verse stands at the intersections directing traffic and often stopping the same. She is shadow and presence. She is steady and stable. She is mother and earth. She is see forever and what is past. Her children walk, crawl, roll, move staccato into habitats familiar and hostile.

Earlier, we Africans keep moving; however, for the moment we sit in pews sanctified and holy until intermission when the set is remixed and we are among the swine and bovine, we get to practice Blackness unapologetically.  It is a good thing to rehearse. 

We sing songs of freedom, lifting our feet, raising our hands, waving hands the way we do when holy spirit lifts us up like waves on a ocean -- caught up in a breeze. . . . This movement is not televised yet voyeurs are seated just behind us wishing perhaps they were Black-- at least for this cinematic moment.  But we don't let them play. No one breaks rank. Unity, Umoja is a constant.  We light the Black candle and do not let anyone blow it out.

During the praise break, the evening I attended, the two artists, Europa Grace and Bronte Velez, share a meal-- greens, sweet potato, corn bread, legumes, and then watch each other sleep as the other person shares poetry, rhythmic beats and other thoughts. It is lyrical and lovely. Together, taken with mouth/fullness, this evening's "praise break" is part of a larger meditation on faith and hope and recovery -- Blackness as refuge and shame.

Here in this mouth/fullness moment; She-Verse Moment -- we are beauty, we are power, we are all there is and all that matter.  Blackness is where it's at. It always has been where it's at, but to have the validation within a public space means there are witnesses and perhaps a collective shift and rememory of this moment is a tangible takeaway.

Perhaps those that are not Black, those who were not VIP will remember the feeling of being outside, not belonging and make a visceral performative change the next time when roles are flipped back and the lone or a lone Black person clings to a tangible periphery.  Will these white hands reach out and grab that of the person about to fall? Will these hands notice, someone is missing? 

However, this is not the point. The point is whether these other patrons get it or not, remember the experience or not -- it is not a Black problem.  It is not our job to take care of the white people, to worry if they get it or what they get.  We are just to bask in Blackness and enjoy the privilege of Black space: Its beauty, its peace, its love.

As the collective dances this African Diaspora with Cherie Hill; Gabriel Christian and Chibueze Crouch we are lifted, baptized, anointed, made holy the way Wayne Corbitt used to do when he performed. We are holy; however the white gaze like smog often makes our legacy, our greatness difficult to see.  Sometimes we just need to get away. Step aside, take the day off, get with other Black folks and witness as participants great art created by and for people like us -- and so . . .

We are called out-- "If you are Black or an African identified come with me" Gabriel says and we look at each other those who self-select, check the box: Blackness. Hum, I hope being Black is a good thing, we hope; we wonder. Trusting the process is also having faith. When Gabriel takes the lead, I have the feeling he is going to take good care of those of us who are following him. I am not disappointed. I am safe.

Thursday, Dec. 12 is pay-what-you-can. It is also a special tour for the visually impaired or those who want to experience such a tour at 7 p.m. The show begins at 7:45 p.m. to 9 p.m. at 80 Turk in San Francisco (near Powell Street BART).  Visit the CounterPulse website for all the details and to see what artists will be performing during the "Praise Break" in mouth/fullness. The Praise Break features a new artist(s) each evening. Mouth/Full is a continuation of a query, the two choreographers explored first in mouth/fullness of seeds at the National Queer Arts Festival. How did Africans come to America? They are looking at creating a third part to this query. Listen to Gabriel Christian and Chibueze Crouch in a recent interview on Wanda'sPicks Radio Show Dec. 11.

Listen to Cherie Hill and Chibueze Crouch in another conversation a week ago: https://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2019/12/04/wandas-picks-radio-show

Like so many seeds we crossed land and oceans and planted ourselves in these new worlds. Now that we are here how has this experience changed us and how do we remain the same? What happens when seeds from a distant land are planted in new soil? 

Faith and religion are two spaces that African Diaspora still occupy-- the names might have changed, but the spirit remains. In mouth/fullness, Christian and Crouch's characters struggle visibly with the crosses they've been carrying and through story and movement we learn the cost of bondage and the price of freedom. This is not a Harriet Tubman story, and yet it is a Harriet Tubman story. It is also the story of Araminta "Minty" Ross, the girl who trusted her dreams. A woman who feared no man.

Is that what it takes to be free, an absence of fear?  Visit http://counterpulse.org/upcoming/

Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Wednesday, December 11, 2019

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!

Paunika Jones (Marie)
 Photo by Joey Rosado, Island Boy Photography

1. Oakland Ballet Company Presents Graham Lustig's The Nutcracker with the Oakland Symphony, Dec. 21-22, 1 and 5 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre.
http://oaklandballet.org/wp/about/artistic-director/

Paunika Jones (Marie) was born and raised in Miami, Florida, and is an alumna of the New World School of the Arts. After graduating, Paunika danced with Oakland Ballet from 2005-2007 and moved on to Dance Theatre of Harlem, where she ascended through the ranks from a member of the professional training program to principal dancer. From there, she worked in various ballet, contemporary, and dance theater companies, both nationally and internationally. During her ever-expanding career, Ms. Jones has developed a love for ballet and dance instruction, yoga, GYROKINESIS, and overall well-being. She plans to further her studies in these areas and continue blooming artistically, which includes cultivating her own dance / performance art company.

2. Ben Vereen excerpt (June 2012)

3.  Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-founder, The Poor People’s Campaign joins us to talk about: A National Call for Moral Revival organized a 25-state “We Must Do MORE: Mobilizing, Organizing, Registering, and Educating” national tour from September 2019 to May 2020. This tour stops in SF at Glide Memorial Church at 7 p.m. The March starts at SF City Hall at 5:45 p.m. today. https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/more/

Chibueze Crouch and Gabriel Christian in Mouth/full
 at CounterPulse's Performing Diaspora 2019

4. Gabriel Christian and Chibueze Crouch join us to talk about Mouth/full, their work in Performing Diaspora at CounterPulse this weekend, Dec. 11-14, 80 Turk, 7:45 p.m. with Cherie Hill's SheVerse. Thursday is Pay-what-you-can.   Visit http://counterpulse.org/event/performingdiaspora2019/


Show link: http://tobtr.com/11607527

Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2019

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. Ben Vereen @ Rrazz Room 6/12/12 excerpt

2. Byb Bibene, joins us to talk about 7th Mbongui Square Festival 2019 Dec.15-22, mbonguifest.org
Venues include: Temescal Arts Center (12/19& 12/20). Shawl Anderson and The Flight Deck (12/21-22).

Nell Myhand

3. Nell Myhand is a long time Oakland resident who has been working for justice since the 1970's who is also a member of the Poor People's Campaign:A National Call for Moral Revival Bay Area Steering Committee.  Join her with artist David Solnit in Richmond at the We Must Do M.O.R.E. Tour’s Art-Build, Thursday, December 5th, 2019, 6PM - 9 PM at Bridge Storage and ArtSpace, 23 Maine Ave, Richmond.Visit www.poorpeoplescampaign.org to learn more and get involved.

David Solnit Art Build

Chibueza Crouch and Gabriel Christian in Mouth/full

4. Cherie Hill, IrieDance and Chibueze Crouch join us to talk about their work this year at Performing Diaspora at CounterPulseThu-Sat, Dec 5-7 & 12-14, 7:45pm-9pm
Pay-what-you-can Thursdays: counterpulse.org/performingdiaspora2019/

IrieDance in She/Verse

5. African American Steering Committee for Health and Wellness members, Dr. Tony Jackson and Pastor Horacio S. Jones join is to talk about the "2019 Annual African American Conference: The Souls of Black Folka Reclaiming Our Humanity from Racialized Trauma," Dec. 10. It is at capacity presently.

Music: Ben Vereen in "Defying Gravity."

Show Link: http://tobtr.com/s/11607521