Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Friday, April 17, 2020

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!

Melanin Magic Sessions Take 7: A special series of shows featuring healers who will leave us with tools we can use to strengthen ourselves during a time when isolation is encouraged while the soul cries for communion.

1. We open with a rebroadcast of Rhodessa Jones, Medea Prioject, Cultural Odyssey, to speak about The Resurrection of SHE, Brava March 28-April 7, 2013.

2. National Poetry Month Special continues

Guest bios

9:27 am  PST
Sheema Kalbasi  is an Iranian American poet and writer on issues of feminism, war, refugees, human rights, a filmmaker on women’s issues, Sharia Law, freedom of expression and an activist for social justice, women's rights, minorities' rights, children's rights, human rights and refugees' rights. She grew up in Pakistan and Denmark and now lives in the United States.

9:27 am, PST
 A native of Edgefield, South Carolina, J. Drew Lanham is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, which received the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Southern Book Prize, and was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal. He is a birder, naturalist, and hunter-conservationist who has published essays and poetry in publications including Orion, Audubon, Flycatcher, and Wilderness, and in several anthologies, including The Colors of Nature, State of the Heart, Bartram’s Living Legacy, and Carolina Writers at Home. An Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University, he and his family live in the Upstate of South Carolina, a soaring hawk’s downhill glide from the southern Appalachian escarpment that the Cherokee once called the Blue Wall.

9:42 am, PST
Vince McMillon is a resident of Pahoa, an avid vegan, and a great supporter of sustainable living by growing your own food, a school bus driver, and known in the community as the coconut man. Vince presents programs in the school system on the importance of the Coconut and through his business sells coconuts to the local markets.  Vince has been writing and performing poetry since he was ten years old.  On the mainland, Vince did television commercials, voice-overs, and films.  His latest movie is  "Building Butterflies," which is soon to be released.

9:45 am PST
Ayodele Nzinga,MFA,PhD, is often referred to as a renaissance woman. She is a talented actress, a powerhouse SpokenWord Artist, a lyricist, a published poet, a playwright, film and stage director, producer, recording artist, film writer, and offers a series of engaging motivational lectures, transformative workshops, and collaborative creative sessions, as a means of creating space for group conversation. Nzinga is a California artist, who in the tradition of the Black Arts Continuum, uses performance as a method of inter-intra group communication. She was the Artistic Director of the original Recovery Theater, and its cult classic Marvin X’s “One Day in the Life,” the longest running African American Theater production in North America. She is the founding Artistic Director of The Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater, a 100 seat theater built in 2000, to facilitate Nzinga’s desire to use live performance as a form of community engagement. Nzinga is the Founder Producing Director of The Lower Bottom Playaz Inc., Oakland CA’s premiere North American African Theater Company.

9:52 am PST
Zigi Lowenberg Co-leads the jazzpoetry ensemble UpSurge! which has performed at music festivals, rallies, clubs, bookstores and universities from NYC to New Orleans to San Francisco. In addition to 2 UpSurge! CD recordings, she has had two poems published in Rabbit and Rose. Her acting credits include The Lysistrata Project, the Stein-Toklas Project, and John Brown’s Truth, an improvised musical. She lives primarily in New York City with her partner in life and verse, Raymond Nat Turner.

9:52 am PST
Raymond Nat Turner, ‘The Town Crier,’ is a NYC poet privileged to have read at the Harriet Tubman Centennial Symposium in Auburn, NY where he is considered a “special son.”  Turner is the artistic director of the stalwart JazzPoetry Ensemble, UpSurge and has appeared at numerous festivals and venues including the Monterey Jazz Festival and Panafest in Ghana, West Africa. Currently, he is Poet-in-Residence at Black Agenda Report WBAI’s Morning Show; and Ralph Poynter’s What’s Happening, Blog Talk Radio. He is also a frequent contributor to Dissident Voice, Struggle and other online and print publications.  Turner has opened for such people as James Baldwin, People’s Advocate Cynthia McKinney, progressive sportswriter Dave Zirin and CA Congresswoman Barbara Lee following her lone vote against attacking Afghanistan.


Other events:
Join the African and Diasporic Religious Studies Association (ADRSA) ONLINE via LIVE STREAM for its 8th conference!

Sponsored by Ase Ire, the College of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University New Orleans, the Center for African and African American Studies at Southern University at New Orleans, the New Orleans African American Museum

This year's theme Wind & Fire: Honoring the Divine Feminine and Masculine in Africana Religions will explore the conceptions of gender, femininity and masculinity and how these form and interact in Africana religious culture and practice. Featuring panel discussions, vendors, and more!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wind-and-fire-adrsa-2020-tickets-88871337563


Show link: http://tobtr.com/s/11714330