Wednesday, April 08, 2020

Wanda's Picks Radio Show, Wed., April 8, 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 5: 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.

Wind and Fire: Honoring the Divine Feminine & Masculine in Africana Religions is the theme for the ADRSA 2020, April 17


Dr. Funlayo (foon-la-yo) E. Wood-Menzies (postdoctoral fellow at UC Santa Barbara) specialist in Ifa-Orisa, Yoruba indigenous religion. She is the founding director of the African and Diasporic Religious Studies Association (ADRSA) and of Ase Ire, an Ifa-Orisa temple and spirituality learning center.

Dr. Kyrah (keer-ah) Malika Daniels (Leadership council founding member ADRSA, professor of African and African Diaspora studies and art history, Boston College, specialist in Haitian Vodou and Congo traditions)

Stephen Hamilton (conference featured artist,visual artist itanproject.com, specializing in bringing indigenous techniques into his work, art education, African indigenous art techniques like weaving and dyeing in addition to painting)

2. Leah Davis,Wealth and Wellness Coach for WOC

3.Nathan Richardson,SC Publishing, Frederick Douglass Reenactment Actor



Guest expanded bios:



Kyrah Malika Daniels is Assistant Professor of Art History and African & African Diaspora Studies, with a courtesy appointment in Theology. She is also a Manbo in the Haitian Vodou tradition. Her research interests and course topics include Africana religions, sacred arts and material culture, race, religion and visual culture, and ritual healing traditions in the Black Atlantic. Her first book (The Arts of Healing, in progress) is a comparative religion project that examines key ritual art objects used in healing ceremonies to treat spiritual illnesses and mental health conditions in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Daniels is currently on leave for the 2019-2020 academic year, and is working to complete her book project as a Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Art.

Stephen Hamilton is a mixed-media artist and arts educator living and working in Boston Massachusetts. Hamilton has been an exhibiting artist for the past seven years. These include solo exhibitions at the Museum of the National Center for African American Artists, Boston MA (2016); Aeronaught brewery, Sommerville MA (2016); The Joan Resnikoff Gallery, Boston MA (2014) and the Haley House Cafe (2012). For the past two years, Hamilton has worked on temporary site-specific large scale mixed media textile and sculpture installations. These include  “The Founder's Project”  previously located at the Bruce C. Bolling building In Boston MA (2018-2019), and “Stitched Into Memory” previously located at Atlantic Warf, also in Boston MA (2017).  Hamilton received The Brother Thomas award in 2017 and received grants from the Now and there Public art Accelerator in 2018 and the New England Foundation For The Arts in 2017.  

Hamilton graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and design in 2009 with a focus in illustration. Thanks to a travel grant from Arts connect International he also studied Yoruba weaving, dyeing, and woodcarving at the Nike Centers for art and Culture in Osogbo and Ogidi Ijumu Nigeria from 2015 to 2016.  He is currently an assistant professor in the Illustration Department of Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Funlayo E. Wood-Menzies, affectionately known as Iya Dr. Funlayo, is your favorite Ifa-orisa scholar priestess bringing love and light to the community through academic and spiritual programming. Currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Black Studies Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, she earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University and an M.A. in History from the City College of New York. An initiate of Obatala and Iyanifa, she is delighted to contribute her voice as a scholar-practitioner and is dedicated to combining scholarship with social praxis.

A native of New York City, Iya Funlayo has conducted research in Nigeria, Ghana, Cuba, Trinidad, Peru, and the United States. Her research on Ifa-Orisa and other African and diasporic traditions centers epistemology, gender and sexuality, healing, and intersections between religion, science, and technology. She serves as the managing editor of the Africana Studies Review and her work has been published in academic and popular venues including the Journal of Africana Religions, Crosscurrents, and the Journal of Interreligious Studies, and Medium. 

Committed to public scholarship, Iya Dr. Funlayo consistently seeks to share her knowledge beyond the ivory tower. She lectures regularly and was featured in the PBS documentary, Sacred Journeys: Osun-Osogbo (2014) and an episode of National Geographic’s The Story of God with Morgan Freeman (2017). She is the founding director of the African and Diasporic Religious Studies Association (ADRSA) and of Ase Ire, an Ifa-Orisa temple and spirituality learning center.


Leah from San Jose, CA. My father is Black and my mom is Mexican. I was raised as a Jehovah Witness and I was disfellowshipped (ostracized) by that community at the age of 16. I was a single mother by the age of 18. I am an adult survivor of childhood domestic violence, which led to many unhealthy relationships in my life. In 2011 I began my career as a financial advisor while dealing with a toxic and abusive relationship at home. I ended that long term relationship in 2013 to begin my journey of healing and awakening to become the empowered woman that I am today. 

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