Acclaimed actor/playwright/producer Berend McKenzie brings excerpts of his award winning one man show “nggrfgt” to Voices Rising!
(nggrfg: Bravery and Heart, Uniting Us One Audience At a Time.)
Hosted by the fabulous artist/writer/performer/activist Stephany Koch-Hazelrigg.
February 10th 8PM; doors at 7PM.
Washington Hall. 153 14th Avenue.
Tix:$10-25. sliding scale.
(available soon on bpt.com)
more info: voicesrising@gmail.com
206-579-4815
Free Admission for Queer Youth!
You can now make an online, tax-deductible donation to Voices Rising! Click the link to donate today and help keep Voices Rising afloat.
Saturday June 4th Performance – Sunday June 5th Workshops
Two Day Festival of LGBTQ of Color Arts and Culture
Washington Hall 153 14th Ave Seattle 98122
PERFORMANCE – June 4 – 7 p.m. Doors/8 p.m. Show – Tickets $10-$25 Sliding Scale
THREE WORKSHOPS – June 5 – 12-6 p.m. – $30 for all with VR ticket stub. OR $20 per workshop/$50 for all three without ticket stub.
PERFORMANCE
Saturday June 4 7PM Doors/8PM Show Tickets $10-25. sliding scale
www.brownpapertickets.com
Edwina Lee Tyler
EDWINA LEE TYLER headlines an evening of drum passion, poetry and performance. Named a Grandmother of the Drum, Edwina has been drumming for over 40 years. She has toured internationally in Europe, Africa, the USA , Canada and Korea. A NYC native, her credits include performances/residencies at Alice Tully Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dance Theater Workshop, La Mama E.T.C, and Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. She was one of the first percussionists for the renowned dance troupe Urban Bush Women. In the 1980s she led a groundbreaking troupe of Black women dancers, drummers and performers named “A Piece of the World”, and her performances are legendary amongst all who treasure drumming as spiritual power.
Percussionist, composer, vocalist, dancer and actress, Edwina Lee Tyler blends these entire elements into more than just a performance… into jubilation! She has pioneered the playing of traditionaL African percussion instruments by women, a practice long thought to be forbidden in African culture. Her performances feature a combination of drum, djembe, songbey, conga, steel drum, calabashes, bongos, marimba, kalimba, shekeres, bells,and conch shells.
One who has witnessed her drumming writes: “I know that there is a level of drumming to which master drummers aspire. That deep inner level of drumming that can heal or kill with a touch. Few will talk about it. One of mine slipped once and spoke of the energy that travels through the head…and opens the third eye so one can see the lines that run through the body. The Spirit of Music mounts the Horse, takes over the hands and drums one’s body. Broken meridians are rebuilt, tone by tone, slap by slap. Healing occurs. They covet the knowledge that heals. They cover what Edwina Lee Tyler does naturally…”
Hosted by the fabulous Chad Goller-Sojourner , Seattle-based writer, solo-performer and recipient of a distinguished Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Performing Arts Fellowship.
Also featuring:
Crystal Ybarra
Crystal Ybarra uses words as inexorable power to transcend barriers. Her inspiring and fearless poetry will be published in “Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion and Spirituality”
Georgena Frazier
Georgena “Gigi” Frazier found her writer’s voice as age ten. An organizer of Ladies First performance series, she has blessed the stage at Indayog, Ladies First, and Isangmahal.
Fabiola Romero
Fabiola Romero is a passionate Chicana poet and performance artist. Born in Michoacan; her brilliant cuentos, poems, and and performance speak truth to the soul.
WORKSHOPS
Sunday June 5 12-6 p.m. at Washington Hall. 153 14th Ave Seattle 98122.
Tickets available at door only.
An Afternoon of Workshops Featuring Edwina Lee Tyler, Christine Cruz Guiao/April Nishimura and Fabiola Romero
12-2 p.m.
Edwina Lee Tyler – Learning the Spirit of the Drum
Two hour djembe/drum workshop with Master Drummer Edwina Lee Tyler. Only Northwest workshop~
Her collaborations with Dance and Theater artists include, “Song of Lawino” (1988) with choreographer Jawole Zollar and director Valerie Vasilevsky, “Death of the King’s Horseman” (1987) at Lincoln Center, with Nobel prize winner Wole Soyinka, “Anarchy, Wild Women & Dinah” {1986) with Urban Bush Women, and “Life Dance Trilogy”{1987) at Alice Tully hall with Jawole Zo1lar which earned Tyler a Bessie Award for achievements as a composer for dance. Edwina Lee Tyler was the subject of Edwin Kim Kimber’s documentary, “To Be a Massai.” She has appeared on numerous television programs and interviews focusing on African American Culture Her work has been supported by a variety of foundations including, Meet the composer, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Eastman Fund and the Brooklyn Arts Council Association. Tyler has recorded solo performances and has appeared as a percussionist on various CD’s. Her
recording, Drum Drama was released on audio cassette by’ Percussion Piquant the 1980’s. Her latest CD recording, Things Are Gonna Change, weaves together her unique style of African, jazz and classical rhythms.
Drums not provided. Beginners welcome.
2-4 p.m.
Fabiola Romero – “Individual and Collective Time Travel Along the Borders of Self Workshop”
This workshop is intended to uncover the power of story telling and how it can be used for individual and community healing. Fabiola Romero, Alejandra Abreu, and Norma Alicia also knows as Hijas de Su Madre, will share excerpts from their performances and invite participants to engage in the process of discovering their own stories.
Hijas De su Madre is a combination of Ritual, Mutaciones, Cruzadas, Desvios, Relajos, Desmadres, Metamorphosis y Time Travel Along Las Fronteras del Ser, of Intergenerational healing, Spoken Word, Story, Authentic Movement, Performance Art, Chisme, y Brujeria De Las Buenas.
https://hijasdesumadre.wordpress.com/
4-6 p.m.
April Nishimura and Christine Cruz Guiao, facilitators – “Beyond Identity”
For many queer people of color, identity-based politics has been a source of strength and community. But too often, identity politics revolves around a story of victimization, where our sense of who we are is formed by our relationships to our oppressor(s). We will explore identity in a spiritual context, learning about the stages of spiritual development as described by sages and mystics from wisdom traditions around the world. Through writing exercises and other tools, we will both honor the gifts of these identities as well as examine the ways in which they hold us back from evolving as spiritual beings. This workshop will broaden our understanding of our identities, enabling us to transcend their boundaries and rediscover the power of our true eternal nature.
BIO:
Christine Cruz Guiao and April Nishimura believe that music and art, like clean water, nutritious food, and justice, belongs to all people and not just those privileged few who have resources and access to it. Both are impassioned to explore social issues through their art, using the powerful vessels of music and spoken-word for transformation and healing. Christine Cruz Guiao is a Brooklyn-born, Northwest-raised Pinay mystic healer and has performed in the Queer People of Color Liberation Project and venues as diverse as the Under the Volcano Festival, Chop Suey and the Folklife Festival. April Nishimura has played for cello for over half her life, and has studied the Mongolian horsehead fiddle for the past 4 years, an instrument little-known in the West. April has performed at Benaroya Hall, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Meany Hall, amongst many others. She is currently studying Structural Medicine, learning how to integrate people’s bodies in order to unlock their full creative and spiritual potential. Christine and April have been playing music together for the past year in the band Dreamcake, and have since fallen deeply in love.
More info: voicesrising@gmail.com
Voices Rising
APRIL 15, 2011
7 PM Doors 8 PM Show
$10-$25 Sliding Scale
www.brownpapertickets.com
Washington Hall
153 14th Ave., Seattle
Evelyn Harris, former and founding member of Sweet Honey in the Rock, will headline the April 15, 2011, Voices Rising show at Washington Hall.
Additional performances by:
Rosco Kickingstone
Fabiola Romero
Christine Cruz Guiao & April Nishimura
Evelyn Harris has dedicated her voice to giving depth and meaning to an extensive array of musical styles, creating stirring interpretations of African-American traditional and contemporary material, freedom songs from around the world, jazz, pop, rock ‘n’ roll, gospel and blues. Her 18-year tenure with the internationally acclaimed Black women’s acapella ensemble Sweet Honey In The Rock guided her studies as an artist, performer, arranger and composer. Her compositions include State Of Emergency (1988 Grammy nomination), and My Lament. With Sweet Honey, she recorded and co-produced ten albums on the Warner Brothers, Redwood, and Flying Fish labels.
Evelyn relocated to the Pioneer Valley in Fall 2002. For over 3 years, she directed the choir at the North Hadley Congregational Church and facilitated writing and singing workshops with teenage mothers through the Springfield, Mass YWCA. With an emphasis on the social, political and economic conditions of Blacks in America, she has taught “Introduction to African-American Music” at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts High School, MacDuffie School, Stoneleigh-Burnham School, Smith College, Mt. Holyoke College and Westfield State College among many others. Evelyn currently directs “The Ku’umba Women’s Chorus” at the Northampton Community Music Center and uses singing as cognitive therapy with dementia and Alzheimer’s patients in several nursing homes in the area. During the summer, she is a vocal instructor at the Jane Hanson Vocal Music Academy and the Institute for the Musical Arts Rock ‘n’ Roll Girls Camp. She has enthusiastically shared the stage with The Safari East Jazz Trio, Hip-Hop performance poet Lenelle Moise, singer-songwriter Pamela Means, pianists Miro Sprague, Jeff D’Antona, Stephen Page, Joel Martin and Jerry Noble as well as saxophonist Charles Neville. Earlier collaborations with a diverse spectrum of artists include Odetta, Holly Near, Glory Van Scott, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, June Jordan, Sonia Sanchez, Horace Boyer, Art Steele, Jane Sapp, Zap Mama and Take 6.
Rosco Kickingstone, a two-spirit, chican@ mutt, with mixed blood of conquest, has been slinging a six string for the past twelve years, and has been gender f–king since birth. He takes life experiences, ancestral knowledge, pissed at the system, bits of its culture, one good ear, and every song he’s ever heard to strap-you-on a wild ride through melodic, orchestrated chaos,via guitar and oral whoop-lash. This ain’t yo grandpappy’s folk sing-ah!
Fabiola RomeroFabiola Romero is a passionate Chicana poet and performance artist. She was born in Michoacan and has lived most of her life in white suburbia. Since the age of 7 she has learned to live on the borderlands of amerikan social programming and Mexican Culture. Her cuentos, poems, and and performance share vivid glimpses into the mind of a norm breaking Chicana writer.
Christine Cruz Guiao & April NishimuraChristine Cruz Guiao is a Brooklyn-born, Northwest-raised Pinay mystic healer and has performed in the Queer People of Color Liberation Project, TumbleMe Productions’ “XOXO: Love Notes from the Margins.” April Nishimura has played cello for over half her life, and has studied the Mongolian horsehead fiddle. They form the band Dreamcake and believe that music and art, like clean water, nutritious food, and justice, belongs to all people.
Check out the photo gallery …
D'Lo performs at Voices Rising
Oct. 16, 3 PM
$10-$25 Sliding Scale
Special Host: Crystal Ybarra!
D’Lo
Described as a “jolt of creative and comedic energy”, D’Lo is a Tamil Sri L.A.nkan-American, political theatre artist/writer, music producer and director. Using excerpts from D’s different solo shows, D’FaQTo Life (pronounced De Facto) is roller-coaster ride of emotions with stories executed through stand-up, spoken word/poetry, and theater. D’Lo explores topics relating to South Asia and transgender social justice from the perspective of being a child of immigrant parents, raised in hip hop culture while trying to negotiate how identifying as “queer” intersected with a passion to create political art. www.dlocokid.com or myspace.com/dlocokid
With Special Guests Militant Child & DJ B-Girl.
Soul speech is all local hip-hop artist Militant Child claims. Heavily influenced by the Black Baptist tradition, she is a self described blaspheme and militant – no white jesus, no hetero, and no snitchin. She rocks her unique brand of hip hop and poetry, popping with freedom beats up and down the West Coast. Militant Child does her thing!
Don’t miss Nedra Johnson, Kevin Simmonds, Crystal Ybarra, Imani Sims and emcee Chad Goller-Sojourner at the next Voices Rising show during Pride Weekend in Seattle!
June 26
7:30 p.m. doors
Hugo House
1634 11th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122
$10-$25 Sliding Scale
Nedra Johnson
Nedra Johnson in a singer/songwriter multi-instrumentalist born & living in New York City. Her unique style of guitar playing is unmistakably informed by her many years as a professional bassist and keeps her live solo acoustic performances more on an R&B tip then what one might expect of a “girl with a guitar.” Nedra’s self-titled sophomore release is a joyful mix of R&B, funk, rock and gospel. Honest in integrity to the music as well as the lyrical content, each song is a testimony of her experience as a black openly lesbian woman in love, spirituality, community and or politics. Featuring lush background vocals and danceable grooves, Nedra makes the personal political and the erotic downright spiritual. nedrajohnson.com
Kevin Simmonds
Kevin Simmonds is a writer, musician and photographer originally from New Orleans. His writing has appeared in Asia Literary Review, Callaloo, Chroma, FIELD, jubilat, Kyoto Journal, Massachusetts Review, Poetry and elsewhere. Most recently, he wrote the musical score for Hope: Living and Loving with HIV/AIDS in Jamaica which won a News and Documentary Emmy Award. He edited Ota Benga Under My Mother’s Roof, a collection of poems about the Congolese pygmy who was exhibited in the monkey cage at the Bronx Zoo. In 2006, Wisteria: Twilight Songs for the Swamp Country, his musical collaboration with Kwame Dawes, opened the Poetry International Festival at London’s Royal Festival Hall and was the subject of a 2007 BBC documentary. He lives in San Francisco and northern Japan. kevinsimmonds.com
Imani Sims
Imani Sims comes to Voices Rising fresh from triumph at the RETRO Revolutionary Poetry Slam. Honing her skills since age 8, she’s performed with The Tribes Project, Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center and Hampton University.
Crystal Ybarra
Crystal Ybarra brings the Pacific Northwest words stitched together by hard-won survival. Raised in California’s Central Valley, a piece of her heart will always be with Delano. Her writing is raw and unapologetic, drawing from the realities of her life and mind. She believes in fate and she believes in love; more importantly, she believes they both have brought you here tonight.
Chad Goller-Sojourner is a Seattle based writer, solo performer, and recipient of a distinguished 2008 Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Performing Arts Fellowship. In 2007, he was selected to participate in the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas: Creation Project, which was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). In July 2008, his highly anticipated solo show, Sitting in Circles with Rich White Girls: Memoirs of a Bulimic Black Boy, debuted at Seattle’s Brownbox African-American Theatre. Chad’s work has received overwhelming support from various arts communities and organizations including: Richard Hugo House, Mayor’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, Artist Trust, The Bent Writing Institute, Seattle Poetry Slam, King County: 4Culture and the National Performance Network.
Additional works include publishing a chapbook entitled Born One Thousand Years Too Early: Fat, Dark-Skinned, Gay and Adopted by White Folks A Fragmentary Journey Towards Alignment which has been described as poignant, chilling and prophetic. Chad also served as the creator, artistic director and executive producer for People of Color Against Aids Network’s: Standing In The Gap ─ And Speaking Their Names ─ Black Gay Poets Honor Their Ancestors ─ A Spoken Word Requiem. Currently Chad is working a coming of age memoir based on his life. Web site
Don’t miss the next Voices Rising show at the new Southside Commons space in Columbia City!
When: Saturday, May 29, 2010 – Doors Open at 7:30 p.m., Show at 8 p.m.
Cost: Sliding scale – $10-$25
Advance Tickets: Purchase online at Brown Paper Tickets
Location: Southside Commons, 3518 S Edmunds Street, Seattle, WA 98118
About Southside Commons: Southside Commons is a new space in the former Southside Church in the Columbia City neighborhood that seeks to be a home for grassroots and community organizations to gather, perform and showcase their work.
Performers: Mami Watu & Avery Young, Storme Webber, Chad Goller-Sojourner, Malkia Cyril, Mikeya Jackson Harper
Artist Bios
It was while serving on the panel: Pot Calling 
Kettle Black – Heterosexism in Homo-Hop, at the 2009 Fire & Ink 3 Festival for GLBT Writers of African Descent, that these two poets came together to answer questions about the present & future of Hiphop. Is homo-hop at its core supporting or combating homophobia, misogyny and violence through its music? Is it the responsibility of the homo-hop artist to be more socially conscious? Should homo-hop be considered a separate genre? Were but some of the issues tackled by panel & audience members. READ MORE
Storme Webber is a spoken word, vocal, and visual artist with extensive experience in multimedia arts production. Her work spans film, stage, tv, radio and cultural production/arts activism, and has focused on marginalized communities. Storme is a Writer in Residence at Richard Hugo House and is also the Founder/Artistic Director of Voices Rising: LGBTQ of Color Arts & Culture. She has led workshops and organized many art events in various countries over the last 25 years, including the UK, USA, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany & Brazil. She has been a City Artist with the Seattle Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture; a Jack Straw Writer’s Program Fellow; and a member of Artist Trust’s Literary EDGE program. Storme is now a Writer in Residence for Seattle Arts & Lectures, and a CD Forum Creation Project artist.
Chad Goller-Sojourner is a Seattle based writer, solo performer, and recipient of a distinguished 2008 Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Performing Arts Fellowship. In 2007, he was selected to participate in the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas: Creation Project, which was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). In July 2008, his highly anticipated solo show, Sitting in Circles with Rich White Girls: Memoirs of a Bulimic Black Boy, debuted at Seattle’s Brownbox African-American Theatre. Chad’s work has received overwhelming support from various arts communities and organizations including: Richard Hugo House, Mayor’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, Artist Trust, The Bent Writing Institute, Seattle Poetry Slam, King County: 4Culture and the National Performance Network.
Additional works include publishing a chapbook entitled Born One Thousand Years Too Early: Fat, Dark-Skinned, Gay and Adopted by White Folks A Fragmentary Journey Towards Alignment which has been described as poignant, chilling and prophetic. Chad also served as the creator, artistic director and executive producer for People of Color Against Aids Network’s: Standing In The Gap ─ And Speaking Their Names ─ Black Gay Poets Honor Their Ancestors ─ A Spoken Word Requiem. Currently Chad is working a coming of age memoir based on his life. Web site
Malkia Amala Cyril’s first poem was written at the age of 6 about the deportation of Haitian migrants in the early 1980’s. Since then, s/he has won poetry slams at the famed Nuyorican Poet’s Café in NYC, spent time as a writer-in-residence at the Brooklyn Academy of Music working under performer Laurie Anderson, and performed in the company of and for noted writers Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Kevin Powell, Willie Perdermo and others. Published in such anthologies as “Afrekete,” “In the Tradition,” and “Aloud” – Malkia’s poetry explores safety and belonging at the intersections of identity and power. She has performed at Aaron Davis Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Knitting Factory and many other venues. “Behind the steel bars of invisible black men/there is a pile of brick butches/invisible to them/hand carved to stone lies/stone mouth and stone thighs/the best part of me/illogically/is the way that i cry…”
In the Voices Rising show on May 29th at Southside Commons in Seattle, malkia amala cyril aka “mac” will explore the tender places where Brooklyn black meets queer butch meets violence in the dark. With song inspired poetry, her creative work tells the story of a black family touched by sickle cell anemia, the legacy of child abuse, and the dreams of black masculine women born in the fire of the 1980’s, hip hop, and the aftermath of the Black Panther Party. Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice, and keynote speaker at the 2009 Butch Voices Conference, mac believes in the power of stories to transform the future. Malkia is the Executive Director and founder of the Center for Media Justice located in Oakland, California.
Activist artist Mikeya Jackson-Harper from the Ladies First Collective, Youth Speaks Seattle, and The Kaytalist Project, brings her slam champion verse to the Voices Rising stage for the first time.
Voices Rising is an ongoing series of peformances by LGBTQ performers of color. Founded in 2005 by artist and activist Storme Webber, Voices Rising has emerged as the leading showcase for queer performers of color. Past shows have featured performances by standout artists such as Nedra Johnson, okonomode aka SoulChilde, Christa Bell, Dakota Camacho and many, many more. Performances are held quarterly at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. A volunteer project, funding for the project is sustained through ticket sales, event sponsorships and donations.
