Voices Rising

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

ADVANCE TICKETS

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 – Show Emcee

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

PURCHASE TICKETS

Artist Bios

Mami Watu & Avery Young

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

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

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

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.

Mikeya Jackson-Harper

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.

From the heart of my heart I am thankful to : Joyful Freeman, Naomi Ishisaka & LHPAC for helping to create a way for Crystal Ybarra, THEESatisfaction, Mikeya Jackson- Harper, Justin Huertas, Moni Tep & Landon Longhill to take the stage last night and make it a place of wonder, power & transformation. My greatest love & respect to all of you. – Storme Webber