Mixed Roots Stories Performance Sampler @ CMRS 2017

Mixed Roots Stories Performance Sampler 2017

February 26th, 2:30 – 4:00 p.m.

At the 4th Critical Mixed Race Studies conference, four dynamic performers will share a sampling of their work followed by an open discussion with the artists on craft, process and engaging with themes of the mixed experience.

 

Elizabeth Chin and the Laboratory of Speculative Ethnology

The Jefferson-Hemings Complex
Elizabeth Chin is an ethnographer and anthropologist with a multifaceted practice that includes performative scholarship, collaborative research, and experimental writing. A professor at Art Center College of Design in the MFA program Media Design Practices/Field, she has published widely on children, consumption, anthropological practice. She has performed and done ethnography in the United States, Haiti, Uganda, and Cuba.

Gregory Diggs-Yang

Becoming Korean, While Growing Out My Afro: A Personal Narrative about a Moment in My Own Identity Development as a Mixed Korean and Black American
Gregory (Chan-wook) Diggs-Yang has a Bachelor’s (BA) in Education from Illinois State University and a Master’s (M.Ed.) in Educational Administration from UCLA. Greg has most recently moved from South Korea where he worked at Seoul National Universities as the Curriculum Coordinator for the IETTP (Teacher Training) and was a co-host of the Arirang Radio segment, ”Footprints of Korea with Chan-wook”. In addition he served as the President of the M.A.C.K. Foundation (Movement of the Advancement of Cultural-diversity of Koreans). A grassroots organization that supports multicultural schools and increases recognition and awareness of the diversity of Koreans. His areas of interest include multicultural education, mixed-heritage, and social justice. Greg is currently a doctoral candidate in the College of Education, Multicultural Education program at the University of Washington, Seattle. His dissertation looks at the support of biracial identity development through educational spaces.


Genevieve Erin O’Brien

Sugar Rebels

Genevieve Erin O’Brien is a Queer mixed race Vietnamese/Irish/German/American woman. She is an artist, a filmmaker, an organizer, a cook/private chef, and an educator who lives and works in Los Angeles. She holds an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. O’Brien was a Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam, a recipient of the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles and Center for Cultural Innovation’s Creative Economic Development Fund. in 2016 she went to Hanoi, Vietnam as a US Dept. of State/ZERO1 American Arts Incubator Artist for a project highlighting LGBTQ visibility and equality. Her newest work More Than Love on the Horizon: West Coast Remix and Sugar Rebels were recently commissioned and presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.

 

For additional conference programing and other details visit the CMRS website.


Mixed Roots Stories LIVE 2017 performers

Mixed Roots Stories LIVE Performance 2017

February 25th, 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.

Mixed Roots Stories will open the 4th Critical Mixed Race Studies conference with live performances by the following:

karimi-standing-72Robert Farid Karimi

Disco Jesus – new work TBA!

Robert Farid Karimi is a community engagement specialist and comedic storyteller. He works with everyday people in cities, companies, and health centers worldwide on making healthy messaging delicious using comedy, culture and food with his culinary cultural engagement project: ThePeoplesCook Project. And, he speaks on issues as mixed race/consciousness, food politics, community deliciousness and the power of the Fool/Trickster to change the world. www.KaRRRimi.com

crystal-alad-3Crystal Shaniece Roman

Black Latina the Play

In 2008 Ms. Roman launched The Black Latina Movement, LLC (BLM) and began performing BLM’s first written theatrical piece: a one woman show about the lives of dark-skinned Latinas and African American Latinas entitled Black Latina. In early 2013 Black Latina received a new format featuring an all female ensemble cast starring Judy Torres; during the fall the revamped Black Latina saw the success of multiple sold out shows. Since 2013 Black Latina the Play has been on tour in the Northeast at campuses such as: Hamilton College, Penn State University, Community College of Baltimore County-Essex and Lehigh University. Most recently Crystal revised the one woman version of Black Latina the Play after being invited to perform at the Smithsonian Institute for Hispanic Heritage Month Festival Latinidad- Looking into Latina Women’s American Experiences September 2016.

 

carly-headshotCarly Bates

Musings of Rachel Dolezal

Carly Bates is an emerging artist from Phoenix, Arizona. With a background in music and piano performance, she is active in the Arizona arts community as a creative collaborator with musicians, movers, poets, actors: storytellers. Having recently graduated from Arizona State University, Carly is currently working with a local playback theatre company called Essential Theater and is also the editor for the Mixed Roots Stories Commons.

 

zave-martohardjono-mr-5-2-16-6337-credit-david-gonsierZavé Gayatri Martohardjono

Untitled (Balinese dance study)

Zavé Gayatri Martohardjono makes intercultural, geopolitical, boundary-defying, high glam performance, video, and installations. Interested in embodied risk-taking and cross-cultural imagery, they combine improvisation with their own cultural roots: Indonesian mythology and dance, queer iconography. Brooklyn based, Zavé has shown at Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Boston Center for the Arts, Center for Performance Research, Center for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Movement Research at Judson Church, Recess, SOMArts, Winslow Garage, among others. They have been an artist in residence at the Shandaken Project at Storm King, La MaMa Experimental Theatre, Chez Bushwick, and an Lambda Literary Emerging Writers Workshop Fellow.

 

dsc_7157_tLisa Marie Rollins

Performing an excerpt from SIDE CHICK: This ain’t no Harlequin Romance

Lisa Marie Rollins is playwright, poet, freelance director and dramaturg. Most recently she co-directed Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment (Crowded Fire Theater) and a reading of Tearrance Chisholm’s Br’er Cotton (Playwrights Foundation). She is the director of All Atheists are Muslimby Zahra Noorbakhsh and was co-producer of W. Kamau Bell’s “Ending Racism in About and Hour”. Lisa Marie performed her acclaimed solo play, Ungrateful Daughter: One Black Girl’s Story of Being Adopted by a White Family…That Aren’t Celebrities in festivals, universities and academic conferences across the US. She was Poet in Residence at June Jordan’s Poetry for the People at U.C. Berkeley, a CALLALOO Journal London Writing Workshop Fellow and an alumni in Poetry of VONA Writing Workshop. Her writing is published in Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out, River, Blood, Corn Literary Journal, Line/Break, As/Us Literary Journal,The Pacific Review and others. Currently, she is finishing her new manuscript of poems, Compass for which she received the 2016 Mary Tanenbaum Literary Award from SF Foundation. She is in development with her new play, Token. She holds degrees from The Claremont Graduate University and UC Berkeley. She is a Lecturer at St Mary’s College in Performance Studies, and a Resident Artist with Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco. Lisa Marie is a 2015-16 playwright member of Just Theater Play Lab and Artist-in-Residence at BRAVA Theater for Women in San Francisco.

sasaki_fredFred Sasaki EAT TO JAPANESE: Achieving ethnic authenticity by eating, shopping, emojis

A step-by-step guide to being genuine authentic

Fred Sasaki is the art director for Poetry magazine and a gallery curator for the Poetry Foundation. He is the author of Real Life Emails (Tiny Hardcore Press, 2017) and the zine series Fred Sasaki’s and Fred Sasaki’s Four-Pager Guide To: How to Fix You.

 

 

The Performance will be held at the Norris Cinema Theater 850 W 34th St, Los Angeles, CA 90089

This event is Co-Sponsored by the USC School of Cinematic Arts

Free tickets will be limited. Check back for a link to register.

For additional conference programing and other details visit the CMRS website.

Day of walk-ins will also be welcome pending ticket availability.

 


Diverse Storytelling – with MERGE

Mixed Roots Stories was honored to join MERGE students from Pomona College in preparing mentors for incoming students to the Claremont Colleges. The “Claremont Colleges” is a consortium comprised of 5 undergraduate colleges, and 2 graduate institutions in Claremont, California.  MERGE (Multi Ethnic and Racial Group Experience) “is the Claremont Colleges’ club for multi-ethnic/multi-cultural students.” Their mission is “to provide a safe space for people of mixed heritage in which we may discuss issues of multi-racial and/or multi-ethnic identity and to raise awareness within the [Claremont Colleges] community.” Kaily Heitz, one of Mixed Roots Stories board members & Pitzer College alumna, is one of the founders of the organization.

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Dr. Chandra Crudup, also a Mixed Roots Stories board member, facilitated a workshop on Surviving Social Justice Fatigue through Diverse Storytelling. She led the group of students through defining social justice fatigue, identifying warning signs, and creating a survival guide. We then explored ways to creatively self care through sharing our individual and collective stories. The students were challenged to create an individual and/or group representation of who they are and what goals they have for MERGE.  They decided to create a zine! Each student created one to four pages that will be compiled into a MERGE zine. The students shared their pages with the group describing what each element they included on their page represented or why they included it. It was an inspiring, encouraging, fun time! Check out the MERGE Zine in this video:

If you are interested in having a Mixed Roots Stories workshop work with your student group, email us at info@mixedrootsstories.org.


Short Film Contest – $50,000 Plus More in Prizes for Three Filmmakers

comedy_and_tragedy_masks

$50,000+ IN PRIZES WILL BRING 3 FILMMAKERS’ DREAM PROJECTS TO LIFE

Project Film Supply (#ProjectFilmSupply) wants to help filmmakers bring their vision to life.  According to Daniel McCarthy this is how it works:

Step 1: For the month of August, we’ll ask the filmmaking community to submit a short film idea + mood board for the project they’ve always dreamed of creating.

Step 2: Those who submit an idea will ask their friends, family, and followers to vote for their projects.

Step 3: The Community + TMB will decide which three stories rise to the top and which one absolutely has to become a reality (the two runners up will receive loads of incredible prizes)

This is your chance to bring your dream project to life! Click on the Link above to learn more and to apply!

 




MXRS Visual Podcast Episode 1: Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis and the Mixed Race Initiative

We are excited to launch the visual version of Episode 1 of the MXRS Podcast — bringing you the story behind the stories. Our first several episodes are in partnership with the Asian American Literary Review and its Mixed Race Initiative. Editor-in-Chief Lawrence-Minh Búi Davis is our first guest. Join us as our conversation winds its way through language, how we identify ourselves, the origins of the Mixed Race Initiative and its components, making our work more accessible, and much more.


Storytelling Might Save Lives

This is a wonderful piece on a program that encourages inmates to put their stories to paper (through poetry, fiction, songs and more). The article mostly focuses on the documentary film At Night I Fly – which visits California’s New Folsom maximum security prison. We hope it inspires you to take advantage of every opportunity you have to write you story – there are many who are deprived of this privilege. Here’s the article: http://m.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/can-storytelling-ease-the-pain-of-incarceration/281785/


Storytelling Techniques

Amanda Lewan is a digital storyteller.  On her blog post 21 Awesome Storytelling Techniques (http://www.amandalewan.com/blog/digital-storytelling/25-21-awesome-storytelling-techniques) she describes storytelling as a form of sharing that can be told in many different ways.

“Storytelling is the core of who are as human beings, and it’s an art all in it’s own — no matter what form you are using.  Many storytelling techniques still stand the test of time. With a little creativity and imagination, you can apply storytelling techniques to any form for your brand storytelling.”

 

She gives examples of 21 Awesome Storytelling techniques. Here are some favorites:

1. Show don’t tell.

4. Create a mood.

8. Appeal to our senses.

15. Make it interactive.

16. Make it visual.

19. Pull on our emotions.

 

How do you tell your story? What techniques inspire your creativity and imagination?