mixed roots community | Mixed Roots Stories

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-72 Robert 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 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 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.

Zavé 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.

Lisa 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.

Fred 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.

Ethnic Man!

Entertaining Diversity’s flagship one-man show – a fast paced, humorous and dramatic autobiographical multimedia performance. Arboleda’s story has been a particularly influential and entertaining choice of colleges and theaters around the country. Arboleda is African-American/Native-American/Filipino-Chinese & German-Danish, and he grew up in Japan. Funny, intelligent, serious, thought-provoking. Countless standing ovations, unforgettable powerful messages about race, culture, ethnicity, class, gender and religion. 900 performance around the US, in 48 states.

Find out more about Teja Arboleda’s Ethnic Man! availability for keynote speaking events, conventions, colleges…

http://www.entertainingdiversity.com/shows.html

Ungrateful Daughter in Los Angeles!

“Ungrateful Daughter: One Black Girl’s Story of Being Adopted into a White Family…that aren’t Celebrities” in the Los Angeles Women’s Theater Festival March 29th at 3pm.

ABOUT THE SHOW
“Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Madonna have adopted black children. How could it not be good? Should you go pick one up? Especially after you see their faces on TV looking so sad? “Ungrateful Daughter”, Lisa Marie’s riveting solo show, examines being a black girl adopted into a white family and how all that relates to these celebrity crazes, the Haitian and Ethiopian ‘orphans’ and the myth of colorblind love.

In the early 1970’s Lisa Marie is adopted by a couple seeking an “Asian-mix” baby and end up with a little black girl whose racial identity is hidden by the adoption agency. Funny and sharp, it is a story that thrusts us into the complicated racial knots of being a transracial adoptee that are so hard to untangle. Especially when your family doesn’t see you as black.

In a rush of electrifying story-telling, spoken word poetry and hilarious, unexpected characterizations, Lisa Marie reveals a sometimes disturbing story that makes clear what it’s like to attend an almost exclusively white, private elementary school; expresses her fierce love for her conservative, Republican, Christian, organic farmer parents and her clashes with the new group of liberal, well- meaning, white adoptive parents that strain her patience–over and over again. Infused with a gentle sense of humor as well as a seething rage, Lisa Marie wonders if she will ever heal from the secrets, stolen histories and unknowns she and so many other adoptees share.”
http://birthproject.wordpress.com/ungrateful-daughter/

The Other Project

The Other Project is a documentary photography project shared with Mixed Roots Stories by storyteller Rachel Crick.

“The Other Project is a documentary project focusing specifically on the development of self-identity of people across the country who identify as “bi-racial,” or “multi-ethnic,” or who use other similar adjectives to make sense of their racial make-up. One goal for this project is to encourage public discussion around racial identity — to be a catalyst for people to see themselves, despite their so-called differences, and find the commonalities amongst themselves. We are looking for participants of both racial and ethnic diversity for this project. If you are of a multiracial/multiethnic background, or you know of others who may be interested, please contact us.”

For more information about the project and how to participate visit her website www.rachelcrickphotography.com.

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.

Grant Writing Specialist Needed – Intern/Volunteer Opportunity

Mixed Roots Stories is looking for a motivated person who is experienced, or wants to gain experience writing grant proposals. The Grant Specialist will work with the Mixed Roots Stories team to grow a database of grant opportunities as well as gather information, collect and organize data, and draft grant submissions. This could be either an intern or volunteer position. The intern/grant writer must be self motivated, organized, detail oriented, a team player and timely with due dates. This is an ideal position for someone looking for an internship or volunteer opportunity working with an up and coming, very active nonprofit.

Please send resumes/CVs (include references) and cover letters expressing your interest in Mixed Roots Stories and the Grant Specialist position to info@mixedrootsstories.org. Please put “Grant Writer” in the subject line.

Looking for Guest Bloggers

We would like to reach out to the Mixed Roots community to invite people to participate as a Guest Blogger on MixedRootsStories.org. Our blog is dedicated to sharing stories of the mixed experience, and helping to spread the word about artists, writers and others whose work addresses this experience. Our Guest Bloggers will add 2-4 posts during their designated month. These posts might share personal stories, be a reflection on an aspect of society, or a discussion and/or analysis of racial identity, and more. Your posts should be submitted one week before the month your posts will begin. Once we’ve moderated it and ironed out logistics with you, we will then feature your posts on the MXRS website, Facebook page and Twitter.

If you would like to participate, please email us a bio, picture, topic ideas, and the number of times you wish to post (2, 3, or 4) to info@mixedrootsstories.org with Guest Blogger as the subject line. We will reply within a week to confirm when we can add you as a contributor on our site (please remember to add our email address to your safe list).

Looking forward to blogging with you!