Discendants
Dissent meets descendants in this not your average sit-down show!
Experience Frequency, Resonance & Memory as audience weaves through a series of performance installations that include dance, spoken word, textile art, mixed media and live music.
Each artist explores the silenced wisdom and history of those from whom they descend. Featuring Aimee Suzara, Audacious I AM, Carolina Abolio, Danielle Kardum, Jackie Rago, Monica Smith-Hastings, Malik Seneferu, m.a. brooks, Texta Queen, S.D. Shah & Meja Isan Yehimba.
June 26
Discendants
Maria Victoria Mata & Melonie Green
AAACC, 7pm & 9pm
$8 – $20 sliding scale
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/119668888229210
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6iOCA7q_FE&feature=youtu.be
ARTISTS BIOS
Born and raised in Memphis, TN, Melonie J. Green moved to San Francisco in 2000 after earning her Bachelor of Science degree in Speech, Communication, and Theatre from Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN. In 2005, Melonie co-founded Infin8 Sync, LLC with her twin sister, Melorra Green. Infin8 Sync, LLC is a creative events and production company that utilizes “out of the box” techniques to promote student and independent artists, as well as create platforms for networking. Melonie is currently pursuing her Masters in Applied Sciences from the University of Denver in Environmental Policy and Management. Other endeavors and Bay Area initiatives established by Melonie Green include:
- IAW- Independent Artists’ Week; a week-long celebration of independent artists.BYOA – Bring Your Own Art; independent artists empowerment event where artists mingle.
- Gallery 1307; a pop up gallery space created to provide an outlet for artists and the community to create art, enjoy art and build community through art.
- A.R.T. Program; The ART Ambassador Youth Program’s mission is to foster a caring and creative environment that will help youth enhance their art, life, and literacy skills.www.infin8sync.com
Victoria Mata is a Mixed-race Venezuelan-Canadian raised in Venezuela, Northern California, Central France, New York and Toronto. A choreographer, dancer, muralist, urban planner and activist, Victoria has developed and directed over a dozen choreographed works that have been performed in New York, San Francisco, Caracas, El Salvador and Toronto. As a Toronto-Oakland-based artist, “Discendants” is a product and fabrication of her passion for creative collaborations and ancestral research through artistic mediums. Victoria is the co-founder of MataDanZe, a Toronto-based women’s dance and theater collective with a mission to “empower womyn through movement” and has had the privilege of performing for the last three years with the Dora Nominated and Award winning Aluna Theather Company. Victoria is primarily a self-taught dancer with complementary training at the Indigenous Dance Residency program at the prestigious Banff Arts Centre in Alberta, Toronto Dance Theater’s Summer Intensive and Ballet Creole Summer Training. Victoria is also currently completing a Masters of Fine Arts in Dance and Choreography at York University in Toronto. In addition, Victoria is a proud presenter of the 2013 Summer Series at Counterpulse. As an arts facilitator, muralist and urban planner, she utilizes the arts as a vehicle to inform policy and urban planning decision makers at the city planning level through murals and Identity Exploration projects. Photo: Carolina Abolio
www.victoriamata.ca
MataDanZe Womyn Collective: www.matadanze.com
conceCuencias Artists Collective www.consecuencias.org
R3 Artist Collective: www.r3collective.com
Ari Ali is the owner and Executive Producer of Satori Production, a multifaceted film and media company. In the last couple of years, Ari has co-produced a feature length sci-fi film through Satori Production which got picked up for international distribution. As well, Ari has produced and directed multiple short format projects and live events.
www.satoriproduction.com
m. a. brooks discovered magical San Francisco in 1995 and began performing solo body-based work at venues like Luna Sea and The Lab. Since then, m. a.’s work has expanded from solo performance to film, aerial dance and circus. m. a. currently dances with San Francisco aerial dance company, Fly Away Productions, and in June of 2010 was granted a Djerassi choreographers residency. m. a. attended Moving On Center School for Participatory Arts and Research, studied contemporary dance at The School for New Dance in Amsterdam, and created an experimental dance film as part of the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project. m.a. is most curious about integrating performance art, contemporary dance, African American vernacular, contact improvisation, film and political theater. Photo: Carolina Abolio
Aimee Suzara has been sharing poetry and multidisciplinary performance since 1999. Her play, Pagbabalik (Return) appeared in festivals in 2006-7 and she is working on her second, A History of the Body, both supported by the Zellerbach Family Foundation. Recently, she collaborated with Amara Tabor Smith and Deep Waters Dance Theater for the food-justice themed dance theater piece, Our Daily Bread. Her poems appear in several journals and anthologies such as Kartika Review, 580 Split, Lantern Review and Walang Hiya: Literature Taking Risks Toward Liberatory Practice, Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees and Poets (Lit Noire Press) and her chapbook, the space between (Finishing Line Press). She’s been featured as a spoken word artist throughout the SF Bay Area and nationally, including at Stanford, Mt. Holyoke College, Portland State University, and UC Santa Cruz. An advocate for the intersection of arts and literacy, she is a creative writing lecturer at Cal State University Monterey and leads workshops in poetry and performance for youth and adults. Website: www.aimeesuzara.net
Carolina Abolio is a Venezuelan photographer, based in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area. In her work you can see the mix of her strong Caribbean roots and the magic of diversity that surrounds her everyday. Her main goal is to bring community together and express poetry in each image she shoots by making faces and lives visible to the rest of the world. Carolina was part of an artist series, commissioned by the school of Latin American Affairs at Harvard University, to promote Latin American artists in the Boston Metro area.
In 2012 Carolina partnered with two other photographers to participate in a project called Making Mothers Visible. The International Museum of Women, the San Francisco Public Library and the Inside Out Project were the sponsors. Making Mothers Visible is a large-scale, global photography project that foregrounds the faces of mothers, draws attention to the value of mothers worldwide, and spotlights the issue of maternal health
She serves as a mentor for the East Bay College Fund which aspires to involve the whole community in providing college access services, scholarships, mentoring, and support networks to assist young people in realizing their full potential. She is co-author with writer David Figueroa of the exhibition “A travez de la Luz” in San Felipe, Venezuela as a part of the book “A photograph is a sustained journey in time”. Website: www.fineartamerica.com/profiles/carolina-abolio.html
Audacious I AM is often described as BOLD, DARING, and INFECTIOUS; the spoken word artist and poet, empowerment speaker and published author, Audacious was birthed in the intoxicating waters of the Mississippi Delta. Audacious followed her destiny and relocated to the Metroplex of Dallas/Fort Worth and made her mark in the literary world as well as her voice in the community. Audacious expresses her experiences through her revolutionary style of poetry/spoken word while she has traveled nationwide; as far as the streets of Harlem, New York to the Open Mid West leaving her dynamic, uplifting and empowering message of outreach and change in the minds and ears of many. In 2008 Audacious founded The EVOLUTION of SPOKEN WORD, an Annual Youth Literary Awareness Production which showcases local talent while increasing funds for literary excellence, in 2009 launched The Backpack Foundation to support sponsored schools, and is continuously a motivational force both in the community and on stage she has recruited a number of community members to volunteer and become active in the communities they live. Website: www.myspace.com/the_audacious_one/blog
Danielle Kardum is pursuing her Masters degree in Counseling Psychology and Expressive Art Therapy at The California Institute of Integral Studies where she is exploring the intersection of the healing power of counseling and the healing powers of the arts. She received her BA in Theatre Arts and Community Art at the University of Oregon where she performed in original new works and devising ensemble projects. Since her undergrad Danielle has taken a break from the stage and has dedicated her time and efforts to working with youth and families within the Bay Area’s mental health systems. Presently as Danielle continues to study the healing power of the arts she continues to examine the intersectionality of her own cultural identity. She is a member of Mama Pancha’s Queer Life Rituals, a non profit organization devoted to creating performances and rituals celebrating important events for members of the queer community and has been known to sing at the Hen house’s Salon Night in Oakland from time to time. In Descendants Danielle uses sound to explore the landscape of identity descended from her diverse ancestry. This is Danielle’s first time creating an art installation and experimenting with multimedia.
Monica Hastings-Smith is an emerging artist who has her roots in Oakland sounds, smells and visuals. She has unbreakable heart and spirit connections to the generations of powerful, stolen-never-crushed-always-rising people in the Americas. Returning to harvest her own creative after years of service as a wife, dedicated mother and company drone, she takes every opportunity to sing and laugh and dream and love and think. A veteran drummer with Samba Funk Carnaval Explosion and a guitarist, singer and composer, you can find her under a tree at twilight somewhere singing out the pains and joys of life. New to high concept productions, she will be watching you and her sister performers tonight with delight. Monica gives all credit to her amazing parents, beautiful and talented children, and loving family. She is especially grateful to love a bunch of wildass, unbridled, creative friends who nevah’ fail to inspire. Axe! All respect and gratitude to the ancestors and to the eternal and primordial feminine in all of us. Website: www.youtube.com/watch?v=imDorbXSQrY. Photo: Carolina Abolio
Sarah Biscarra-Dilley (sass), according to her mother, half-Mexican and half-criminal. A multi-disciplinary artist, weaver, tortillera and witch, her work explores the spaces between the worlds; between ancestral lines, between gender and gender roles, between past and present, between sacred space and living space, between personal authority and collective responsibility, between solemn attention and necessary irreverence. She likes dry heat, datura blossoms, musty textiles, strong coffee, tight skirts and sharp tongues. She lives in San Francisco. Website: www.shiftingandmultiple.com/Sarah-Biscarra-Dilley
Malik Seneferu is a self-taught and extremely prolific African-American artist who enjoys painting primarily about his youth and the concepts of beauty. Malik has created more than 1,000 different pieces of artwork, including paintings, murals, and mixed media projects in the past 25 years that hang different professional arenas throughout the world, such as galleries, museums, magazines, and newspapers, despite the fact that he has no formal college training.
While growing up in the 1970s and 80s, Malik saw his peers going to jail and getting killed. Living a life of crime did not appeal to him, so he chose to follow his dreams and began creating art. His interest in art became a pursuit for spiritual, mental, and physical elevation. In addition to creating original art pieces, Malik works with communities that have seen hardship. Website: www.maliksart.com
Jackie Rago is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, producer and educator specializing in Venezuelan Folk-Music as well as music from other countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1989, Jackeline graduated with a B.A. from the Music & Arts Institute of San Francisco, CA, majoring in classical mandolin. Presently, she resides in the Bay Area which has been her home base for the past 20 years. In addition to her Cuatro and mandolin expertise, Rago is an accomplished percussionist and vocalist. Jackeline Rago is the artistic and musical director of the “Venezuelan Music Project” (Venezuelan Folk music, www.venezuelanmusicproject.com) and a founding member of the “VNote Ensemble” (formerly The Snake Trio, www.vnotensemble.com), bands which she travels and performs with in an ongoing basis. She was also a founding member of “Altazor” (Nueva Canción ensemble),” Wild Mango” (world beat music), “Keith Terry & Crosspulse” (world percussion) and “Trio Altamira” (contemporary Latin American music). Jackeline Rago has performed nationally and internationally for over 20 years showcasing the music of Latin America with an emphasis in Venezuelan Folk-Music. Website: www.jackelinerago.com
Erin Lee has worked in post-production for several films on Caribbean culture, and as well as working as the technical director on location for large-scale music festivals on the islands. She currently works as associate producer for the PBS series “Standing on Sacred Ground” and has produced videos for the San Francisco School of Bartending, SF Mixology, and the Evolutionary Healing Institute in Miami.
