Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads, especially those dads who stayed the course, when walking away would have been so much easier, even expected. Congratulations to all the fathers who didn’t pretend to know what was best and had the courage to find out how to be a better parent. Happy Father’s Day to the OGs who have grown more responsible with age. It is never too late to do better, even if you missed a generation—grace is that second chance.

Congrats to all the graduates (May-June), especially my niece and nephew Wilda Batin and Wilfred Batin. Wilda is graduating from San Francisco Day School with highest honors. As I write this, she is in Puerto Rico on a service learning trip with her school. Good luck Wilda in high school (smile). Wilfred graduated from Rosa Parks Elementary School and the Rosa Parks Japanese Bilingual Bi-cultural Program, with honors as well. Good luck Wilfred in Middle School.

Congrats also to Abdullah Sabir, my daughters’ younger brother, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Communications from Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. The late Dr. Wangari Maathai graduated from “Atchison’s Mount St. Scholastica College, now Benedictine College [too,] her degree in biological science in 1964.” She is the first African woman to be awarded any Nobel Prize (2004) for her work in sustainable development, democracy and peace. She is also the first African woman to earn a doctorate degree. Abdullah’s college is the only Catholic College in the United States “to boast of an alumna who is a Nobel Peace Laureate” (http://www.benedictine.edu/about/notable-alumni). He has plans to continue his education at the graduate level. The Berkeley High School alumnus, was an all-star football player at Benedictine as well as a sports writer. He’d like to be a coach. Right now, he is working with kids at a YMCA-affiliate program in the Fillmore.

New York in the Spring—Ark of Return

While I was in New York in April I was able to visit Ark of Return at the United Nations. A recent monument commemorating the end of slavery, it was designed by Rodney Leon (architect) and his team. His firm is the same one which designed the monument commemorating the African Burial Ground in Wall Street. Made from marble, the Ark of Return sits near the East River, so one can imagine easily the Ark sailing away across the waters home. As with the other monument, triangular sides and a sky view define the structure. One walks into the Ark – up a ramp, into a chamber where an ancestor lies in state. Youthful, it could be Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Freddie Gray, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown. He has on all white; the shroud covering his head slightly looks like a hoodie.
It was a cold day, alternating between rainy and windy. I noticed how visitors were shocked, even startled, by the body inside. It was certainly unexpected, but then people approached without reverence, without understanding the significance of the Ark. Teens crowded the edifice noisily jousting each other about. When it got outrageous, the guard nearby had to remind them that the Ark was a memorial marking a tragedy and internationally sanctioned travesty of justice.

Jacob Lawrence Exhibitions in New York and in California

When things quieted down, I reentered the chamber and placed in the space beneath his head a rose quartz stone and Gye Nyame carving (the Akan Adinkra symbol meaning God-Eternal). It was carved from copper. I also left a few coins. While in New York, I also got a chance to get by the Museum of Modern Art to see “One Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series” (60 pieces) – amazing, especially the companion pieces, literary work displayed and music. The journey north from the south was arduous and once in the new places, black migrants often met situations similar to what they left. Ralph Ellison writes of this in his short story, “King of the BINGO Game” (1944).

In the various panels made of found materials, rough, often battered – the material Lawrence used to depict the journey which like much connected to black life in America, reflects a troubled and harsh reality we have not quite, as a nation, moved through or beyond, despite massive shifts in populations: http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2015/onewayticket/ and for information: https://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1549

At Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center, there is a Jacob Lawrence exhibit, “The Promised Land” (56 pieces) up through August 3. The CAC is open Wednesday–Monday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m., Thursday until 8 p.m. Admission is free. The CAC is located on the Stanford campus, off Palm Drive at Museum Way. Parking is free after 4 p.m. weekdays and all day on weekends and major holidays. Information: 650-723-4177, Visit http://museum.stanford.edu/news_room/Jacob-Lawrence.html

The Ark of Return Reflections . . . in the moment, at that time
. . . Ark of Return at United Nations in New York (First Avenue and about 43-45 Streets (at the security entrance to plaza)

The Ark of Return sits on the East River—from a distance, it looks like a motionless sail as one is pulled towards it from the opening plaza vistas. It isn’t huge, yet it does tower –at its apex, certainly the top of the pyramid structure is taller than any man could reach.

As the other art leads the procession—a large golden globe and a handgun with its mouth tied shut (smile). Certainly a proactive gesture when thinking about bullets and other projectiles which come often unheeded from such instruments.

Burial Grounds

The Ark is a tomb. It recalls the ancient ones of Kemet—the body youthful, a huge number of youth were taken from home never to see family or friends again. One scholar writes of slave ships recast as ceremonial vessels since the rite of passage had both a literal and temporal necessity. There is a space under the youth’s head. He looks asleep—dressed in white marble, his head cover could be a hoodie. I placed a piece of rose quartz and a silver star with the word “love” on it.

Without much imagination the cloth could be a hood and the recent casualties from Oscar Grant to Trayvon Martin . . . to Freddie Gray. . . .

Inside the tomb there is a global map of the trade in African flesh. On the marble floor, and throughout the sculpted work, the triangular landscape recalls the triangular routes used in this still profitable exchange. People speak of slavery continuing, and while sexual trafficking and other types of bondage like debt bondage in India and elsewhere, these forms of captivity are not legal and there is a global outcry, whereas while Africans were being sold, traded on the literal stock market, this human rights travesty was met with silence for hundreds of years. No one cried out. New Afrikan resistance was continuous, but the beneficiaries of this chattel system did not lift their voices until coffers were full, the wealth generated and the slaves’ use all but spun out. It is the same with the prison system—it is growing by leaps and bounds, because this form of legal slavery is profitable especially when the population inside is young. When they get older, that is another chapter of the same story. Notice how many men and women are being released at 60-70-even 80 years old. This is what happened on the other plantations too.

While it is great to draw parallels; we need to not muddy or cloud historic facts in analogous reasoning that is at best inaccurate. Let the fact that Africans were taken from the continent unwillingly for centuries and suffered the most heinous indignities for profit, stand without comparison, because there is nothing imaginable equal to what our ancestors suffered.

The offspring of these strong people remain the scourge of humanity still in the West where these ancestors left indelible creative footsteps and legacies still marching on. The irony remains, despite the façade of equality and justice.

Libations for the Ancestors

The International Libations for the Ancestors is June 13, this year. For those in the Pacific Time Zone, we pour at 9 AM. We will assemble this ninth year at Lake Merritt about 8:30-8:45 (across from the Merritt Bakery where the fountain is; E-14^th Street at Lakeshore Drive). If you can’t get to the Lake, no worries, pour libations for the ancestors where you are. Visit http://maafasfbayarea.com For information call: (641) 715-3900 ext. 36800#

Conference on Trauma and Healing

Free Soul Wounds Conference at Stanford University June 4-6, https://traumaandhealing.stanford.edu/soulwounds

Friday, June 5, 3-4:30 PM, Panel XI: Religion, Spirituality, and Soul, is chaired by Wanda Sabir, Graduate Student, Depth Psychology, Pacifica Graduate Institute; Co-Founder, Maafa Commemoration San Francisco Bay Area in Building 200-Room 030.

California Juneteenth 2015/
For a partial listing visit http://www.juneteenth.us/events/locate.php?mnustate=CA

San Francisco Juneteenth is Saturday, June 13
http://www.sfjuneteenth.com/ San Francisco Black Film Festival June 11-14 too.

Juneteenth – Friends of the Negro Spirituals
Friends of Negro Spirituals Present, “The 3rd Annual Juneteenth Celebration” Juneteenth – the day in 1865 when news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached slaves in Texas, Saturday, June 6, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM at the West Oakland Public Library, 1801 Adeline Street, Oakland. Visit https://www.facebook.com/fns.spirituals

Berkeley Juneteenth,
Berkeley Juneteenth is June 21, 11-7 in South Berkeley’s 5-block Alcatraz-Adeline. Visit http://www.berkeleyjuneteenth.org/

2015 TAAA Juneteenth – Tracy, CA
From Our Roots Come Greatness! Juneteenth in Tracy, CA will be held on June 6th, 2015 this year! Stay tuned for more information! Entertainment, vendors, etc. , call 209.229.6443 or visit: http://heyevent.com/event/w4zade53xmjjma/2015-taaa-juneteenth-tracy-ca

Stockton Juneteenth History Project
Stockton Juneteenth History Project, Thursday, June 19, 2014, 6:30 pm ~ 9:30 pm, Downtown Stockton Waterfront. 2015 marks the 150^th Anniversary of Juneteenth. Read their proclamation which looks at documenting slavery in CA, rhe role of slavery in the Gold Rush and the agricultural legacy here as well: http://www.stocktonjuneteenth.org/flyer

Richmond Juneteenth is June 20
This event is sponsored by the National Brotherhood Alliance and the City of Richmond. For more information, please contact (510) 620-6515 http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/index.aspx?nid=427

June 13, 2015 Juneteenth Celebration at Allensworth State Park
http://friendsofallensworthsandiego.com/calendar.htm
10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.

Join us for our annual Juneteenth celebration. There’s plenty of sunshine for those who love warm weather. This day is celebrated by African Americans in honor of their ancestors who received notice of being set free from slavery later (June 19th) than the majority of slaves elsewhere in the country. There’s great entertainment, great speakers, and of course, a fabulous tour of the historic buildings given free by the Friends of Allensworth volunteers for your educational experience. Lots of great food and beverages as well.

Sacramento Juneteenth is June 19-21.
Visit http://sacramentojuneteenthinc.org/contact/ or call the chair, Gary Simon, (916) 541-2582.

Vallejo’s 27^th Annual Juneteenth
Saturday, June 20, 2015 AT City Park, 11 A.M. TO 6 P.M. Visit http://www.vallejojuneteenth.com/

Arts Festivals

San Francisco International Arts Festival presents: Classic Black with devorah major and Brian Freeman with the Destiny Muhammad Trio (World Premiere), Thursday, June 4 (8:30 p.m.), Sat., June 6, (7 p.m.),-Sunday,
June 7 (5:30 p.m.) at the Southside Theatre at Fort Mason Center. Tickets are $20-$25. Visit http://www.sfiaf.org/ Listen to devorah major talk about this work which resurrects the voices of African American ancestors in California: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2015/01/14/wandas-picks-radio-show-african-film-festival-bampfa

Studio 1508

Situated down the street from Liberty Hall, is an artist studio. In, but not necessarily of the ‘hood, Studio 1508, located at 1508 Eighth Street in Oakland, is delineated by Henry Street, my paternal grandfather’s name. My mother doesn’t know her father’s name, a source of pain for most of her adult life. Society doesn’t pay attention to the impact father’s have on their daughters. I am happy now that I see the difference in outcomes between myself and my sister (different father). My mother left me and my brother with our dad in San Francisco when she left. Perhaps the cultivation of the male energy my dad embodied often proved detrimental to any hope for longevity in relationships, but being branded by his energies certainly proved helpful when I found myself a single parent at 29 years old.

Granted it was hard without a mother. We suffered. All children need both parents, but I don’t think women and men are made with just one parent, just one model, because a human being is more than the physicality or chance of nature. We carry the energies of both genders, so these early and later models we live with, we work with, we play dress up and socialize with, help each of us create the unique form we choose as ours once we are adult.
In Studio 1508 Memorial Day weekend, Jimi Evins and Charles Blackwell performed a visual duet. As I walked up Eighth street after I’d parked, I heard Charles’s voice reciting a poem – his form dancing in front of canvases depicting jazz artists, streets scenes, abstract concepts while across from him, Evins’s work reflected, then sent over a reply. Each painting a separate discourse, the room full of the chit chat and chatter of deep rivers, tall mountains and starry galaxies.

“The California Gothic” series caught my eye immediately as did the singular “Dudes outside of Town” (2015). It was as if, the city could not contain blackness. Its chaos and confusion dangerous to the idea of blackness and black lives and the sanctity of such, so to be whole, to be safe, to be relevant, the character in the canvas decides to live beyond this.

Another work is homage to the grave site just beyond his doors . . . black lives bleeding on street corners, splayed on sidewalks, splatted doorsteps. In “Royal Procession (82nd and East 14th),” (2006) Acrylic 32″ x 24″), red strokes on a single canvas and the bullets flying in another work, “Michael Brown” (2015) 28″ x 20″), signify the violent end of life.

Evins said that often he will choose a medium, like pastels or watercolors and see where the journey takes him; however, his work always has a name. There were several series up, also Shona sculpture, masks, wire sculptures – a figure and a basket, then there were drawings on printed pages – looked like a dictionary or thesaurus. Near the doorway leading beyond the studio there were mbira or Zimbabwean instruments. I recognized them, because I’d had one made for a friend when I was at the Artist Village in Harare a couple years ago. To listen to a recent conversation with artists Jimi Evins and Charles Blackwell visit http://tobtr.com/7570675

Theatre

Echo Brown in Black Virgins Aren’t for Hipsters

After I left Studio 1508 across the street and took BART to San Francisco to see Black Virgins Aren’t for Hipsters, when actually this black girl (Echo Brown) found her soulmate just so–hip. Perhaps only hipsters can tote the pain body Brown bears. I thought the story was comedic when actually it is quite the opposite. There is humor, but when one sits with the material—molestation, low self-esteem, drug addiction, imprisonment . . . none of this is humorous when looked at in its entirety—

Brown assembles the pieces one subtle moment at a time. We dance, sing and laugh, yet through it all explore a young black woman’s life representative of so many others. The Cleveland native attends an Ivory League college, lands a job where she investigates police misconduct, later parleying this into her present day job, Challenge Day, a national nonprofit that bring school children together to address issues like bullying and other antisocial behavior. She meets the hipster while living in New York via Craigslist (smile). He’s a photographer and she the investigator. Both come from working class families, his bigoted or racist, hers just anti-all men.

The sold out show opened with a wonderfully funny, well-written, sketch by Sofiyyah Fredericks. In her work we meet a different Oakland. She changes personas like silk stockings, carefully – and skillfully. There were no runs in the work, which like Echo Brown’s, captures a bit of black life with internal narrative. So often, we never know what the other person is thinking or feeling. In the theatre, we can at least pretend. Certainly no matter what the attitude of the audience, no one leaves unchanged. Black Virgins is up at The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia Street, (415) 641-0235, through July 25, Thursdays at 8 p.m., Fridays at 8:30 p.m. in the smaller upstairs theatre. Downstairs Don Reed’s new play, “Stereotypo” was performed. “Stereotypo” continues at The Marsh in Berkeley, June 6-July 11, 2120 Allston Way, (415) 641-0235. He joined Echo Brown’s audience the evening I attended. Black Virgin’s TRT must have exceeded his that evening. After the performance we were treated to cake and dance lessons, a Soul Train Line. It was lots of fun (smile). We danced during the show too and had to respond to questions which were not rhetorical. The theatre is small, so one could escape the petite actress when she decided to call someone out. Visit http://themarsh.org/blackvirgins/echo-brown/

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Shakespeare at San Quentin

Imagine such in a prison. Shakespeare at San Quentin is collaboration between the correctional institution and Marin Shakespeare Company. The work Lesley Currier and Suraya Keating produce with their resident thespians is remarkable. I was transported. Even after the light sensitive stamp which enabled me to leave after the performance didn’t shake the experience. Three plays in two weeks, Julius Caesar, a Veteran Play, and MacBeth. The program is so popular that there is now a Wednesday group, in addition to the Friday sessions which go back 200?

JC looks at betrayal, while MacBeth is what happens when ambition is allowed to proceed uncensored. The fight scenes were spectacular and since the cast is so talented, often the productions are augmented with original songs and or raps. The staging uses all of the chapel for entrances and exits. Quite popular, the men play to sold out audiences (smile). What I enjoy most, is the conversation after the performance. Out of costume the men answer questions about process, characters and how this company – helps them transform their lives.

It is easy to see how. Acting allows the actors to try on a persona or perspective they perhaps hadn’t considered. Suraya Keating speaks of the shadows lurking in the wings of each of our lives bound, yet yearning for freedom.

MacBeth is a play about honor, integrity and statehood. As he descends along with his wife, Lady MacBeth, the soldier is visited twice by witches who predict his future. The ancestors also haunt his waking moments. On multiple occasions, MacBeth can make better decisions, but slowly his justifications for the slaughter of women and children, innocent people – gets easier and easier. His conscious muted, cripples him further as we watch his descent—he and his wife’s descent into the depths of darkness.

JC trusts the wrong people, the flatters, while his best friend, Brutus is deceived. He does not give his friend, the king, the benefit of the doubt. He believes the worse. The successful campaign reminds me of Edgar Hoover’s (FBI) counterintelligence program which destroyed so many black organizations like the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, the Nation of Islam, SNCC, SCLC and so many others. If anyone is interested in seeing the next play, which is an original play which the men write using themes from the Shakespearean work, should email Suraya Keating, suraya@yahoo.com To see performances visit the Marin Shakespeare Company website: www.marinshakespeare.org To attend a performance or a Shakespeare for Social Justice Instructor Training email: suraya@yahoo.com or lesley@marinshakespeare.org The parallel play is October 23 at 10 a.m. the Training workshop is October 16-18. To listen to a recent interview with Suraya Keating, visit http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2015/05/27/wandas-picks-radio-show

This fall also, in October, there will be a TEDex talk at San Quentin, and in June there will be an Arts in Corrections Conference at SQ.

Mount Misery through June 7

The Cuttingball Theater world premiere of Mount Misery by Andrew Saito, directed by Rob Melrose, is witty as it is shockingly thought-provoking. In this play, Donald Rumsfeld (David Sinaiko) meets a young Frederick Douglass (Giovanni Adams) on a plantation where the youthful enslaved rebel spends a year. Edward Covey’s (Geoffrey Nolan) task is to break his spirit, but we know that this didn’t happen. Rumsfeld purchases the property and befriends the young ghost. Douglass is historic and Rumfeld is in the present—the juxtaposition of the two periods is uncannily familiar – has this nation changed so little the hundreds of interceding years?

As the 18th and 21^st Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was responsible for the United States response after Sept. 11. He was the architect of the resulting wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and the enhanced interrogation methods used to coach from prisoners confessions. He takes young Frederick under his wing and tries to help him survive Covey; however, Douglass is not Caliban, a man who swallowed without analysis or evaluation the intoxicating speech and favors his new master bears.

The two actors, excellent performances by both Adams as Douglass and Sinaiko as Rumsfeld, play Scrabble. Words and the ideas associated with these ideas open Douglass to psychological territory previously unexplored. These letters, these words give him an edge previously unknown. Language is certainly an importance aspect of our humanity. It is for this reason that Caliban (Tempest) is so abused when Prospero implies Caliban whom he treated as a son, is suddenly not good enough for his daughter, Miranda’s hand in marriage. He conveniently forgot it is Caliban who saves his family’s lives when they capsize on his island.

It is clear, when Covey takes the wooden alphabets why literacy was so feared. As each man uses the same letters to spell out different messages, one sees how symbols are so easily manipulated. That reading is just a matter of interpretation, an interpretation which is not necessarily a point of convergence or agreement. A hundred years later, white America is still afraid of a literate black man. Richard Wright witnesses this in his seminal text, “Black Boy” when he shares how he fooled the system of White Racial Dominance into letting him in. All he wanted to do is check out a few books from the public library. He devours the books in one swallow, and returns them so quickly; the librarian raises an eyebrow in question: Are these books really for you young man?

Rumsfeld leaves out signed documents explaining in great detail the use of torture during interrogation—in Frederick’s eyes, there is not much difference between Rumsfeld and Covey. There are scenes which are hard to watch—the whipping, the waterboarding, all the photos on the wall of men in various states of duress. Introduced here is also the role of white women in the seduction of black and white men—Actress Lorri Holt gives an excellent portrayal of both innocence and deceit. Frederick is tempted to trade sides and then when offered a choice to trade places, he refuses. We don’t have to wonder why; he tells us. Are one’s principles worth dying for? How complicit in our silence are we? Well in “Mount Misery,” these questions are not rhetorical ones. Don’t miss the excellent sojourn home. The cast and production are excellent, especially the torture scenes and the multiple faces actors Geoffrey Nolan (Edward Covey) and Lorri Holt (Joyce Rumsfeld) don. Is culture one of artifice or integrity? Where do the ancestors go when their property lands on enemy walls? Let these questions and this production set the stage for Douglass’s famous speech, “What to the American [En]slaved is the 4^th of July?”

“On July 5, 1852, Douglass gave a speech at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence, held at Rochester’s Corinthian Hall. It was biting oratory, in which the speaker told his audience, ‘This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.’ And he asked them, “Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?” (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927.html)

Cuttingball Theatre is located at 277 Taylor in San Francisco. Visit http://cuttingball.com/ or call (415) 292-4700

Book Fairs

2^nd Annual Sacramento Black Book Fair June 5-7 @ the Historic Oak Park, 35^th and Broadway. For information call: 916-484-3749 or email, faye@bluenilepress.com For a recent interview (8 a.m.) with author Terris McMahan Grimes, keynote speaker Sat., June 6 and committee members, http://tobtr.com/7570689

Choir Boy Opens

That same show http://tobtr.com/7570689 we speak to Kent Gash (director) and Jelani Alladin (Pharus) (at 9 a.m.) about Choir Boy by Tarell Alvin McCraney (“Heads of Passes”), in its Bay Area Premiere at the Marin Theatre Company, June 4-28. Visit marintheatre.org or call (415) 388-5208. The organization “Some Brothers” is hosting a theatre party, June 6 at a 25 percent discount. Enter promo code: SB25 (somebrothers@gmail.com).

More Theatre
Central Works 25^th Season continues with the World Premiere of an Adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” adapted for the stage by Gary Graves directed by Jan Zvaifler through June 21 at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Avenue, Berkeley.

On the Fly:

San Francisco Silent Film Festival‘s 20th Anniversary, May 28–June 1, at the Castro Theatre, San Francisco. Visit silentfilm.org 5th Annual San Francisco Green Film Festival, May 28 – June 3, 2015 www.greenfilmfest.org ; Friday, June 12, African – Zimbabwean Music at Ashkenaz: Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited Doors at 9:00 pm; Show at 9:30 pm, $25/$20 advance & students; Wednesday, June 17, Community Benefit Night “One Giant Leap” – The Music of 1969, Doors at 8:00 pm; Show at 8:30 pm, $15. Visit http://www.ashkenaz.com/ The Berkeley World Music Festival is June 13, 9 AM-9 PM. Visit http://www.berkeleyworldmusic.org/ The 11 Annual Queer Womyn of Color Film Festival (QWOCFF) is happening June 12-14 at Brava! for women in the Arts 2781 24th Street in San Francisco.  QWOCFF features 39 films with the Festival theme: Justice Heals:\ http://www.qwocmap.org/festival/ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Garden Music and Performance Series for June: The View From Bernal Hill, Thursday, June 4, 12:30pm-1:30pm; Timon! – The Musical, Friday, June 5 & Saturday, June 6, 7:00pm-8:00pm & Sunday, June 7, 1:00-2:00pml; Poetic Tuesdays with Litquake, Tuesday, June 9, 12:30pm-1:30pm; Dafnis Prieto Sextet, Saturday, June 13, 1:00pm-2:30pm; Jenny Lind Concert, Thursday, June 18, 12:30pm-1:30pm; Let’s Go Salsa@Jessie: Azucar con Aché, Thursday, June 18, 6:00pm-7:30pm; Bixiga 70, Saturday, June 20, 1:00pm-3:00pm; Artists Guild Exhibit, Sunday, June 21, 9:00am-5:00pm; Native Contemporary Arts Festival, Sunday, June 21, Noon-3:30pm; Ila Cantor, Thursday, June 25, 12:30pm-1:30pm; Circus Bella, Friday, June 26, Noon-1:00pm, Saturday, June 27, Noon-1:00pm & 2:15-3:15pm Visit ybgfestival.org At Freight and Salvage Coffee House, 2080 Addison Street, Berkeley, in June-early July: House Jacks, Sat. June 6, A cappella Vocal Drumming; Regina Carter Quartet, June 28, 8 p.m.; Anais Motchell’s “Hadestown,” 1 p.m., June 28; The Moth StorySlam, July 1 at 12:30 p.m. Visit freightandsalvage.org, (510) 644-2020. Film: 1913: Seeds of Conflict, Tuesday, June 30 on PBS. The film explores how the Seeds of Today’s Middle Eastern Conflict Were Sown in Palestine during the Ottoman Empire, 9-10 p.m. ET For local listings visit pbs.org Music/Dance: Rhythm Madness with Linda Tillery, Barbara Price, Ramon Ramos Alayo, Jacqueline Rago, Carolyn Brandy and others, June 6, $25 10-6, at the Montclair Women’s Club, 1650 Mountain Blvd., Oakland, (510) 339-1832.Favianna Rodriguez Open Studios 2015 Featuring New and Experiemental Works, Sat.-Sun., June 13-14, 11-6 at 2200 Adeline Street, Ste. 315, West Oakland. For information contact Favianna@favianna.com

Radical Presence Opens at YBCA

Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art Opening Celebration, the first comprehensive survey of performance art by black visual artists from the United States and the Caribbean. Saturday, June 13, $5 admission, beginning at 12:30 p.m., audiences will have the chance to see many of them perform live! It all takes place in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Downstairs Galleries, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco, 415-978-2787 or ybca.org/radical-presence-opening At 8:30 p.m. is Shaun Leonardo’s The Eulogy, a new performance, commissioned for the San Francisco presentation of Radical Presence, takes Ralph Ellison’s 1947 novel Invisible Man as its starting point. As Leonardo performs the speech given by the novel’s narrator at Brother Clifton’s funeral, a local brass marching band performs a routine that mimics the impact of the speech, interweaving the artist’s words with choreographed moments of confusion and disorder. These words serve as a memorial, a rejection, a challenge, and call to action, all at once. Appropriate funeral attire is encouraged.

The Schedule:

12:30 PM Benjamin Patterson, Penny for Your Thoughts

In Penny for Your Thoughts, Patterson invites viewers to “try on” the ideas of others and investigate the commodification of the transfer or ideas

1:30 PM Tameka Norris, Untitled

Norris’s untitled performance tests not only the artist’s ability to tolerate pain, but also the audience’s ability to bear witness to pain. The artist literally bleeds for art as she first cuts herself and then marks the walls in an action that gives new meaning to the term gestural painting.

2:30 PM Senga Nengudi, RSVP

Maren Hassinger activates Senga Nengudi’s work from the well-known 1955–77 series RSVP. Nengudi creates an installation out of common nylon stockings that are stretched into poetic sculptural form. In activating the work, Hassinger highlights the muscular forces of the body itself.

3:30 PM Theaster Gates’s See, Sit, Sup, Sip, Sing: Holding Court

Created from salvaged materials from a now-closed public school on Chicago’s south side, this installation is designed for learning. Join Radical Presence curator Valerie Cassel Oliver for a discussion about the exhibition.

4:30 PM Benjamin Patterson, Pond

Participants release wind-up frog toys to create a cacophony of sound as each frog lands and stops in various places on a grid.

5:30 PM Maren Hassinger, Women’s Work

Hassinger and four others repetitively rip newspaper, alluding to sewing, knitting, and other activities traditionally labeled women’s work. Their gestures are amplified, transforming the action into a cacophonous sound piece.

6:30 PM Pope.L’s Costume Made of Nothing

Bay Area artist Brontez Purnell walks through the gallery and stands, arm extended into a void, until exhausted. Purnell will repeat this endurance work throughout the run of the exhibition.

7:15 PM Jamal Cyrus, Texas Fried Tenor

As part of the series Learning to Work the Saxophone

Artist Jamal Cyrus will deep fry a saxophone on YBCA’s 701 Mission Plaza. Cyrus, accompanied by Jawaad Taylor on pocket trumpets and electronics, will perform a new iteration of Texas Fried Tenor that references California musicians Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, to explore the importance of the saxophone in American music, blues and jazz in particular.

37^TH Annual San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival June 5-28 @ the Place of Fine Arts

Featured companies this year for the first time are our friends Thamsanqa Hilatywaya’s company “Jikelele Dance Theater – South African Zulu and Xhosa Traditional” and Tracey Bartlow’s “Starchild Dance – Harlem Jazz, Lindy, and Hip-Hop.” Both perform, with many other companies, Weekend 1, June 6 (2 & 8 p.m.)-June 7 (4 p.m.).

A Special Event, Saturday, June 27 at 8pm, honors the work of two remarkable men with the Malonga Casquelourd Lifetime Achievement Award: Festival Artistic Directors since 2007, CK Ladzekpo and Carlos Carvajal. There will also be special performances by dance innovators Abhinaya Dance Company and Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu, along with a showing of excerpts of a new documentary film about the Festival.

The Festival kicks off at San Francisco City Hall at 12 noon, Friday, June 5 with performances by Hālau o Keikialiʽi and Hālau ʻo Kuʻulei commemorating one of the first-ever mainland US performances featuring the ʽukulele, which took place at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.

Tickets to the June San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival performances are $28 – $48 and are available online at www.sfethnicdancefestival.org, or by calling (415) 392-4400. Matinees on Saturday afternoons offer 50% discounts to children age 12 and under, and group discounts are also available. The full Festival performance schedule is available at www.sfethnicdancefestival.org.
Films @ Cuba, June 13

The Richmond, CA /Regla, Cuba  Friendship Committee presents a timely double feature of films by prize winning Cuban Filmmaker Gloria Rolando, whose career spans over 35 years at the Cuban National Film Institute. Ms. Rolando also heads an independent film-making group, Imágenes del Caribe, based in Havana.
Gloria Rolando Film Screenings, Saturday, June 13, 2015  6 PM at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, 339 11^th Street  at Macdonald Ave., Richmond. The event also includes a Cuba update by Walter Turner, KPFA Host of Africa Today.

The two films offer two historical perspectives on the hope and tragedy of immigration and exile to Cuba:

“Reembarque / Reshipment,” 2014. Gloria Rolando’s latest film, the story of Haitian immigrants to Oriente in the early 20th century and their forced repatriation after the sugar market crashed. With English subtitles. 58 min.

“Eyes of the Rainbow,” 1997.  A film about Assata Shakur, the Black Panther and Black Liberation Army leader who took refuge in Cuba after years of struggles in the US. The film integrates AfroCuban culture, including the Orisha Oya, to show Assata’s context in Cuba, where she has lived for close to 20 years. In English.  47 min.  This is a rare chance to see this film as it is no longer commercially available.

Suggested Donation: $15.00 (no one turned away for lack of funds) Tickets available at the door or through www.brownpapertickets.com For more information call 510 620-6581 or 510 375-2590

 

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Nurturers both Female and Male. Congratulations to all the graduates beginning this month and continuing through June. Condolences to all the recent victims of state violence and those families and communities affected especially in Baltimore. Much love, light and wellness to Mumia Abu Jamal; love and light to Brother Albert Woodfox.

ON A MOVE to the MOVE Family, Ramona Africa, the only adult survivor in the Bombing on Osage Avenue 30 years ago this Mother’s Day Weekend, May 13. There is an 11 a.m. rally planned on Osage Avenue @ 62nd Avenue. Call (215) 386-1165 and (267) 408-7802 or email onamovellja@gmail.com

Film
“3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets,” @ The 58th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival

I just had the opportunity to view “3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets,” (2015) directed by Marc Silver, a film about the killing of Jordan Davis, the 17 year old boy-child who was shot in the parking lot of a convenience store in a dispute over loud music, three years ago this November. I remember when I heard the news, not long after Trayvon Martin was killed, I thought it dangerous indeed to be a black male in Florida. If I hadn’t known any better I would have certainly thought Florida a wild place where white men get to hunt black boys for sport.

The trial proceeded typically, with the prosecutor placing blame for the killing in the hands of the victim. Of course the boy deserved what he got when he didn’t do as Michael Dunn asked him too—turn down the music. I can’t imagine Jordan’s friend in the back seat with him when he discovered the wound and blood while another youth drove backward trying to get away from the shooter who kept firing (10 times). I am surprised all the boys were not injured with glass shattering and the bullet riddled sides of the jeep.

With excellent audio footage of 911 emergency calls from the store where the shooting took place, to the news coverage of the manhunt, to the surprising testimony from the shooter’s fiancé, Jordan Davis’s killing and the lives he affected and the loss his death will mean to those he loved, is visually clear. He was 17. Jordan was a blessing to his parents, who didn’t think they would have a child. His dad spoke of the miscarriages his wife suffered and how happy he was when she got bigger and then Jordan was born via C-section.

Trayvon Martin’s father texted the grieving father a welcome to “’the club, one no one wants a membership card too. ‘Fathers are supposed to protect their children, so what happened?’” Mr. Jordan said there was nothing to prepare him for this tragedy. The time was early, the boys were in a good neighborhood, the young men his son was with were good kids, yet his son never made it home.

In “3 ½ Seconds” we meet a child whose life was a bridge, a passage to another side . . . perhaps a bit sooner than his girlfriend, mother, or father was ready, but Jordan made preparations; he filled his life with assignments.

What is remarkable about the work is its intimacy. We witness the impact on the lives this one irrational act has on so many lives, especially that of Jordan’s parents. Sound footage from prison phone calls to his fiancé show Michael Dunn’s complete absence of remorse; we are given access to Jordan’s parents most private moments at home, in church, in the courtroom, which is also filmed. I don’t know how he did it, but the director has access to courtroom material I have not seen on camera to date. Given such an approach, and the collaborative nature of this work, from producer Minette Nelson who brings the story of Silver, to Orlando Bagwell, veteran independent filmmaker whose credits include Eyes on the Prize, and Citizen King, who as executive producer then brings in Julie Goldman and Bonnie Cohen to executive produce the film with him, we have a classic treatment of the warfare against black males.

“3 ½ Minutes” is instructive and cautionary. It is a useful study of the criminalization of a people and the legal support for such thinking. If one feels threatened, even if the threat is imagined and can shoot first—stand one’s ground, rather than retreat, what does that say about safety for black boys (black people) in Florida (and to a larger extent America)?

The film screens May 6 and May 7 at the San Francisco International Film Festival this year. Check the schedule: http://www.sffs.org/sfiff58 and https://vimeo.com/122129029 Perhaps it will save a black child’s life in California, Florida, Maryland. . . . Look for the film in theatres this June and for an interview with Jordan Davis’s mother Lucia McBath. The film is also an HBO documentary film.

Another SFIFF film of interest is “Romeo is Bleeding,” which follows the story of poet Donté Clark and his work with youth in Richmond, CA in theatre arts. His play “Te’s Harmony” revisions Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” in the community where he lives and works. May 1 and May 3 http://www.sffs.org/sfiff58/program/romeo-is-bleeding#.VUJQyvBbjm4

“T-Rex” looks at a woman warrior, boxer out of Flint, Michigan, 17-year-old Claressa Shields and the new Olympic sport of women’s boxing. Screens May 2, 4, 7. Visit http://www.sffs.org/sfiff58/program/t-rex#.VUJSl_Bbjm4

Lastly, Kim Longinotto is receives the Persistence of Vision Award this year and will premiere her latest film, “Dreamcatcher,” she follows Chicagoan, Brenda Myers-Powell, who advocates for these women of whom she still calls sisters though she is no longer in this work. The film screens May 2.
http://www.sffs.org/sfiff58/program/pov-award-kim-longinotto-dreamcatcher#.VUJS0PBbjm4

There are lots of films of African Interest this year at the SFIFF especially on Saturday, May 2 (smile). Visit http://www.sffs.org/calendar?date=2015-05-02

SF Green Festival May 28-June 3
http://www.greenfilmfest.org

15th Annual Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival
EastSide Arts Cultural Center presents The Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival at San Antonio Park in Oakland, 19th Avenue at Foothill. Visit https://www.facebook.com/EastSideArtsAlliance

Bobbe Norrise Day Celebration with Bobbe Norisse

Oakland celebrates master yoga teacher, Bobbe Norrise and her contributions to the health and well being of Oakland residents Saturday, May 16, 2015, 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. at Anasa Yoga Studio, 4232 MacArthur Blvd., in Oakland’s Laurel District.

In the course of her 40 year career, the longtime resident has exposed generations of students in Oakland to yoga in the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area, and these students have gone on to teach many others. She is a role model and trailblazer using her training and love for Iyengar Yoga to reach out to people who historically have experienced barriers to a yoga practice.

She was the first African American yoga teacher to publish a yoga book in 1990 called “Easy Yoga for Busy People.” Former Oakland Mayor-Jean Quan proclaimed May 15, 2011 as Bobbe Norrise Day. We also want to offer her our condolences on the recent loss of her husband. His homegoing is Saturday, May 2 at their home.

2-2:45pm Welcome and Refreshments
2:45-3:30 Remarks from Bobbe’s Students, Teachers & Colleagues

3:30-5pm Words from Bobbe and Q&A followed by closing remarks.

See more at: http://anasaoakland.com/workshops-events/#sthash.xt1IQ75t.dpuf

Blackademics by Idris Goodwin @ Crowded Fire through May 2
A Review (don’t read before seeing the play)

Playwright, Idris Goodwin’s “Blackademics,” directed by Mina Morita, on stage presently as a part of Crowded Fire Theatre 2014-15 season, is about kinship through proximity, like the instant families aboard slave ships, except this is 500 years later. Why do black women in higher education still find themselves marooned as these two women are? I felt like tossing them copies of “Souls of Black Folk” and “Black Rage,” two books I was carrying when I entered the theatre on Portrero Hill. The two professional friends represent diversity in an otherwise all-white town. “Ann” (Safiya Fredericks) works at an elitist private college, while “Rachelle” (Lauren Spencer) works at a state college, with all that implies.

They meet at an out of the way – read “inconvenient,” exclusive restaurant where competition adds spice to a questionable menu. The walls look like a chopping board—wooden planks with smaller framed boards on walls. This restaurant comes highly rated, yet has no table, chairs, or amenities. In the end, even the door disappears.

Should we ask, who, not what is on the menu?

It is the vying for viands from the master’s table that fuels this tense provocative work. Between servings, conversation, much of it heated, the characters and their mysterious waitress Georgia ( Michele Aprina Leavy) examine or question, even challenge, the politics of blackness in great detail. It is not surprising when we see Rachelle is a lot less compromising politically than her friend Ann, who is also darker than she. Perhaps this is why Ann has just gotten tenure. She looks the part.
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Singing “Sorrow Songs” (DuBois reference), we wonder how Hansel and Gretel will get away from the witch, Georgia, whose plans become clearer as we reach the literal end. The celebration Ann was looking forward to becomes a dirge . . . not quite a funeral march, but certainly a place where the women look closely at what is not serving them and consider discarding the excess weight.

Ann is from privileged circumstances, yet her bright brother can’t find a job. He has been unable to juggle the ever shifting identity he must affix as the ground grows more slippery—the two women finishing each other’s sentences, his life struggle they know intimately. Why is it that Ann has tenure while Rachelle, who is just as smart is fired because she is not ethnic looking enough? Both teach African American history and culture. Rachelle also teaches rhetoric, a useful tool in the ‘hood.

Sorrow songs –

After the performance I spoke to Lisa Marie Rollins, dramaturge and assistant director. She agreed with me that location, like the idea of a meal is a metaphor. She said the place, exclusive and out of the way, is a crossroads, and like all such places, it evokes a taking stock, drawing lines, naming the enemy, and learning the truth about friendship. Is being the first, really that important when one’s integrity is the casualty? The women speak a lot about power and who has it. In a place where they are the novelties, the two peers are separated in ways unacknowledged, realized or understood until forced to look at each other and really see who is there.

But of course, it’s understood what’s at stake. As the meal progresses, Georgia opts in with directives from a chef, we never see. The waitress is disappointed when the hungry women share their meal. The women validate each other in ways Georgia cannot fathom. The hostess stands on the outside with the prize for the winner(s) without realizing the two women are a team with a common goal and an equally identifiable foe.

That Georgia is a cannibal is not surprising – America eats the flesh of its citizens. Georgia says she wants an authentic experience of black life as she sharpens her knife. Performances are at Thick House, 1695 18th Street in San Francisco, at 8 p.m. Visit www.crowdedfire.org or call (415) 746-9238. To listen to an interview with actresses visit: http://tobtr.com/7506683

To listen to an interview with the playwright and directors visit: http://tobtr.com/7506687

Remembering the Ancestors is Important

I just felt like saying this just a month before the Annual International Libations for the Ancestors the second Saturday in June, June 13, this year at 9 AM Pacific Time, 12 noon Eastern Time, 11 a.m. Central Time. Check the international clock for times outside the USA.  In the San Francisco Bay Area, we meet at Lake Merritt at the fountain, E-18th Street at Lakeshore Drive.

This is the 20th Anniversary year of the Maafa Commemoration San Francisco Bay Area. The Ritual is Sunday, October 11, 2015 at Ocean Beach, Fulton at the Great Highway. Visit http://maafasfbayarea.com

If anyone is interested in working with us to make this anniversary special, let me know. I’d like to do a fundraiser for California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) to help get former prisoners from Southern California to San Francisco for the November 7, 7 p.m., Fire Inside Gala Event at the Women’s Building in San Francisco.Visit http://www.womenprisoners.org If we raise enough money a bus could be chartered. I am also interested in a few symposia and talks about “Black Self-Defense in Spiritual and Physical Warfare,” plus “Master Talks by Our Scholars – Elders and Youth.”

I’d like one of the salons to be on the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey and a 21st Century UNIA on its Centennial. What does Garvey’s vision look like through a Depth Psychological Lens? How do we translate the UNIA-ACL, the most successful Pan African organizing strategy to date, into present terms: psychologically, philosophically, socially, spiritually, and economically? This would be a prelude to a conference perhaps next year leading up to 2020, the anniversary of the first convention of African Peoples held in Madison Square Gardens in 1920. It was at this event that the Hon. Marcus Garvey was elected Provisional President of Africa and the African Diaspora.

It would be great if we could get Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing (“Isis Papers”) to come out to speak this October with Dr. Price M. Cobb (“Black Rage”) and produce a talking book. I’d also love to have The Mark Lomax Trio with Edwin Bayard and Dean Hulett come out to perform “Isis & Osiris” and their “#Black Lives Matter” over a couple of days. It would be great if we could have “A Healing Passage Art Experience,” Hassaun Ali Jones Bey’s performance ritual, “Dew Drops Come and Make Repairs,” and an Art Exhibition with an Appreciative Inquiry Workshop. To listen to an interview with Ali Jones Bey: http://tobtr.com/7350905

We need sponsors and legs and arms and feet to make this happen (smile). Again, let me know if you are interested and available. October is Maafa Awareness Month in the State of California, Alameda County and Oakland, California. It would also be great to expand the reach of the proclamations to each city and county in California beginning with Northern California.

Theatre
“Mount Misery” at Cuttingball

Imagine Frederick Douglass as a youth (16) in conversation with Donald Rumsfeld in 2015? The location is the former plantation where he was sent to be broken. He was not, instead Douglass fought his overseer and won. This moment would permanently alter the course of Douglass’ life, freeing him from fear and building a new sense of agency.

“Mount Misery” is the title of the commissioned work, Cuttingball Theatre resident playwright, Andrew Saito has imagined. “Mount Misery” in a small Maryland town, a teenage Frederick Douglass once fought his overseer and triumphed. This moment would permanently alter the course of Douglass’ life, freeing him from fear and building a new sense of agency.

Over 150 years later, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld bought the mansion and property to use as a vacation home. Andrew Saito’s new play, Mount Misery, juxtaposes Douglass and Rumsfeld’s life works and philosophies. This satire examines the United States’ inconsistent progress on issues of human rights and race by imagining the two men interacting across time.

“Mount Misery”,  was commissioned by Cutting Ball and developed as part of the 2014 edition of RISK IS THIS… The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival. The world premiere production, May 8-June 7, runs concurrently with the 2015 RISK IS THIS Festival in celebration Cutting Ball’s new play development program from commissions to full productions! Visit http://cuttingball.com/events/0607risk/mount-misery/ Listen to an interview with director, Rob Melrose, playwright, Andrew Saito, and actor, Giovanni Adams (Frederick Douglass): http://tobtr.com/7506693

Stormy Weather in Berkeley
“Head of Passes” by Tarell Alvin McCraney at Berkeley Rep through May 24

When we walk into the theatre, there is a man sitting in the living room, later we learn he is “The Angel.” The angel doesn’t speak, neither does Shelah. There is so much she needs to say, so much she hasn’t said we learn of later, that perhaps needs to erupt, spill, let go. It is raining in the house, so much so, Shelah’s daughter, Cookie gets drenched and her old friend, Creaker puts on protective covering. The mood is festive and light, despite the leaky roof, wet furniture and rising tide.

In playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney’s work, “Head of Passes,” set this time in a place in the “southernmost Louisiana, where the three passages of the Mississippi River join the Gulf of Mexico,” called Head of Passes. Lexi Diamond writes in the program notes, that this channel, where the story takes place, looks on a map like “strange lace: a system of rivers, swamps, and marshes . . coil[ing] off from the three main rivers of the Mississippi, weaving in and out of one another to reveal the occasional landmass. Only 10 percent of what little land that does poke through the labyrinth of channels is dense enough for human use; the rest id sand, silt, and clay, that shifts constantly with the movement of the waters” (19).

It is here we meet Shelah (actress Cheryl Lynn Bruce) and her family on a wet evening. The occasion is a surprise birthday party for Shelah. Besides her two sons, the younger (and favorite) Aubrey (actor Francois Battiste) and elder son, Spencer (actor Brian Tyree Henry), Cookie (Nikkole Slater) and friends, Creaker (Michael A. Sheppard), his son, Crier (Jonathan Burke) and her best girlfriend, Mae (Kimberly Scott), family physician, Dr. Anderson (James Carpenter) also joins the gathering, so does an Angel (Sullivan Jones), whom no one sees except Shelah.

Isolated, Shelah lives outside New Orleans in a place where there are few people and fewer services. That evening her son Aubrey says he’d like her to live with him, so he can look after her. His brother, Spencer, agrees.

The matriarch has forgotten this day is her birthday, and wonders why everyone is coming by, She is unaware of the surprise party, though she is happy to see her children. It works out well, because she has important news to share; however, before she can, tragedy strikes about as unexpectedly as the hurricane which devastates her home.

In this work, McArthur Genius Tarell Alvin McCraney once again asks important questions about faith. The work commissioned by Steppenwolf, looks at Job’s story. Shelah is McCraney’s Job; she is our Job, the woman who survives and has to cobble together life in the midst of unimaginable chaos. What does Shelah have left to grasp when her world is tossed asunder? The water makes everything slippery. What was once certain is not. How does she survive such devastation? How does she keep from falling in the water or purposely letting go? It would be so easy to give up hope.

Her lovely home which is in shambles by the close of the story reflects her life—all the beams or pillars which she hung her hopes for today and tomorrow have fallen. With each curse and cry, admonition and apology she utters to God, her house sinks further into the rising waters until, it floats beneath her like an island. Cut off from those who care about her, she can only call on God, present perhaps in the Angel, whose light buoys her spirits. Dressed in a white shift, Shelah stands at the edge of the rising water and contemplates crossing over? Will she?

The ensemble carries the story well, the tales fluid like the rapidly falling water which is in itself another character—cleansing, yet a force one needs to respect. Insistent, water often pries loose matter that is stuck. Sometimes water washes away material beings before we are ready to let them go. Visit www.berkeleyrep.org

To listen to an interview with the playwright on Wanda’s Picks Radio: http://tobtr.com/7506683 To listen to an interview with the lead, Ms. Bruce, tune in May 14, 2015 http://tobtr.com/7570667

Happy Spring Season. . . Happy Jazz Appreciation Month! National Library Week, Poetry Month. . . .

For some reason “Antigone,” Sophocles’s work which features a female character that not only doesn’t follow the trajectory of her assigned role, she rebels against the state and suffers for it, is having a resurgence in the San Francisco Bay Area with three very different productions at African American Shakes, Cuttingball, and Shotgun theatres February-April.

Traditionally, Antigone is killed; however, in Nambi E. Kelley’s work, “Xtigone” lives and the dead are not buried, beginning with her brother, they are unburied. It is provocative and daring—the idea of a citizen going against the proscribed order.  President Obama said as much in his speech on the anniversary of  Bloody Sunday in Selma. The All of or None contingent which went to Alabama saw that there is much left to do before America can bury her dead.

I attended the play that historic weekend in San Francisco. The second major work in African American Shakespeare Company’s 25th Season, Xtigone, playwright Nambi E. Kelley’s treatment or reimagining of Sophocles’s Antigone raises issues not easily ignored on International Women’s Day 2015 and the 50th Anniversary weekend of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama. Set in Chicago, the First Family’s hometown, Lorraine Hansberry’s literal stomping ground along with notables: Ms. Gwendolyn Brooks, The Art Ensemble, the AACM and so many more – DuSable, anyone (smile), Black Classics Press, the Hon. Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, Nobel Drew Ali’s Moorish Science Temple . . . Dr. Jeremiah Wright’s Black Prophetic Justice, Richard Wright, a Native Son. . . .

Chicago is also one of America’s most bloody cities. It rains red there. Remember the child who marched in the inaugural parade two years ago who was killed just a week later? She survived DC, but not Chi Town.

In the classic story, Antigone wants to bury her brother and when she disobeys her uncle, she is killed. In Kelley’s tale, Tig unburies the dead, because she believes the killing will not stop until the cover-up ceases. It is a time of war, then and now. In actress Ryan Nicole Austin’s able hands Tigs takes on her Uncle Marcellus (Dwight Dean Mahabir), who is also City Mayor, and her Aunt Fay (Jasmine Strange). Even her sister, Izzy (Tavia Percia) does not support her sister’s challenge.

All alone except for Mama Goddess, Tigs feels compelled—driven to complete the work her brother E-Mem), started.  The Disciples Gang Leader (actor AeJay Mitchell) was trying to uncover the source of the weapons in his community and the trail was leading him to City Hall. As E-Mem called his uncle out, he simultaneously placed the blame for the deaths in the leader’s hands. Tigs not only unburied E-Mem, after Uncle Marcellus performs the rites, she has everyone in Chicago’s effected communities bring their dead to City Hall too. There are bodies everywhere – one could reach out, just lean forward a bit (from front row theatre seats) to touch a corpse.

Yes, it got a bit creepy, but that was the (unstated) intent. Gun violence is epidemic in Chicago and other American cities. It is an illness, a social infection worse than AIDS. The dead cannot rest; AeJay Mitchell’s E-mem and to a lesser degree, rival gang leader, Drew Watkins’s Ernesto is similarly disturbed. Who killed them before peace was secured? E-mem haunts his city; he talks to his sister; appears to his uncle— He will not lie still; his commitment is cut short, but with Tigs he has a chance to continue. Tigs inherits her dead sibling, E-Mem’s work. In Dagara or West African culture, it is expected when a young person dies that the living sibling celebrate his life. E-mem leaves so much unfinished for Tigs, who in turn leads a double life.

Eventually the dead sibling relieves the living person of such responsibility, but only after the earthly tasks are done. AeJay Mitchell’s character is a driving presence in Tigs’s life. He is always on stage—he is not a passive ghost. There is too much at stake and he knows this, even if Tigs does not initially. The work E-Mem, then Tigs do, mirrors that of Dr. Joe Marshall at Alive and Free in San Francisco. E-Mem’s and fellow gang leader, Ernesto’s collective goal is thwarted in a town where the mayor’s wife is selling souls for cash. How can a truce keep citizens alive and free when body counts equal wealth? The Latin Kings and Disciples leadership truce only temporarily interrupts, yet does not stop, the war machine.  They do not operate the machine which prints money on the backs of its most vulnerable citizens. Fay is so deep in the game we see dirt raining on the two, Chicago’s first lady and her unsuspecting husband. She sells her soul without reading the fine print. Faye’s temporary fame ends tragically when she opens the attaché case for everyone to see the corpses, dead bodies (skulls, amputated hands . . . blood money). Chicago’s guns and its violence are interchangeable with Liberian (etc.) conflict diamonds. The enemy keeps us fighting worldwide so it can take the spoils.

Dirt rains on Marsellus as Faye screams.

There are so many guns on stage, so many dead-walking or about-to-be-dead children walking that the heaviness of the work rivets a person to her seat. I know the first time I saw the play, there was no intermission and I could barely move when the curtain fell. The added intermission, while powerful, weakened Xtigone’s intensity.

The potency dissipates, like a cloud pregnant with rain evaporates in the sunshine. I am not sure if that is a good thing.  Did I miss the showers? Was I happy to leave damp, yet dry? Are we let off the hook? Some patrons used the intermission as an opportunity to escape. Not everyone came back I noticed as I moved closer to the burying ground. I wish the performance had ended with a conversation about next steps. Do we take our dead to city hall in San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, San Leandro. . .? What do we do with our loved ones chilling on cooling boards still too warm to touch?

The talented young cast sing, dance and use sign-language in this well-choreographed and directed work.  Coarse street vernacular characterizes most of the dialogue; even the Old Seer (Awele Makeba) uses profanity which I think is unnecessary, yet despite this criticism, Kelley’s reworking of Antigone in Xtigone, a play which revolves around a curse—her father Oedipus sleeps with his mother.  Tigs decides to uncover this degradation of all that is holy and human. She uses her legacy as a warning. How easily honor turns to horror. She unburies the dead to give these ancient roots a repotting.

Ms. Rhodessa Jones is a perfect choice as director; her ability to spin tales and weave magical realism on stage is legendary. Her Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women is testament to her vision. Incarceration is relative. Xtigone is the story of a city under siege, a city at war. Isn’t war the ultimate captivity, that and the fear war brings? Ancestors get up and walk among us— they are in the aisles, behind us in the darker regions of the inarticulate shadowy spaces. The ghosts’ random wanderlust remains one of the works more unsettling aspects.

For those familiar with Jones’s aesthetic hand we notice the use of ASL and the work’s heighted feminine. Even if the words were not spoken, that is, “Mama Goddess,” we would know SHE was running this show (smile).

Ms. Jones in collaboration with Tommy “DJ Soulati” Shepard pull together an amazing work—Jones says Shepard was with her in rehearsals composing melodies to fit the scenes. Known for his ability to craft scores, especially in hip hop theatre, Xtigone is in keeping with his reputation. Kelley’s play would have been wonderful without the music; her stunning lyricism coupled with Shepard’s craft, make the work a contemporary masterpiece. Again, it is because the cast are such fine artists: Tigs’s sister Izzy (Tavia Percia), not to mention the Chorus (Brooklyn Fields), Fay (Jasmine Strange) and Tea Flake (Naima Shalhoub) – when the two gangs square off—Michael Wayne Turner (Tigs’s Beau) is paired with a wonderful younger gangster who holds his own with the older actor.
Places of resonance are when the cast surround the mayor and make him face the deaths. The contemporary ring shout holds the dead. The youth call the names of children killed by gunfire and sanctify the ground where they lie uncovered. The mayor runs from its center, but there is nowhere for him to go. While he babbles incoherently at the intersection between worlds, it is the vocalese of mayoral aide Niama Shalhoub’s Tea Flake that keeps us falling off the edges of our seats. Tea Flake opens the work; she is the voice we can trust. And we follow it even when Tigs is arrested; Fay admits to graft, selling out and Beau arrives too late (or so we think)—Tea Cake keeps the story moving from one frame to the next. Often a lone voice in the quiet or disquiet, Tea Flake is also conflicted; she likes and perhaps admires Tigs, but who would go against a power structure like the Mayor and his City Hall unless she wants to suffer the same fate as her brother E-Mem?

Tigs is alone; even her fiancé, Beau (Michael Wayne Turner) cannot save her from the gallows. There is a lovely scene where Tigs sings of her doubt and fate. Human walls confine her—pliant, they push back when she tries to escape. Tigs never forgets where she is going or where she came from. She is connected to a linage bigger than the sins of her father and mother. Several times we hear her call the names of her ancestors and heroines whom she gains inspiration. A name she calls is that of first lady, Mrs. Michelle Obama. The goddess who lives in Tigs’s world is engaged, active and present. She is a Mama Goddess, who blesses all her children, yet seems to favor the women (smile).

Awele Makeba, as the old woman, dances the medicine, while the old seer chastises the mayor who “should have known better,” she says. He once was a man with principles we learn in a talk with his son, Beau (Michael Wayne Turner) who implores his father to return to these core beliefs before it is too late. Dressed in ceremonial white, Makeba whirls and bends the space between subjects as she sweeps the temporal with magical broom, tying off loose threads which occasionally entangle. She welcomes the departed and clears the path for the living. We hear her rattle—like cowries sending telegrams between saints and those left unearthed. The rattle is also Dhambalah, the snake, purifying the sacred spaces which contain both suffering and healing. Makeba’s Spirit, like the seer, mediates between slumber and death.

Tigs can see the dead too. She and her brother E-Mem have a special relationship. Sometimes one cannot outrun destiny.

Xtigone is cautionary, while at the same time it honors the young lives lost to senseless violence. The two gangs: Disciples and Latin Kings want to halt the violence, but who will be the first to put down his gun? In this contemporary world, young girls carry assault weapons as are boys. Bravado leads to unnecessary killing and death, surprising in its random trajectory.  Xtigone is powerful, because we know these children and the names called. The bodies unearthed belong to our kin. Two are my nephews, Carlton and Oba– one killed in San Francisco, the other in Oakland. I wonder what happened to their shoes? Perhaps if killers or those responsible for the death of so many innocents had to walk in the shoes of their victims the landscape might take on a different meaning? To his credit, Marsellus puts on E-Mem’s Jordans.

Dwight Dean Mahabir’s character, to his credit (and Kelley’s writing) does not remain in a weakened state. Just his associations with the Seer or Old Woman whom he initially listens to early on in his career, gives citizens (and the audience) a bit of hope. But until the very end, we don’t know which way his spirit will blow – lovely Fay (Jasmine Strange) his windy city.

From the set to the costumes and lighting, Xtigone had a fabulous world premiere in San Francisco at the African American Shakespeare Theatre, celebrating 20 years this 2015 (smile). Look out Chicago (next stop on the tour), African Shakes’ production will be a hard act to follow (smile).
Free Conference & Film Festival at Harvard University

African & Diasporic Religious Studies Association presents: “African and Diasporic Spiritual Soundscapes” at Harvard University, CGIS South Building, 8-5, Friday, April 3, http://www.adrsa.org/conference.php with special guest: WolfHawkJaguar, Award-winning filmmaker, musician, actor, and activist with Keynote address by Wande Abimbola, Professor Emeritus of African Languages and Literatures and Awise Awo Ni Agbaye (Spokesperson for Ifa Religion throughout the world), Opening Plenary by Kokahvah Zauditu-Selassie, Professor of English and Author of African Religious Traditions in the Works of Toni Morrison. Day 2, Saturday, April 4, 11-4, features an African and Diasporic Religions Film Festival featuring: Sacred Journeys: Osun-Osogbo (WGBH/PBS), Search for the Everlasting Coconut Tree (Adimu Madyun), The Summer of Gods (Eliciana Nascimento).

Destiny Arts presents: “Warrior”

“Warrior” is a full-length work featuring a cast of 45 talented youth ages 9 to 18 who perform a scintillating combination of hip-hop, modern and aerial dance, theater, spoken word, rap and song, accompanied by powerful video backdrop art. This year’s 22nd annual production is based on the six principles of Destiny’s Warrior’s Code: love, respect, care, responsibility, honor and peace.  Each principle is personified as a peaceful warrior.  Each warrior has an enemy: hate, disrespect, neglect, apathy, shame and violence.  The show takes place in a video game called Warrior, where the goal of the game is for the warriors to defeat their enemies by any means necessary or so it seems at first.  The warriors are lured into the pitfalls of romantic love, the distraction and obsession of social media, the horrors of racism and racial profiling, and the promise that violence can bring peace.  There is the wild and terrible character of MisEducation, who uses every opportunity she can to throw a wrench in the warriors’ quest.  And there is the benevolent trickster, the Master of the Game, who points the warriors in the direction of true love. WARRIOR is a complex journey into the minds and hearts of a generation of young people who are passionate about making a difference in their own lives and in the lives of their communities through compassion, creativity, humor and a willingness to go beyond conventional ideas of right and wrong.

WARRIOR is limited to just six sell-out performances Friday, April 3rd & Saturday, April 4th at 7:30 pm and Friday, April 10th at 7:30pm and Saturday, April 11th at 2:00pm and 7:30pm, and Sunday, April 12th at 5pm at the Odell Johnson Theater at Laney College, 900 Fallon Street, Oakland, 94607.

Tickets for WARRIOR are priced $13-$30 sliding scale for adults ($20 suggested) and $7 for youth 18 and under and may be purchased through Destiny Arts Center at www.destinyarts.org or 510-597-1619 x 100. Group rates are available. The theater is wheelchair accessible.

Eddie Gayle Celebrates Jazz Appreciation Month

First AME Zion Church (150 Years in San Jose) presents Curator Clarissa Moore’s African American Journey Exhibit and Eddie Gale and his Spiritual Jazz Unit, Sunday, April 12, 2015 Jazz Appreciation Month, 3:00 to 5:00 PM (opens at 2:00 PM). A $35 donation is requested for food which includes Sandi’s Cobbler Cups. First AME Zion Church is located at 95 South 20th Street, San Jose, CA 95116


Art Exhibits
Promised Land: Jacob Lawrence at the Cantor, A Gift from the Kayden Family on view April 1–August 3, 2015 at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University

This exhibition presents 56 works by Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), the most widely acclaimed African American painter of the 20th century, and one by his spouse, Gwendolyn Knight (1913–2005). The paintings, drawings, prints, and illustrated book, made between 1943 and 1998, illustrate the depth and breadth of Lawrence’s work and explore the themes for which he is famous: African American history, the black experience in 20th-century America, urban life, modern labor, and the artistic journey.

This tremendous gift from the Kayden family is one of the largest Jacob Lawrence collections in any museum. Promised Land presents the works together for the first time. A fully illustrated publication, with essays by eight Stanford faculty members, accompanies the exhibition.

Faculty Panel

Thursday, April 23, 5:30 pm, Cantor auditorium
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Lecture
“Pool Parlors and Beat Cops: The Colorful Noise of a Jacob Lawrence Street Scene”
Thursday, May 7, 6:30 pm, Cantor auditorium
Nate Sloan, Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, connects music of the Harlem Renaissance with the art of Jacob Lawrence.

Admission is free at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. The Cantor is open six days a week: Wednesday–Monday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. plus Thursday until 8 p.m. Closed on Tuesday. Located on the Stanford campus, off Palm Drive at Lomita Drive and Museum Way. Weekday parking is $2 per hour. Cantor information: museum.stanford.edu

Art Exhibition
Who is Oakland? features 10 Oakland-based artists, among them: Kim Anno, Jesse Crimes, Susan Felter, Jose Garcia, Chris Johnson, John McCoy, Adia Millet  , Favianna Rodriguez, Chris Treggiari, Tommy Wong. The artists respond to the City’s opportunities, challenges & aspirations April 11 through July 12, 2015

The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) presents a new exhibition in the spring of 2015 exploring what’s happening in Oakland today through the work of artists who live and work here, and love the city. Organized by artist and visionary Chris Johnson in partnership with OMCA Curator of Public Practice Evelyn Orantes, Who is Oakland?, will be on view from April 11 through July 12, 2015, in OMCA’s Gallery of California Art.

The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) is at 1000 Oak Street, at 10th Street, in Oakland.. For more information, visit museumca.org.

Dance
11th Annual CubaCaribe Festival of Dance and Music – In Search of Soul

The acclaimed annual folkloric and contemporary dance and music Festival will feature three exuberant weeks of Caribbean dance and music performances, master classes, film screenings, lectures and celebrations throughout the Bay Area. Visit http://www.cubacaribe.org/festival11/program.html

Week 1  April 10-12 – African Souls: Cuba & Brasil 

Featuring: Abadá Capoeira San Francisco; Aguas Dance Company; Alayo Dance Company; Arenas Dance Company; Teatro Brasileiro de Dança: the Bahia in Oakland.  

ODC Theater, 3153 17th Street, San Francisco, Friday-Saturday 8 pm, Sunday 7 pm
Tickets: $25 online; $28 doorwww.odcdance.org

Week 2  April 17-19 –Soul Caribe

Featuring: Aguacero; Alafia Dance Ensemble; Bravisimo Youth Ensemble; Colombian Soul; Cunamacué; Dimensions Dance Theater; La Mezcla; Grupo Experimental Nago

 

Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th Street, San Francisco, Friday-Saturday 8 pm, Sunday 7 pm

Tickets: $22 online; $24 door www.brownpapertickets.com

Week 3  April 24-26 – Alma

Featuring Alayo Dance Company; Dance Brigade; Duniya Dance Ensemble 

Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon Street, Oakland, Friday – Saturday 8 pm, Tickets: $25 online; $28 door www.brownpapertickets.com

SPECIAL EVENTS

April 9 – Festival Opening Reception 6-7 pm; Film Screening: Dancing with the Drum, directed by Ashley James, Produced by Roberta Singer 7-9 pm. at the Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St., San Francisco, $10 advance; $12 door

April 12 – Batey Boricua – celebrate life through Puerto Rican Bomba, Plena music and dance at a community jam session. This is family event! 4-7 pm at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, $5 suggested donation

April 16 – Umi Vaughan Lecture: De Curros a Especuladores: Black to the Future in Cuba. 

7-9 pm, Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St., San Francisco, $10 advance; $12 door

April 19— Dance Workshop: Guede/Papa Guede or Gaga/Rarra co-taught by Collete Eloi (Guede of Haiti) and Cheo Rojas (Papa Guede of Cuba), 3:30 – 5:00 pm, Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th Street, San Francisco, $14 advance; $18 door
Volunteers Needed—interested? Email info@cubacaribe.org

Theatre
MacArthur Genius Tarell Alvin McCraney is back with 2 Bay Area Premieres

MacArthur Genius Tarell Alvin McCraney is back for the West Coast premiere of Head of Passes at Berkeley Rep, April 17-May 24 and the next month is the Bay Area Premiere of Choir Boy at Marin Theatre Company, June 4-28.  Head of Passes, a poignant and poetic story about the journey of family and faith, trial and tribulation. The play explores personal faith and how we use it as an aperture or guide to try and understand the many sometimes fraught, sometimes beautiful, often chaotic events of our lives.

Set in the distant present at the mouth of the shifting Mississippi River, Shelah’s family and friends plan a surprise birthday party for her. But the festivities are quickly overshadowed by a series of revelations that point to a dark secret in the family’s past — revelations that leave Shelah trying to find faith, a footing and a truer sense of God. Told in Tarell’s signature style, the play features a vast and bustling landscape, where the spiritual world mingles freely with the day-to-day.

You might remember Tarell’s loose trilogy, The Brothers Size, In the Red and Brown Water, and Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet.

In celebration of THE MEDEA PROJECT: THEATER FOR INCARCERATED WOMEN’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY Brava! For Women in the Arts and Cultural Odyssey present “BIRTHRIGHT?”, a collaboration between Cultural Odyssey and Planned Parenthood Northern California. All performances will be at Brava Theater Center, 2781-24th Street at York, San Francisco, CA  94110 running Thursdays through Sundays, April  9 – April 19, 2015.   All shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 PM with matinees on Sunday at 3 PM with a Special Gala Show Saturday, April 11.  Tickets are $20 – $50. Discount Ticketing: Students & Seniors: $5 off ticket price. Children under 10: $10 for all shows. 10% discount for Groups of 10 or more. Early Bird discount available before February 28!! For information and tickets please call (415) 641-7657 and/or log on to http://www.brava.org

Life goes ahead of me providing what I need before I needed it. . . . Oh sacred darkness, mother of pure light within the soul of my soul, refresh yourself in me now (Mystical Truth Declaration 2).

On March 2, it will be great to hear that Albert Woodfox’s bail has been set and that he is finally free.

For those on the straight path or sirat al-mustaqim, we know whatever we need will show up when it is necessary for it to appear. This is especially true for me these past two months which have many times seemed overwhelming with too much to take care of.  Each time, what I needed did show up. I have to learn to better trust the process and be patient, so I do not feel the stress in my body temple.

Film
“Timbuktu”

It’s International Women’s History Month and in director Abderrahmane Sissako’s film “Timbuktu” (2014) we meet fierce African women who stand their ground when faced with lashings, stonings and bullets.  The setting is Timbuktu, Africa’s Mecca, a sacred historic seat of knowledge and wisdom, which has been ravaged recently by warfare and plunder. Peoples’ lives, antiquities, books, Quranic texts, landmarks and buildings have been destroyed.

We meet the beautiful Satima (actress Toulou Kiki), wife and mother. She and her husband, Kidane (actor Ibrahim Ahmed aka Pino) and child, Toya (actress Layla Walet Mohamed), live in the dessert, away from the intense scrutiny of the jihadists who have invaded the Timbuktu region. These foreigners who claim fidelity with Allah, have only succeeded in disturbing the peaceful inhabitants with their strange interpretation of scripture. Yet, Satima is able to maintain a home for her family despite the fear the marauding militants, one who is fascinated by Satima’s extraordinary beauty.  On one occasion the officer stops and stands over her as she washes her hair. He tells her to cover herself. She tells him to look away. “What kind of man is he to plan his visits when her husband is away? She also tells him that only a coward harms a woman.

Satima is alone in the desert, all her friends gone, yet she nonetheless agrees to stay there and not run when Kidane asks. It’s too bad on one fateful afternoon he does not listen to her when he heads over to see Amadou, a fisherman, whom there seems to be an ongoing feud around water rights, tragedy results.

Everyone is angry.  Tolerance is quickly replaced by intolerance. There is no patience—men fight, children are hurt, familial integrity ruined.  When Kidane’s cows get caught in Amadou’s net, the stresses of the invasion blow up a situation which could have been handled another way – is blood always the answer, “Timbuktu” seems to ask.

Then there is the “crazy” black woman whom no one bothers as she steps in front of trucks and uses her amulets to confuse the military occupation. She is conjuring the entire film. Her rooster rides on her shoulder, but even she is powerless against enemy guns.

At the marketplace a fisherwoman is told to wear cloth gloves to do business. She tells the officer, “No,” who is he to tell her what Allah says? “Chop my hands off now, then, because I refuse to wear gloves. How am I supposed to make a living with gloves on?” Ill-prepared, he walks off. We later see the market woman in court.

Resistance is also seen on the soccer field where boys play “air soccer.” The game is haram or forbidden so the boys play with a ball only they can see and then when the military jeeps roll by they stand in the field and stretch. It is a great moment in the film. Contrast this with another seen where viewers see jihadists standing around talking about soccer scores and teams and one sees the hypocrisy.

In multiple scenes like the one with the fisherwoman, conjurer woman, young hip hop artist who is pressed into giving public testimony about the evils of this music . . . “Timbuktu” points to the internal life of these characters as ones of integrity, even if this means punishment or ultimately death. This inherent integrity is constantly juxtaposed with evil, the evil intentions of the occupiers who claim truth and justice, but demonstrate its opposite.

The powerlessness citizens feel heightens ethnic divisions and little things are cause for dispute and ultimate tragedy.  We see teens innocently hanging out singing in a girlfriend’s bedroom, two boys and two girls—they are just singing, yet this is reason for one of the girls to be flogged 80 lashes. Abderrahmane Sissako makes us watch this as she begins to sing for Allah— love is against the law here.

At one point, Toya says to Issan that she is happy her father is a musician because soldiers don’t live as long as artists. I wonder about the jihadists’ fear of music and laughter and other signs of happiness – the title, ironically of another one of Sissako’s films “Waiting for Happiness” (2002).

The director says his film recalls for him an “unspeakable crime’ which takes place in Aguelhok, a small city in northern Mali – more than half occupied by men who were mostly outsiders. [It is here] a thirty-something couple, blessed with two children, were stoned to death. Media largely turned a blind eye (because this was Mali not Damascus, nor Tehran). [These are black people, not Arabs or Iranians]”

“Their crime: they weren’t married. The video of their killing, which was posted online by the perpetrators, is horrid. The woman dies struck by the first stone, which the man lets out a hollow rasp of a cry. Then silence. Soon after they were dug up only to be buried further away” (cohen mediagroup).

“Timbuktu” is Abderrahmane Sissako’s response to this wrong. He is filling the political silence with the lives of this couple. His Kidane and Satima and Toya and Issan (who is an orphan). What will be the viewer’s response?

If the gazelle is truth, then it runs across the landscape dodging the rapid fire of men whose aim is to smother all life, we are not certain who will win the battle—will the gazelle escape? Will the children also running escape? Will the cyclist whom the invaders, armed yet now on foot – escape? We do not know the outcome of this uneven race for justice.

Islam’s misuse continues until everyone is running toward different destinations –

Mali boasts of its cultural diversity; the Dogon people who live in the mountainsides in caves are known for their sophisticated cosmology, time travel, extraterrestrial communication and universe mapping which includes much the west does not know. This might be the root of such stoicism that permeates African landscapes, a knowledge that appearance does not guarantee permanence.

One of the wonders of the world, The Great Mosque in Djenné (1907) — is also located here. The beautiful craftsmanship from mud in the 13th century is still amazing. It is stands so large, then when you enter its many chambers and climb to the roof where the view of the city spreads before you, one cannot help think – this is made from mud? What is the formula? Perhaps there is something to the creation story which states the human species is from “mud fashioned into shape”?  If this edifice can stand for so many lifetimes. . . .

In Sissako’s “Timbuktu,” the invaders or jihadists insist on a literal interpretation of Qur’an. The true jihad or “struggle,” is internal rather than external. The true jihad is with one’s own “nafs” or “soul.” The people who live in Timbuktu know this.

The Qur’an (which means “recitation or reading”) is a book written by men for men and as such is up for interpretation as no man or woman is perfect. If Prophet Muhammad, a good man, (peace and blessings upon him) is said to be the Qur’an walking, then such terrorists market an Islam which twists and tarnishes the beauty of life these Africans have claimed. For those who have traveled and visited the mosques and worshipped with our brothers and sisters there, African Muslims have not abandoned their spirituality which predates the introduction of Islam into the region. What happens in Sissako’s “Timbuktu,” also happened in historic “Segu” (another Malian town) as depicted in Maryse Condé’s novel by the same name.

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It is surprising that any African is a Muslim or Christian given the violence of its colonial introduction. Yet, Africans in Mali and elsewhere in West Africa, such as, Senegal and Gambia – (other places I have visited) have embraced this faith and religion as exemplified in the lives of its indigenous saints, among them Cheikh Amadou Bamba, whose resistance to French colonizers is legendary.  Islam means submission, the root s-l-m is the same for salaam or peace and Muslim. Such submission is evident in the town where the invaders impose restrictions, express philosophical inflexibility and met out punishment liberally. Everywhere in Timbuktu there is talk of departure/escape.

The foreigners’ reign is distinguished by rape, murder and suffering, yet Kidane, asks his wife to hang in there with him. He admits to also being afraid, but what is the alternative to home, wandering in the desert without the certainty of water and food for their Toya?

As the couple look at their limited choices, in the city fisherwomen are being told to wear gloves, all music is haram, a boy is given 40 lashes for playing soccer, and for single adults to be found in the company of other single adults (of the opposite sex) is flogging or stoning to death.

Scenes where men and women are buried alive, just their heads visible, the heads targets for lawn balls – rocks. The stoning deaths make the film both hard to stomach, despite its beautifully rendered cinematography. Who are these men? Where do they come from? What will it take to get rid of them? In the meantime, why is there no rescue for a people who have to stomach their sanctuaries defilement by such men?

The soldiers march through both sacred and secular terrain in their boots, take girls from their families and give them to strangers. . . .  The local imam protests all harms, yet “the court” sees nothing wrong in its behavior.

Again, the gazelle we see running on the landscape at the beginning of his film, is still running at the end as Toya and Issan also run, as do men with rifles . . . . We do not know for how long and if capture will be avoided for the gazelle or for the children.

“The Convert” at Marin Theatre Company

Another work with strong women characters, especially as portrayed by actresses: Elizabeth Carter as Mai Tamba, Katherine Renee Turner as Jekesai/Ester and Omoze Idehenre as Prudence, is Zimbabwean playwright, Danai Gurira’s “The Convert” at Marin Theatre Company through March 15. “The Convert” takes us back to colonial southern Africa at a time when the indigenous people are becoming restless.

Danai Gurira’s work juxtaposes the perplexing situation African Christians face like Jekesai renamed Ester and her savior Master Chilford (Jabari Brisport). Both characters sacrifice more than they realize for a Christian God who is powerless to save them. Jekesai’s Aunt Mai knows this, so does Prudence who asks Ester to speak with her own voice, when the girl parrots the thoughts of others (namely Chilford).

Ester’s cousin Tamba (JaBen Early) takes his cousin to his mother’s job at the counselor’s offices to save her from an arranged marriage. Mai Tamba pretends to follow Christ, but adds indigenous medicine to the formula to protect those in the house from spirits rising elsewhere.

Chilfold believes in the Book and Christ and in the goodness of the whites, despite evidence of their disregard for his soul. He is an optimist who foolishly thinks he has to give up all that is dear to him to enter the kingdom of God and Ester follows almost blindly behind him. He calls her his protégé. Note the “almost” here, as it is in this hesitation that Ester is saved. She is close enough to her heritage that she can remember what she has left behind—the songs, the rituals, the people. It takes quite a bit, but finally she sees what Tamba tells her, what Prudence tries to drown in alcohol and western pretense. “The Convert”shows how colonialism robs a people of their internal life by outlawing everything dear and then shackling their minds with a religion that encourages blind faith, a faith where its savior looks like the oppressor. Jesekai learns this and then shares it with her mentor or master, Chilford, zealous and certainly a man of God, just the wrong one. Through her example, he learns to trust himself and realize that the vilification of his people was just a political ploy which has nothing to do with Shona or Ndebele spirituality.

Jesekai’s reclaiming her ancestral native name, says a lot about this moment. She also takes off the garments of the western world as well. At this juncture, her journey’s end, she is as she was when we first meet her, just a lot wiser.
Thus dressed, she sits on the floor with Chilford and teaches him a song in Shona she composed. As they sing we see Chilford realize at last that salvation doesn’t belong to a particular people, and the whites are not God’s chosen.

Jesus is an ancestor, Jesekai says early on and Chilford who is appreciatively brainwashed denies her insight. Taken from home at a young age, he does not remember a lot of who he was before the missionaries abducted his mind. Yet, he admits to his loss to Ester when she stands at a similar precipice and has to choose between her rituals and duties to her family and that which Chilford says are her duties to her lord. Nostalgia seizes him temporarily when he recalls his mother’s embraces and the food she fed him. When Ester asks how he has been able to live with such denial of parts of himself—an emotional door closes in her face and she retreats. Perhaps this is a good thing, as later she listens when her father admonishes her when her Christ nor his mother, Mary, protects Jesekai’s people from slaughter.

These three women, Jesekai/Ester, Mai Tamba and Prudence, are the centrifugal force at work as gravity shifts on volatile Southern African terrain. Prudence is well-educated to the mores and will of the colonizer, yet unlike Chilford and Ester, she did not forget what she lost when taken from her family and sent to boarding school. She realizes the depth of her loss and the handicap she is to the colonizers whom she is now smarter than. She knows she cannot go home again, and we see her looking through the window—doors closed to her because she is black, because she is  woman and because she no longer fits any number of keyholes.

In a garish hairdo always seeming to be missing a pin to hold it up, corset sufficiently tight, yet not uncomfortable, Prudence is honest and does not pretend to believe in the white man and what he says about her people. She forgives Tamba and is not blind to the faults of her fiancé, Chancellor (Jefferson A. Russell) who is a womanizer. The irony is that his multiple wives are accepted by Chilford and others, while the Jesekai’s Uncle’s (L. Peter Callender) desire to marry her off to a man with wives is seen as sinful. This is where the story starts, so with that said we’ll end here.

Listen to an interview with Elizabeth Carter as “Mai Tamba,” Katherine Renee Turner as “Jekesai/Ester”: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2015/02/06/wandas-picks-radio-show-cast-from-danai-guriras-the-convert  Visit www.marintheatre.org or call (415) 388-5208 for tickets. The MTC is located at 397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941. Shows are Tuesdays-Sundays. (There is frontal nudity in the opening and closing scenes when Jesekai wears her traditional dress).

Other wonderful plays you don’t want to miss:
“Xtigone” by Nambi E. Kelly, directed by Rhodessa Jones, Saturday and Sunday, through March 8, at African American Shakespeare Company at the Buriel Clay Theatre, 762 Fulton Street, San Francisco. Visit www.African-AmericanShakes.org (800) 838-3006.

To listen to two interviews visit: http://tobtr.com/s/7350903 with Ryan Nicole Austin (Xtigone “Tig”) (2/27); with Rhodessa Jones (director) & Ryan Nicole Austin (Xtigone “Tig”) http://tobtr.com/s/7344081

Julie Hébert’s “Tree” directed by Jon Tracey is up through March 7, at the San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post Street, in San Francisco. Visit  http://sfplayhouse.org/sfph/ Friday, Feb. 27, we speak to actors Carl Lumbly (Leo Price) & Cathleen Riddley (Mrs. Jessalyn Price) who are mother, son. To listen visit: http://tobtr.com/s/7350903

Lecture/Talks
Legacy of Color: Marie Johnson Calloway in Conversation with Belva Davis, March 8, 2015 @ 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm. at the Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission Street, San Francisco. $10 general admission. Visit moadsf.org

Exhibits Opening
Black Artists on Art: Legacy Exhibit – The Women’s Segment, opens March 6, 6-10 PM at Oakstop, 1721 Broadway, Oakland. Visit www.oakstop.com and www.blackartistsonart.com