Just received news that Dr. Frances Cress Welsing (Isis Papers) made her transition this morning, Jan. 2, 2016. She was 80. The psychiatrist who challenged white supremacists on what she called “The Cress Theory of Color Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy)” to look at their own melanin deficiency for what it is “envy,” stirred and continues to stir the waters.  She always stated theoretically that “black lives matter,” the weight of this “matter or energy,” both tangibly and philosophically the reason for the covert and overt attacks on our persons, way before the #blm movement. A political savvy, congenial and accessible scholar and meta-physician, she will be missed, but her legacy lives on. Ashay! Visit The Root and NPR 

Memorial Services for Dr. Cress-Welsing will take place on Saturday, January 23, at Howard University’s Crampton Auditorium, 2455 6th Street NW, Washington, DC from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Postponed due to blizzard and transportation shut down until March 19, at Union Temple Baptist Church.)

Lower Bottom Playaz’s Complete the August Wilson Century Cycle

Congratulations to The Lower Bottom Playaz who complete the August Wilson Century Cycle with the timely production of the only play in the Cycle that is told from the lens of developers. Wilson’s Hill District in Pittsburgh, PA, and Oakland, CA 2015-16, hold a lot of common ground for many of today’s public conversations about progress, tradition, and legacy. August Wilson is considered one of America’s greatest playwrights, and his work covering the centennial American landscape through the lens of black America is one of the outstanding achievements of modern theater.  That this is performed across the globe is wonderful; however, the stellar accolades belong to The Playaz’s out of Oakland, who have performed the plays in chronological order, the only theatre to do so, to date.

“Radio Golf” continues through January 3, 2016, with performances Friday, Jan. 1, 8 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 2, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday, January 3, 2 p.m. at the Flight Deck, 1540 Broadway Oakland, CA. Tickets are on sale on the web at www.lowerbottomplayaz.com . For additional information: Office: 510-457-8999, Box Office: 510-332-1319 or email wordslanger@gmail.com.  Tune in for interviews with cast and director: Wed., Dec. 30: http://tobtr.com/8188619 and with Dr. Nzinga, director (she is the third guest), http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2015/12/11/wandas-picks-radio-show

Human Trafficking Awareness Month

January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month with Monday, Jan. 11, Sex Trafficking Awareness Day.  Black Repertory Group hosts performances Sunday-Monday, Jan. 10-11 to bring attention to this issue. Sunday, Jan. 10, 3 p.m.  and Monday, Jan. 11 at 7 p.m. (Doors open 1 hour earlier).  Regina Evans will present excerpts from her play, 52 Letters and Zorina London’s One Night of Day will be performed as well. To learn more about the work and the issue listen to a recent interview with the two activists/playwrights and Sean Vaughn Scott, Black Rep. director: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2016/01/06/wandas-picks-radio-show

Ms. Evans’s play, “52 Letters” is a one-woman poetic stage play, written, performed and directed by this Oakland native. Through the use of poetry and Negro Spirituals, “52 Letters” brings awareness to the tragedy of sex trafficking and its effects upon American youth and women. “52 Letters” was honored to win a 2013 Best Of The San Francisco Fringe Festival Award.

Ms. London’s play is One Night of Day, an evening at the club with Billie Holiday when her friends Lena Horne and Bessie Smith drop by. Ms. Holiday has a lot on her mind that evening, but the music has a way of helping her transcend her troubles, literally leave them behind as her soul soars. The Black Rep is located at 3201 Adeline St, Berkeley. For information and tickets call: (510) 652-2120.  The event is not free, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

For more information about events this month visit: http://www.nctsn.org/resources/public-awareness/human-trafficking

More August Wilson in the San Francisco Bay Area

Gem of the Ocean @ MTC

The Marin Theatre Company presents, August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean,” January 14-February 14. Directed by Daniel Alexander Jones, this first play in the ten-play century cycle, depicting African American life during the 20^th century, features Margo Hall as the 285 year old character, Aunt Ester, referenced in all nine (9) plays. All of the plays are set in Wilson’s Hill District, in Pittsburgh, the place where he grew up. Written in 2003, his second to the last play, “Gem,” more than any other of the plays fully evokes African spiritual traditions. In Gem, Babalao Wilson takes us into the ancestral realm to visit with Egun. For Citizen, the journey is necessary for his humanity, something both precious and precarious. The realm of the bones, where the ancestors live, is both baptism and resurrection. The director will be collaborating with Dr.Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, author, around the director’s use of the jazz aesthetic in his work.

PBS’s American Masters episode on August Wilson, August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand, which premiered on February 20, 2015, the 70th anniversary of Wilson’s birth and 10th anniversary of his death, airs again in February 2016 in celebration of Black History Month, underwritten by MTC in conjunction with this production of Gem of the Ocean.

For those mothers who would like to attend the play, UrbanSitter will provide babysitters for MTC’s Moms Matinee on Saturday, January 23, at 2:00 pm.

The play which also features: Omoze Idehenre, Brian Freeman, Namir Smallwood, Patrick Kelly Jones, Anthony Juney Smith, and Tyee J. Tilghman, is at Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, marintheatre.org, (415) 388-5208, boxoffice@marintheatre.org

Concert

“The Civil Rights Movement Through the Music of Nina Simone” Paula West, Patti Cathcart, Terrance Kelly and Rhiannon

In the Name of Love, The 14th Annual Musical Tribute Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday, January 17, 2016, 7:00 p.m. at the Oakland Scottish Rite Center, 1547 Lakeside Dr., Oakland. This year the focus is “The Civil Rights Movement through the Music of Nina Simone” Paula West, Patti Cathcart, Terrance Kelly and Rhiannon. In the Name of Love remains Oakland’s only annual non-denominational musical tribute to Dr. King. It is an extremely significant civic and cultural event, bringing our diverse community together to pay tribute to Dr. King’s message of community, equality and inclusion and to highlight the power and significance of music and music education. Tickets: $25- $40; children 12 and under- $8-$12. Purchase at: mlktribute.com For additional information- 510-858-5313 or visit http://www.mlktribute.com

Ms. Simone became involved in the Civil Rights Movement in her early 30s, and from then on, her recordings directly addressed racial inequality. She performed and spoke frequently at civil rights meetings, including at the Selma to Montgomery marches. Known as “the consummate musical storyteller,” she created a tremendous body of work spanning jazz, blues, classical, folk, gospel and pop. The 2016 MLK Tribute will provide a platform for a one-time exciting collective, creative experience meant to inspire hope, celebrate Oakland’s cultural history and highlight the power of music to spur positive change.

The tribute will also include the 65-voice Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir; and the 300-voice Living Jazz Children’s Project backed up by the Oaktown Jazz Workshops. Archival footage of Dr. King’s will be interspersed throughout the evening, and the Oakland Citizen Humanitarian Award will be presented by Mayor Libby Schaaf to an Oakland citizen working tirelessly to make a difference. All these elements help to make this one of Oakland’s most significant events of the year.

All proceeds from the 14th Annual Tribute will support the Living Jazz Children’s Project a free music education program provided by Living Jazz for Oakland public elementary schools with little or no access to the arts. Living Jazz believes that access to music education is a profound and necessary component of every child’s education and development.

Film
“The Homestretch”

On Thursday, January 14, 2016, join the Alameda County- Oakland Community Action Partnership and members of the community for a free film screening of the thought-provoking film “The Homestretch.”

The film touches on the lives of three homeless teenagers as they brave Chicago winters, the pressures of high school, and life alone on the streets in order to build a brighter future. Against all odds, these teens defy stereotypes as they create new, surprising definitions of home. Can they recover from the traumas of abandonment and homelessness and build the future they dream of? Come find out!

Following the film will be a brief discussion on what Alameda County is currently doing to enhance opportunities and resources for homeless youth. Light snacks provided.

5:30pm: Doors Open

6:00pm – 7:30pm: Film Screening

7:30pm – 8:00pm: Discussion

Location: Laney College Campus at the Forum, 900 Fallon Street Oakland, CA 94607

The Auset Movement: Loving Humanity into Wholeness

We have a new organization which is looking at internally displaced people (homelessness) as a human rights issue affecting too many black men. The launch of the organization was Friday, December 25, 2015, and is on-going.  To learn more visit  http://theausetmovement.blogspot.com/

African American Museum & Library at Oakland Events:

Author Event

The African American Museum and Library at Oakland Welcomes: Carlos M. Salomon, author of  Pio Pico: The Last Governor of Mexican California, Wednesday, January 13, 2016, 6 – 8 pm Professor Salomon will discuss the life of Pio Pico, who was of Black, Spanish and Native heritage.

Dr. King Holiday Event at AAMLO

It’s the 10th Anniversary Dr. Martin Luther King Film Festival at AAMLO, so on Monday, January 18, 2016, 11 am -6 pm, in honor the special occasion there will be a “best of” screening from each of the ten years.  RSVP  510-637-0200 for this free event at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland, 659 Fourteenth Street in Oakland.

Black Sustainability Conference

Sustainability from an Afrikan perspective conference planned. Register on or before January 27, for the first Online Black Sustainability Summit. www.blacksustainabilitysummit.com

Ethnic Heritage Ensemble Workshop & Performance @ Eastside Arts

EastSide Arts Alliance is excited to kick-off the Legendary Ethnic Heritage Ensemble All Star 2016 Tour with an evening concert on Saturday, January 30 and a community discussion with members of the band on Sunday, January 31.   Internationally acclaimed percussionist, composer, and band leader Kahil El’Zabar will premier a brand new Ethnic Heritage Ensemble featuring two masterful icons of the modern jazz idiom: Baritone sax giant, Hamiet Bluiett, and trombone titan, Craig Harris!   While these three giants have worked together in various collaborations for more than 40 years, they have never come together as Kahil’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble until now. The coming together of these three historical and impactful figures at this particular juncture in history, will take us beyond the current trends of predictable mediocrity. Hamiet Bluiett, Craig Harris and Kahil El’Zabar are the real deal and are always ready to make real music!

SUNDAY, JANUARY 31 – COMMUNITY CONVERSATION: Black Cultural Organizing – Context, Vision, Plan is 3-5 pm – FREE

A roundtable discussion with three legendary artists who have been active leaders in connecting the power of the music to community organizing and efforts toward self-determination. Kahil El’Zabar will speak on the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians – the oldest Black arts organization in the country – http://aacmchicago.org/ Craig Harris has been a key figure in Harlem arts and community for many years and will be able to discuss the future of Harlem as the Black cultural center of the U.S.  Hamiet Bluiett has seen and done it all and will provide insights about what influences the music and his thoughts on where we are now.  EastSide will be co-facilitating these discussions with invited Oakland artists and organizers. Following a conversation with these artists we will reserve time for the community to look forward and share ideas that are being developed for a Black Arts resurgence in Oakland.

EastSide is working to respond to the urgent crisis that gentrification is wrecking on our communities.  We are facilitating these discussions in the spirit of Amiri Baraka – his understanding that we must build institutions, organize, and embrace the connections between culture and movement building.

Liberated Lens Film Collective

Please join Liberated Lens Film Collective on January 12, 2016 for our next film night, showing Merchants of Doubt, the 2014 documentary showing ties between the misinformation campaigns of the tobacco and anti-climate change lobbies. Doors open at 6:30p, and the film will begin at 7 p.m.  Snacks will be provided, and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.  For more information: https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/12/27/18781259.php?show_comments=1#18781592

Poetry Reading
Stay Amazed, is a poetry book consisting of poems gathered from friends in response to Susan Duhan Felix’s request on the one year anniversary (2013) of her husband, Morton Felix’s death. He was a poet and what better way to remember him on her birthday. Thirty friends and family rose to the occasion and the poems were then published by Poetry Flash in the anthology Stay Amazed. 

On Thursday, January 14, 2016,at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley some of these friends will share their poems:  Avi Duhan, Jack and Adelle Foley, Rafael Jesús González, Gary Lapow, Zigi Lowenberg, Kim McMillon, Jerry Ratch, Nancy Schimmel and others.

Translating the Archive Event

Translating the Archive presents Sean Heyliger of the African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Monday, January 11 from 6:30-8, at the Omni Oakland Commons, 4779 Shattuck Avenue in Oakland. The presentation is followed by a screening of Point of Pride: Remembering and Restoring the Mulitmedia History of Bayview Hunter’s Point.

Sean Heyliger is the archivist at the AAMLO, and will present on the preservation of and access to the collection of AAMLO. Two of his recent projects include the digitization of the historical records of the California State Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and twenty years of the official newsletter of a black masons organization, the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of California.

Point of Pride combines archival footage from the 1950’s 60’s and 70’s with present-day viewpoints and reactions to these images from the past to create a compelling portrait of a community marked by struggle and fueled by hope. Point of Pride is the culmination of a year-long grant, Remembering and Restoring the Multimedia History of Baview Hunter’s Point. Community partners included the San Francisco Public Library, BAVC and San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive at San Francisco State University. The project was supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.

Dance
What happens when artists revolt?

January 23-February 7, 2016, Dance Brigade’s Dance Mission Theater presents: Dance In Revolt(ing) Times or D.I.R.T. Festival 2016, Eighteen choreographers, three distinct programs. Reflecting the diversity of the Bay Area’s dance scene, the fresh and fascinating voices include Portsha Jefferson, Rainy Demerson, Latanya d. Tigner, Delina Patrice Brooks, Patricia Bulitt, My-Linh Le, Laura Larry Arrington, Rashad Pridgen, Vanessa Sanchez, Gregory Dawson, Zoë Klein, Yayoi Kambara, Sammay Dizon, Harper Addison, Todd Thomas Brown, JoAnna  M Ursal, Amara Tabor-Smith, and Krissy Keefer. Each weekend features a unique program, the first presented in collaboration with the Black Choreographers Festival.

Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., San Francisco. Tickets are $22-$25 / Package rates for multiple programs available
For tickets and information: 415-826-4441 or www.dancemission.com

Artists are presenting work on a social political issue for this is what Dance Brigade does best: combining artistic excellence with art activism. When asked about the theme, Dance In Revolt, Festival co-curator and Dance Brigade Artistic Director, Krissy Keefer responded, “It is the duty of the artist to hold up a mirror to society and also imagine a world that could be.” We cannot sit idle.

There is a long tradition of the artist in the role of activist and this is needed today more than ever.  Says Dance Mission’s Theater Director, Stella Adelman,  “Vladimir Nabokov summed it up best when he said, anything outstanding and original in the way of creative thought is a stride toward Revolution. The dancing body, the way it demands to be seen and take up space, is itself an act of rebellion. Because there is such gross injustice in today’s world, the artist has no choice but to look at that (injustice) starkly in the face.”   The works in the festival range from pieces about Sandra Bland and the lack attention given to Black women who are victims of police, to the current treatment of Haitians by Dominicans, to the gentrification of Oakland, to the affects of war on Iraqi women.

Dance Brigade is known for known for nurturing artists. Many of Dance Mission’s artists-in- residence and Choreographer’s Showcase presenters have gone on to be GOLDIE winners including Ramon Ramos Alayo, Nol Simonse, and Sean Dorsey.

Book and Art Tour (Jan. -Feb.)
When We Fight, We Win!

When We fight We Win! Twenty First Century Social Movements and the Activists that are Transforming Our World by Greg Jobin-Leeds and AgitArte, New Press (Jan. 2016) with an interview and art by Kevin “Rashid” Johnson (Prison Radio Correspondent).

The tour stops in San Francisco at Book Passage, Corte Madera, 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 4; Marcus Books in Oakland, 7 p.m., Friday, Feb. 5, and Green Apple Books on the Park, 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 9, in San Francisco. Visit prisonradio.org or www.whenwefightwewin.com

Theatre

Charlie Hinton’s Solitary Man: My Visit to Pelican Bay State Prison is up at various venues in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose:

Monday January 11, The Marsh, San Francisco, 1062 Valencia near 22nd, 7:30, $8 (20 min. excerpt)

Friday, January 22, Omni Commons, Oakland, 4799 Shattuck Ave 94609, 7 pm $5-20, no one turned away?

Sponsored by Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition to END SLEEP DEPRIVATION TORTURE IN PELICAN BAY SOLITARY caused by 30 cell checks that wake prisoners up every 30 minutes and as part of protests against solitary confinement  that take place statewide  the 23rd of every month. Facebook: SOLITARY MAN, Performance by Charlie Hinton http://tinyurl.com/h3adxdd

Monday January 25, The Marsh, San Francisco, 1062 Valencia near 22nd, 7:30, $8  (20 minutes of material from Part 2 – Sunday Visit).

Saturday February 6, San Jose, School of Arts and Culture, Mexican Heritage Plaza, 1600 Alum Rock Avenue, San Jose. This event honors Leonard Peltier on the 40th anniversary of his illegal arrest

Tuesday, February 23, 518 Valencia, San Francisco 94110, 7 pm $5-20, no one turned away. (Sponsored by Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition to END SLEEP DEPRIVATION TORTURE IN PELICAN BAY SOLITARY caused by 30 cell checks that wake prisoners up every 30 minutes and as part of protests against solitary confinement that take place statewide the 23rd of every month.)

Lysistrata, a Review & Interview with Teyonah Parris (Lysistrata)

Teyonah Parris as “Lysistrata” in Chi-Raq (2015)

I had an opportunity to speak to the lovely actress Teyonah Parris before the film Lysistrata opened in theatres.  I saw the film after the conversation, and though I knew the story, Parris’s Lysistrata alongside actor Nick Cannon’s virile Demetrius Chi-Raq Dupree had sparks flying from more than smoking guns. Perhaps what Cannon does for the gun-toting villain is humanize him, and by extension the other young men who follow his lead. What is eating at his soul so that he finds refuge behind violence and more violence, is ignorance. He doesn’t know who he is or who his people are.

Nick Cannon and I had a conversation about Chi-Raq and his forgetfulness which is his undoing. However, Demetrius didn’t forget the code. His father disappeared from his life, like so many of his peers. The man who becomes his default role model leads the youngster astray. Whether this is intentional or not is hard to say, if he too follows an inherited script. This man taught Demetrius that sex and violence was manhood. The more people feared you, the manlier you were. So when we meet the two orphans, Lysistrata and Chi-Raq, they are opposite angles on the same coin.

But then, Lysistrata changes.

Left homeless when she and Chi-Raq are sleeping and their home is riddled with bullets and nearly burned to the ground, Lysistrata thinks a bit differently about her life and where it is leading her. Then after a child is killed and she meets the child’s mother (Jennifer Hudson) the glamour is stained with blood and she wants out of the garment.  With nowhere to go, Lysistrata calls on one of the village mothers, Ms. Helen (Angela Bassett) for help. Ms. Helen leads a group of women who like Liberian Peace Activist, Leymah Roberta Gbowee, also pray, rally and protest for peace. All of these women support Lysistrata’s desire to change.

Perhaps what the story tells us, especially this adaptation, set in a volatile place called Chi-town or Chicago, is that children need guidance. Both boys and girls need their fathers in their lives, otherwise they miss a crucial element in their development as human beings. There is more to life than fashion, sex and fear. Chi-Raq is a promising singer; he doesn’t need fear for success, but this is how he develops respect. Lysistrata is beautiful and intelligent, she learns that she is also a leader when she challenges her friends and foes to use their influence with their men to stop the warfare on the streets.

This is satire, so there are characters whose roles are a bit over the topic like Chi-Raq’s rebel counterpart Cyclops (Wesley Snipes). If we were speaking in Blaxploitation language, Cyclops is the buffoon. It is unfortunate that John Cusack as Fr. Mike Corridan, stands for the moral code.  The white priest, dressed in kente cloth delivers a powerful eulogy for a child killed in gang related crossfire.  There are no positive black male characters in this film with speaking parts.

A reward is offered for information on the killing; however, no one steps forward, so Lysistrata, already fed up with the senseless violence, turns up the heat with her girls who lock it up: “No Peace? No Piece!  Chicago’s Southside has been under siege with more casualties than the War in Iraq.  These brave women see that if Chicago is allowed to go under, it will not be the last American city to topple. Its perpetrators are infected with what Dr. Joseph Marshall (Alive and Free), calls a disease or sickness plaguing black communities everywhere. What has happened to a person who does not see his humanity in another person’s face?

Introduced to Leyman Gbowee by Ms. Helen, Lysistrata (the character) takes her sex strike inspiration from the Nobel Laurette and Peace Activist, who with other Liberian women, ended the second civil war.  America, unlike Liberia, is a country founded on violence. Corporate media markets sex and violence, especially against women, so for Spike Lee and co-writer, Kevin Willmott, to flip this so that audiences see a woman protagonist not just save her peoples, but also return to the men, who are also vital to the solution, their humanity, is brilliant!

Both Parris as Lysistrata and Cannon as Chi-raq, a rap artist who wages war, show through their contentious relationship how individuals can change. Both on a precipice swinging in opposition to peace, the two actors evolve as life affirming values merge and dissolve. Perhaps what Lysistrata does well is remove the irreligious aspect of sex from praxis. All of a sudden when the boys can no longer get a “piece” without “peace,” perhaps what emerges is Oshun, the warrior goddess of love, who demands respect. Sex is no longer trivialized when life becomes, once again, sacred.

As Lysistrata moves from enjoying the bling to examining the systems that make her lifestyle possible and steps not out, but literally into the line of fire as a leader of the women, we see emerge change, atonement and hope, something audiences can take away from Chi-raq, the film, experience. These are young people who like the physicality of their relationships, so to decide to abstain until the men put down their weapons is not an easy or light matter, no matter how slap stick certain aspects of the film are. That the narrative leans between extremes is true to Greek playwright Aristophanes’s original script. Lee’s characters are stretched into grotesque abnormal postures.

Cannon and Parris play their roles straight, along with a few other characters, like the grieving mothers, the priest, and the men who talk about losing children to the war in the streets.  Elder gangsters tell Chi-Raq that the warfare is not worth the cost in lives. Young fathers tell him that they want their children to grow up, not die on the streets, yet the young leader drowns these words of wisdom in alcohol, smoke and pills. However, when his stupor wears off, the young man has to face himself. To the very end, Chi-Raq refuses to give up. We wonder why.

His reason is a chilling conclusion to a tale which lands too close for comfort.

As the narrative proceeds, dancing between corrupt city officials, opportunistic insurance men, fly girls and men who just want to get laid, racists and opportunists, Samuel L. Jackson’s Dolmedes, fills us in on the back story. He is comic relief where perhaps one isn’t needed.  This is yet another story where black people lose. On the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March, its leader, Min. Louis Farrakhan also a Chicagoan, not to mention our First Family, President Barack Hussain and Michelle Obama, the strategic release of Chi-Raq at this moment in this country’s history, pre-Paris attack, says much for director, Lee’s ability to allow the muse, mixed with political and social urgency to dictate his steps whether this is “4 Little Girls,” “Get on the Bus,” “Bamboozled,” “Malcolm X” or “When the Levees Broke.” Chi-Raq lifts the “black lives matter”  and “stop the violence” conversation to a national level in a way only Lee can. The film is rated R for sex, nudity, language and mature subject.

Interview with Teyonah Parris as Lysistrata

The Julliard trained actress, Teyonah Parris, says of her character, Lysistrata: “I think its important that you get to follow her from the beginning of her arch, where she is not the Lysistrata who ends the movie.  She is very much an active participant in what is ultimately the issue at hand—the war on the streets of Chi-town.  She’s dating a gun toting gang leader and loves every bit of it. And at a certain point, she gets fed up with what’s happening and she finds her voice and her strength and she mobilizes the women in her community to follow suit. She’s determined; she’s fierce; she’s intelligent, and she sees something that needs to be done, and she takes initiative.”

WS: Is there anything in your life that you pull on to portray her?

TP: You know, I pulled on . . . I used many different women as inspiration. You have someone, on a very aesthetic level— pulling from the Pam Greers for that iconic image, back in the day. Asaata Shakur is strong politically and very much the activist. Then you have the Leyman Gbowee we actually address in the movie, who is a Liberian peace activist who was ultimately reason why the second civil war in Liberia ended. She got the women in her country to impose a sex strike. It was effective. So I pulled from many women to create  this character, Lysistrata.

WS: How has this role, this film and this issue affected you artistically and personally?

TP: First of all, working with Spike Lee is an absolute dream come true. He is such a visionary and such a champion for community and for . . . even when it hurts to hear it, there is always truth in what he has to say. Working with someone who I know when we went into this, he said his main goal “we have to save lives. Even if we’ve saved one, we have done what we need to do.’

“When you work on pieces like this, (she takes a deep breath and exhales) – where it’s so close to home and its so many people’s truth, and it’s a truth that hurts, you can’t not be changed by what you’re doing.

“We shot the entire film in the Southside of Chicago, and we were embraced by the community. They were a part of making this film in so many ways. We partnered with Father Michael Pfleger, St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham, who is a Catholic priest in the Southside of Chicago, a white man with a predominately African American congregation who has been a huge pillar in the community, affecting change and getting brothers and sisters off the street and giving them alternative ways to go. He put us in touch with the organization Purpose over Pain, which is comprised of mothers and men as well in the community who have lost loved ones to gun and gang violence. To hear their stories, to talk to these mothers and fathers [about their children.] Everyone’s story is so different, but hearing a mom say, ‘[My son] was on the church steps bringing his drums in. He had no gang affiliation or anything like that. He was just killed on the church steps.’ You can’t hear those stories and not want to do something about it. It certainly motivated me to do the best I could do to get these families stories out, to get people to pay attention to what is happening in Chicago, and not just Chicago but [other cities] across this nation plagued with [similar] violence.

“We as a community need to take ownership, and when I say community I mean as a nation. We need to take ownership of what is happening on our very soil and deal with issues at hand.”

WS: You are certainly, a person who believes about the power of art. Talk about art for social change and art as a way or medium for healing.

TP: Absolutely, I certainly believe that art is an effective way of reaching people, reaching the masses. I feel that art allows people to see themselves in ways that simply living and being amongst one another does not always allow. In a sense you are removed from it; you think you are removed from it. [It gives one perspective to see what we are often too close to notice.]

“‘Oh I am just watching a movie; [however], those messages, those situations playing out in front of you often touch us and reach us in ways we are not necessarily conscious of all the time.  Life is an imitation of art, in that, you can use it to change peoples’ minds, to broaden their thoughts. The fact that Spike Lee created this movie and he has people talking about [violence] and having this conversation regardless whether they think they love it or hate it, [the point is] we’re talking about it. And that is already affecting change, by our simply beginning to have this conversation.”

WS: Talk about the trauma present in the lives of residents, especially the children.

TP: Anyone who lives in a place where you can be shot at any point, that you have a greater chance in your community than literarily at war in Afghanistan or Iraq, there is come level of trauma that goes with that.  I think Father Pfleger, St. Sabina Church said it best. When you have children [responding to the question, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ ‘I just want to see 18.’ ‘I want to grow up.’ That’s trauma, and no one should have to live like that.

“And I think it is important for us to have to deal with stress or trauma that our men and women who are at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, but we also need to deal with what is happening here on US soil in our very own communities.”

WS: I was looking at the women whom you find inspiration you mention Nina Simone. She is such an unsung hero. . .

TP: Not in my circles, Teyonah says.  Just as Lysistrata is a stone cold warrior, so was Nina Simone as well, and . . .

“I think we have been talking about girls as victims as warfare. Children in general boys and girls. Both should be off limits.”

WS: What would you like people to take away from the film?

TP: Lysistrata did not start out as a heroine. There were people in the community, in her case, Ms. Helen who served as her mentor to show her that you have everything you need to effect a change, to be a positive light in your community and it only takes one person. You can be that light and you can create an entire movement just from your sheer determination and will, and people will follow.

The film which is still in Bay Area theatres, is also available on Amazon.