Kupferberg Center for the Arts
presents
WORLD PREMIERE
Action Songs/Protest Dances
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2022 at 8PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2022 at 3PM
Director & Choreographer
Edisa Weeks
In collaboration with the performers
Composers
Taína Asili, Spirit Paris McIntyre, Martha Redbone
Dancers
Noni Byrd-Gibbs, Steven Jeltsch, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Devin Oshiro, Brittany Stewart
Queens College Students
Kailani Sahirah Estrada, Daniella Alexis Hernandez, Teneil Meyer
Musicians
Taína Asili (vocals), Dylan Blanchard (percussion), Gabby Canzeri (bass, vocals),
Asali Ruth (vocals), Spirit Paris McIntyre (vocals), Josette Newsam (vocals),
Martha Redbone (vocals), Gaetano Vaccaro (guitar), Paula Winter (percussion)
Project Manager: Marýa Wethers
Stage Manager: Mars Garcia
Production Assistant: Katherine De La Cruz
Graphic Design: Nneka Bennett
T-Shirt Design: Kathreena Bunch
Publicity: Michelle Tabnick
Photographer: Tony Turner
Videographer: Dah’Vielle Lucas
Kupferberg Center for the Arts Staff
Jamie Benson, David Burkard, Shawn Choi, Julia del Palacio, Yasoda-Devi Debidayal, Ed DiSpaltro, Jake Goldbas, Theresa Lenz, Craig Platt, Jeffrey Rosenstock, Kenneth Talberth, Margaret Victor, Jon Yanofsky
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
DELIRIOUS Dances acknowledges that Kupferberg Center for the Arts is situated on Lekawe (Rockaway), Matinecock, and Munsee Lenape land, and that these Indigenous Nations are the original stewards of the unceded (stolen) lands that we occupy. Truth and acknowledgment are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of heritage and difference.
This acknowledgement demonstrates a commitment to beginning the process of working to dismantle ongoing legacies of colonialism, and to recognize the hundreds of Indigenous Nations who continue to resist, live, and uphold their sacred relations across the lands. To learn more and take action visit: mannahattafund.org
PROGRAM
Action Songs/Protest Dances features five original compositions. Three of the songs are inspired by the life, speeches, and writings of civil rights activist James Forman (1928-2005), whose personal papers are housed at the Queens College Rosenthal Library; and two are about social justice issues in the United States today. Together, the songs and dances serve as a call to action, a protest against injustice, and a demand that the United States become a more just, equitable, inclusive and truly great nation.
Pattern Map
Composer: Spirit Paris McIntyre
Dancer: Johnnie Cruise Mercer
Body On The Line
Composer: Martha Redbone
Associate Composer/Programming/Instrumentation: Aaron Whitby
Additional vocals: Martha Redbone, Lisa Fischer
Dancer: Noni Byrd-Gibbs & Cast
Manifest & Demand
Composer: Spirit Paris McIntyre
Dancers: Noni Byrd-Gibbs, Kailani Sahirah Estrada, Daniella Alexis Hernandez, Steven Jeltsch, Johnnie Mercer, Teneil Meyer, Devin Oshiro, Brittany Stewart
I Got Gold
Composer: Martha Redbone
Associate Composer/Programming/Instrumentation: Aaron Whitby
Additional vocals: Martha Redbone, Lisa Fischer
Dancer: Devin Oshiro
Reparations
Composer: Taína Asili
Dancer: Brittany Stewart & Cast
Post Show Discussion
You are invited to participate in a discussion with Edisa Weeks, the composers and dancers immediately after the show.
Discussion Moderators
Saturday, November 12: Miles P. Grier & Sunday, November 13: Annie Tummino
This original work is the culmination of the first-ever Kupferberg Arts Incubator initiative, an artist residency program launched in 2020 with seed funding from the Max and Selma Kupferberg Family Foundation.
Kupferberg Center for the Arts’ 2022-2023 Season is sponsored by New York Community Bank – Queens County Savings Bank Division. Major support is provided by the Max and Selma Kupferberg Family Foundation and the Howard Gilman Foundation. Additional funding is provided by Resorts World NYC. Kupferberg Center’s presenting and outreach programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the NY City Council.
Edisa Gives Heartfelt Thanks To:
Taina, Spirit, & Martha for generously saying yes to participating in Action Songs/Protest Dances, and for their profound and joyous songs that are a delight to embody. Kupferberg Center for the Arts for inviting me to be the inaugural Incubation Artist, and for believing in this project: Jeff, Julia, Jon, Shawn, Theresa, Craig, Virgil & the entire KCA team. Annie Tummino, Simone Yearwood and the Queens College Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library Civil Rights Archives for providing access to the James Forman archives. The Forman Family. Dancers Steven, Noni, Johnnie, Devin, Brittany, and J. Bouey for contributing to the incubation and creation process. The musicians and Queens College dancers for wholeheartedly diving in. Billie Holiday Theater & RestorationART for the ChoreoQuest residency; Movement Research for the covid tests – taking care of each other’s well being! The Queens College Communication and Marketing team. The DELIRIOUS team: Marýa Wethers, Maya Simone, Mars Garcia, Katherine De La Cruz for keeping me on track – I am because we are. My husband Darryl Hell Montgomery for your love and insight. As well as everyone known and unknown who has supported the incubation of this project; and especially YOU for being here and for helping to create a better world through art and activism!
ABOUT JAMES FORMAN
James Forman (1928-2005) was a writer, journalist, political philosopher, human rights activist, and revolutionary socialist. He was born in Chicago, Illinois; however spent much of his childhood in Marshall County, Mississippi at his grandmother’s home, a farmhouse that lacked running water and other basic facilities. He attributed much of his political development to the experience of growing up in the face of grinding rural poverty and Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. After Graduating from Englewood High School in Chicago, he joined the U.S. Air Force as a personnel classification specialist. He completed a four-year tour-of-duty in Japan, following which he enrolled at the University of Southern California. His studies were interrupted, when he was falsely arrested by the police, brutally beaten, and involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution.
Forman completed his undergraduate degree at Chicago’s Roosevelt University, where he served as president of the student body and chief delegate to the 1956 National Student Association. In the fall of 1957, he began graduate studies at Boston University in African Affairs yet could not reconcile studying for graduate school when students in Little Rock, Arkansas, were being threatened and harassed for trying to integrate a school. He left Boston and went to the South as a reporter for the Chicago Defender. Soon after, the Congress of Racial Equality invited Forman to work with Black sharecroppers in Fayette County, Tennessee, who were evicted from their homes for registering to vote. Part of his job included driving donated food and clothing from Chicago to Fayette County. While working on this program, he became painfully aware of how difficult organizing was when organizers came in from the outside.
From 1961 until 1966 Forman served as the executive secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), in which capacity he set up a research department and print shop. Forman’s constant admonition to SNCC field workers was to “Write it down!” so that their experiences can be told. These reports were also necessary for counteracting the local white media, which was likely to portray events differently. Forman argued that while SNCC was small, it could have an enormous impact with just a small number of people on a shoestring budget. “That was the purpose of SNCC,” he argued, “to create tremors in icebergs. And we were succeeding.”
When new volunteers arrived at the SNCC office, James would often hand them a broom, telling them, “Here, man, it’s your day on the broom.” Forman himself could often be found cleaning the office and liked to say that he wouldn’t ask anyone else to do work that he wouldn’t do himself. As executive secretary of SNCC, Forman helped coordinate the famous “Freedom Rides” and advocated the use of white civil rights workers in white communities. He started the Albany Movement, which paved the way for Martin Luther King’s campaign there. He criticized the 1963 March on Washington as a “sell-out” by black leaders to the Kennedy administration and the liberal-labor vote. He questioned the capitalistic orientation of mainstream black leaders and critiqued them for not understanding the connections between capitalism, racism, and imperialism. Forman also noted that most civil rights groups were not effective or enduring because they were “leader-centered” rather than being “group or people-centered.”
Due to internal division, Forman left SNCC in 1969, following which he briefly was the minister of foreign affairs of the Black Panther Party. In 1969 Forman wrote the “Black Manifesto” in which he demanded that “white Christian Churches and Jewish Synagogues, which are part and parcel of the system of capitalism,” pay half-a-billion dollars to blacks for reparations for slavery and racial exploitation. He wanted the money to create new black institutions. Specifically, he demanded a Southern Land Bank, four major publishing and printing enterprises, four television networks, a Black Labor Strike and Defense Fund Training Center, and a new black university. In the early 1970’s Forman spent most of his time writing “The Making of Black Revolutionaries.” In 1977 he enrolled as a graduate student at Cornell University. He received a Masters of Professional Studies (M.P.S.) in African and Afro-American history in 1980. In 1983 Forman served a one-year term as legislative assistant to the president of the Metropolitan Washington Central Labor Council (AFL-CIO), following which he became president of the Unemployed and Poverty Council (UPAC), a civil and human rights group in Washington, D.C. One of the causes Forman advocated for was statehood for DC. He died from colon cancer in 2005.
ABOUT KUPFERBERG ARTS INCUBATOR
Launched in 2020, the Kupferberg Arts Incubator is an artist residency initiative that supports the work by artists of color who are active contributors to the cultural landscape of New York City and the nation. The Kupferberg Arts Incubator will consist of two-year collaborative residencies by two artists—one from the Queens College community and one external—which will result in the creation of new original works that will involve Queens College students and faculty. Queens College professor and choreographer Edisa Weeks has led the inaugural project (culminating in the November performances), and Queens College professor and multiform conceptual artist, Chloë Bass is developing the Kupferberg Arts Incubator’s second project, scheduled for completion in 2024.
Kupferberg Center for the Arts (KCA) at Queens College was created in 2006 to honor alumnus Max Kupferberg for his $10 million gift to the College in support of the arts. KCA is charged with marketing cultural events, developing cross-disciplinary collaborations among Queens College’s arts units and between the arts units and off-campus partners, raising funds, and working with an Arts Advisory Board comprised of academic and community stakeholders.
The overall mission of Kupferberg Center is to provide high quality accessible and affordable cultural attractions to the Queens College community and the borough’s 2.2 million residents. The largest multi-disciplinary arts entity in the borough, KCA features world-class artists and performances at its main stage campus venues and showcases the talents of emerging and regional artists in off-site, neighborhood settings. A leader in the cultural renaissance of Queens, KCA connects residents of the most ethnically diverse region of the nation to their unique cultural heritages, showcasing these arts to a broader audience and validating the contributions each makes to the distinct nature of our campus and community.
DIRECTOR & CHOREOGRAPHER
Edisa Weeks (she, her) with her company DELIRIOUS Dances, creates multimedia interactive work that explores our deepest desires, darkest fears and sweetest dreams. She seeks to erase the barriers between art and life, between performance space and audience space, and between mediums. Edisa is a 2022 Harlem Stage Emerging Artist, and a 2022 Creative Capital awardee, for which over 4,000 people applied and only 59 people received the award. Her work has been performed in a variety of venues including the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, and The Kennedy Center; as well as in swimming pools, storefront windows, senior centers, sidewalks and living rooms, including living rooms in Berlin, Germany, as part of Haus der Kulturen der Welts 50th anniversary celebration. Weeks grew up in Uganda, Papua New Guinea and Brooklyn, NY, and has a BA from Brown University, and received a full fellowship to attend New York University’s TISCH School of the Arts where she obtained an MFA in choreography. She has had the joy of performing with Annie–B Parsons Big Dance Theater, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co., Dance Brazil, Homer Avila, Jane Comfort, Jon Kinzel, Muna Tseng, Reggie Wilson Fist & Heel Performance Group, Sally Silvers, Spencer/Colton Dance, among others. In addition, she danced in the 2016 Bessie award-winning performance by The Skeleton Architecture. She is on the Board of Directors for Movement Research, and is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Drama, Theatre and Dance at Queens College CUNY, where she teaches modern technique, improvisation, choreography, the collaborative process and mentors emerging artists. Learn more: deliriousdances.com
COMPOSERS
Taína Asili (she/her/ella) is a New York-based Puerto Rican singer, composer, filmmaker and activist carrying on the tradition of her ancestors, fusing past and present struggles into one soulful and defiant voice. For over 20 years she has brought the music of love and liberation to venues across the globe – From the Women’s March on Washington to Carnegie Hall to the mainstage of San Francisco Pride. After the 2016 election, a bigger audience caught up to the artist Huffington Post named one of “12 Freedom Fighting Bands to Get You Through the Trump Years.” Her protest songs and music videos “No Es Mi Presidente,” “Freedom,” “And We Walk,” and “We Are Rising” — inspired by social movements for racial, gender, and climate justice — have been lauded by the likes of Rolling Stone, Billboard, and NPR, and her music has aired numerous times on Democracy Now!. With her last three albums War Cry (2010), Fruit of Hope (2014), and Resiliencia (2019), Asili uses a multi-genre and multilingual approach to connect with a variety of audiences, confidently weaving between rock, salsa, reggae, cumbia, reggaeton, hip hop, ska, samba and Afrobeat to give her music a texture that’s unique yet rooted. With powerful vocals and infectious rhythms, Asili’s music urges people to dance to the rhythm of rebellion. Learn more: tainaasili.com
Spirit McIntyre (spirit/they/them) is a Cellist, Vocalist, Lyricist, Reiki Practitioner, Compassionate Facilitator, and Visual Artist, who promotes empowerment and healing by any medium necessary. They began their Reiki journey in January 2008 studying the methods, techniques, hand positions, and theories of Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki Levels I, II and III. As an independent artist, Spirit has composed and produced several albums: ‘Blusolaz’, 2003; ‘Bars Of Gold’, 2005; ‘It Soon Come‘, 2013; and ‘Mourning To The Moonlight‘, 2014. Spirit is a prolific collaborator and has been crafting improvisationally based live music for dance and theatre since the early 2000’s. Dastak: I Wish You Me, their most recent dance evening-length collaboration, with ADT in Minnesota, that debuted their first soundscape composition in October 2021. They have been the Core Organizer (2017-19) and the Compassionate Community Architect (2020-21) for Trans*Visible, a network that challenges Binarism and Cis-Sexism in social justice movements. Learn more: spiritparismcintyre.com
Martha Redbone (she/her) is a vocalist/songwriter/composer/educator. She is known for her music gumbo of folk, blues and gospel from her childhood in coal country Harlan County, Kentucky infused with the eclectic grit of pre-gentrified New York City. Inheriting the powerful vocal range of her gospel-singing African American father and the resilient spirit of her mother’s southeastern Cherokee/Choctaw culture and heritage, Redbone broadens the boundaries of American Roots music. With songs and storytelling that share her life experience as an Afro-Native American woman and mother navigating in the new millennium, Redbone gives voice to issues of social justice, connecting cultures, and celebrating the human spirit. Her latest album “The Garden of Love-Songs of William Blake” is “a brilliant collision of cultures” (New Yorker). Learn more: martharedbone.com
DANCERS
Noni Byrd-Gibbs (she/her) was born in Queens, New York. Her love and interest in dance was nurtured at the age of five at Danielle’s Educating for the future- a private elementary school in Brooklyn. Her informal training continued inconsistently throughout junior high at Renaissance Middle School 192 and high school – Queens Gateway to the Health Sciences Secondary school – as she also developed an appreciation for health careers. She recently graduated from CUNY Queens College with a BA in Dance. She is currently performing with DELIRIOUS Dances and independently training in traditional African dance and dancehall. For future endeavors, Noni has decided to combine her love for dance with a career in Women’s Health and Movement Therapy.
Kailani Estrada (she/her) is from the Bronx, NY. She started dancing when she was three years old at Miss Audrey’s School of Dance and continued dancing in middle school at Fancy Feet Dance Studio. In high school she took classes at Dance Theater of Harlem and the Harlem School of the Arts. At Queens College she is a member of the Knights Dance Team and a Studio Art Major. She also performed in the Queens College production of the opera The Merry Widow as a Grisette and Pontevedrian dancer. She plans to become a book illustrator and find a way to combine her passion for dance and visual art. Instagram: @kailanieart
Daniella Alexis Hernandez (she/her) is from Queens, and trained at Joe Stanford Dance Studio for 10 years in Contemporary, Lyrical, Modern, Jazz and Hip-Hop. She has been teaching and assisting dance classes for the past 5+ years. While attending Robert H. Goddard High School for Arts and Communication, she helped facilitate workshops, dance festivals, school shows, and participated in a dance/pom team. In 2015, Daniella was a backup dancer for DJ and singer SONIWITHANEYE in her “Rebel” music video. Daniella is a Dance Major at Queens College and is the President of Dance Union, which brings accessible dance and movement workshops to the student community. Daniella is currently teaching in Forest Hills at the Rose Academy of Ballet, and choreographs for the RAB Dance Team. Instagram: @movementsbydani
Steven Jeltsch (they/them) is a New York City based dance/movement artist with a strong foundation in performance art. Along their journey, they’ve created and performed for international choreographers from Times Square to the American Dance Festival stage. They have a BA in Dance from Queens College, and are an active member of Putnam County Dance Project. As a budding artist, they seek to investigate, dissect, and patchwork present-day cultural dynamics with their enigmatic relationships to performance.
Johnnie Cruise Mercer (he/him) is a queer black think-maker; a performer, choreographer, and producer born in Richmond, VA and based in New York City. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA in Dance and Choreography, Johnnie considers himself a artist who firmly believes in movement philosophy, and the action of embodying history. He has had the privilege of performing for, and collaborating with Antonio Brown/Antonio Brown Dance, Monstah Black & The Illustrious Blacks, André Zachery/Renegade Performance Group, Yon Tande, Ishmael Houston-Jones (2018 remount of THEM), Netta Yerushalmy, Maria Bauman/MBDance, Edisa Weeks/DELIRIOUS Dances, Antonio Ramos, and more recently with Arthur Aviles/Typical Theater. He was a part of Ishmael Houston-Jones and Miguel Gutierrez’s 2018 Bessie Award-winning reconstruction/reimaging, Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd.
Teneil Meyer (she/her) was born and raised in Queens, New York. At a young age she began taking dance classes at the Dance Hut in Jamaica Queens, which paved the way for a life of culture through the arts. After deciding to study dance professionally, Teneil enrolled in Frank Sinatra School of The Arts, a performing arts high school where she received her pre-professional training. Under the guidance of teachers Ani Udiovicki and Oliver Huets, she received training in both ballet and modern, while still performing, practicing, and teaching other dance forms at her local dance school, Devore Dance Center. Following her high school graduation, Teneil continued her education at Queens College CUNY where she declared a dual major in Psychology and Dance. Following her graduation in May of 2023, Teneil desires to study dance movement therapy and work with children with disabilities.
Devin Oshiro (she/her) is a Japanese-Mexican American dance artist from the Los Angeles region, residing in Brooklyn with a BA in Dance from California State University of Fullerton. Her artistry is expressed through dancing, performing, teaching, creating, arts administration, and advocacy. In the past decade, she had the pleasure of working with Edisa Weeks, Joanna Kotze, Sumi Clements, Mike Esperanza, Gina Gibney, Amy Miller, Reggie Wilson, Maija Garcia, Patrick Corbin, Keely Garfield, and more. Currently, Devin works as the Senior Community Action Artistic Manager at Gibney, utilizing the arts for social action, specifically gender-based violence. She teaches movement workshops that promote self-care and creativity and engages young people in conversations around healthy relationships. Devin joined DELIRIOUS Dances in 2012, and she feels grateful for this rich collaboration through the years.
Brittany Stewart (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, and educator. She began dancing at age six at Dena School of the Arts, began assistant teaching by eleven, and at age sixteen, Brittany became an instructor in modern dance and ballet. She attended Benjamin N. Cardozo High School, where she majored in performance dance. In 2014, Brittany received a B.A. in Arts Administration with a specialization in Theatre from Baruch College. Shortly afterwards, she started teaching dance to grades 6–8 through Sports and Arts in School Foundation (SASF). She has led the 680Q SASF Dance Ensemble to many successful performances. Her choreography has been presented at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School, SASF’s NYU Skirball Performing Arts Showcases, Harlem School of the Arts’ Celebrates Dance Festivals, I.S. 238Q, P.S. 680Q, M.S. 358Q, Hunter College and Queens College. In May of 2018, She graduated from Queens College with a B.A. in Dance. She received her M.A. in Dance Education from the Arnhold Graduate Dance Education Program at Hunter College in May of 2020.
MUSICIANS + VIDEOGRAPHER
Dylan Blanchard (he/him) is a percussionist, performer, and teaching artist. He works as a performing artist in the New York City area as a member of Spanglish Fly, Rumba de La Musa, and Oyu Oro, Afro Cuban Experimental Dance Ensemble. Dylan also works in myriad other settings as a performer and accompanist in the NYC cultural network. Dylan also works regularly in the public school system, engaging youth to explore rhythmic ensemble playing, and discussing the history and culture of rhythms, specifically from the African diaspora as it exists in places like Cuba and Brazil. Instagram: @dylanmblanchard
Gabby Canzeri (she/her) is a multi-instrumentalist, trained in guitar, bass guitar, and saxophone, as well as a vocalist and composer. She has an Associates of Arts Degree in Music Performance and Classical Guitar. For over 10 years she has accompanied singer Taína Asili as bassist and backing vocalist in her band, performing at well-known venues and festivals throughout the United States.
Dah’Vielle Lucas (they, them) is a creative filmmaker and Queens College Media Studies Alumni whose mission is to create visual realities for an inclusive array of storytelling ideas. dahviellelucas.com
Asali Ruth-Mandla McIntyre (she/her/hers) is a freelance violinist, singer-songwriter and creative, living and working in the DC Metropolitan area. Asali earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Violin Performance from The Catholic University of America in 1999 and has been a musician for over 30 years. Asali enjoys performing in diverse ways: creating her own music and arrangements, working with Soulful Symphony (DC Metropolitan organization which pays homage to the African-American experience through music, education and more), participating in Playback Theatre (improvisational acting and music designed to address community concerns), playing orchestral and chamber music and providing diverse genres of music for all occasions – weddings, receptions, funerals, church services, private parties and more! facebook.com/asalicreates
Josette Newsam (she/her) has performed solo and background on the Today Show, Live with Regis and Kelly, and Live with Kelly and Michael. New York native Newsam has done voice-overs for NBC Universal. She has performed lead and background vocals with amazing artists such as Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Toshi Reagon, Melba Moore, Lou Reed, Macy Gray, and Angelique Kidjo, Nona Hendricks, Billy Bragg, Norm Lewis and Ben E. King. She’s been in regional theatre productions of “Ragtime” where she was featured as ‘Sarah” , “Ain’t Misbehavin’” as ‘Nell’, Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s “The Party” (Ensemble) and “A Christmas Carol” (Ensemble). She’s toured with Bernice Johnson-Reagon and Toshi Reagon’s musical adaptations of Gustave Flaubert’s “The Temptation of St. Anthony” and “Zinnias” in partnership with world renown Robert Wilson. She is currently ‘Mrs. Simms’ in the musical adaptation of Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower”. She is a member of the world traveling Gospel Group The Bobby Lewis Ensemble and the world renowned performing artist Toshi Reagon’s band “Big Lovely” as both lead and background vocalist.
Gaetano Vaccaro (They/Them) is a guitarist, producer, cinematographer, and educator who inspires people through the arts to think creatively about their lives and the world. Instagram: @gaetanomusic
Paula Winter (she/her): Over the course of 12 years, with a myriad of performances in New York City and around the world, studio projects as a sideman, as well as film and television appearances, Paula Winter has been a steady force on the ever-evolving New York music scene since moving to New York City in 2008. As a multi-percussionist, Paula likes to integrate many music forms like Jazz, Latin, Pop, R&B in her artistry. Paula has performed and/or recorded with many globally acclaimed artists including Femi Kuti, Amel Larrieux, Jerome Jennings, Brenda Russel, Chaka Khan, Spanglish Fly, George Duke, Marcus Miller, Laquin Lay and the Family Tree Band, and many others. Most recently, Paula has collaborated with these arts focused community organizations such as The Canales Project, The Clinton Foundation, Taproot Earth, Lincoln Center Kids, Jersey City Arts Council, Brooklyn Arts Council, US State Department: American Music Abroad, United Nations. Instagram @paulawintermusic
POST-SHOW TALK MODERATORS
Miles P. Grier (he/him) is Associate Professor of English at Queens College, City University of New York. He is the author of the monograph tentatively entitled Inkface: Othello and the Formation of White Interpretive Community, 1604–1855 (forthcoming from University of Virginia 2023) and co-editor of Early Modern Black Diaspora Studies (Palgrave 2018). His essays on Shakespearean material have appeared in William and Mary Quarterly and the volumes Scripturalizing the Human, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race, and Shakespeare/Text. Essays on more contemporary North American topics such as racial profiling after 9/11, Joni Mitchell’s blackface pimp alter ego, President Obama’s Beyoncé-style approach to Black voters, and a review of the film of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom have appeared in Politics and Culture, Gendersthe Journal of Popular Music Studies, and the LA Review of Books.
Annie Tummino (she/her) serves as Head of Special Collections and Archives in the Queens College Library, where her goal is to maximize access and use of archival materials. In the past, she worked as the Archivist at SUNY Maritime College and as a Project Archivist at Columbia University, Museum of the City of New York, and Queens Museum. She received her MLIS and Archives Certificate from Queens College in 2010, and MS in Maritime and Naval Studies from SUNY Maritime College in 2020.
PRODUCING TEAM
Marýa Wethers (she/her) is the Project Manager of the Action Songs/Protest Dances project. She has lived and worked in Lenapehoking (NYC) since 1997. Marýa works as an Independent Producer, Creative Strategist, and Curator and also a contemporary dancer. She works with Movement Research as the Director of the GPS/Global Practice Sharing program, and as Producer for jumatatu m. poe, Edisa Weeks/DELIRIOUS Dances and OzuzuDances. As a Curator she conceived and created the three-week performance series “Gathering Place: Black Queer Land(ing)” at Gibney Dance and curated for Mount Tremper Arts Watershed Lab Residency (2019 & 2018), the Queer NY International Arts Festival (2016 & 2015) and Out of Space @ BRIC Studio for Danspace Project (2003-2007). Her writings have been published in Configurations in Motion: Performance Curation and Communities of Color (2016 & 2015) organized by Thomas F. DeFrantz at Duke University and the Movement Research Performance Journal 25th Anniversary Issue #27/28 (Spring 2005). She has served on selection panels for several presenting and funding organizations in NY and nationally.
Katherine De La Cruz (she/her), is an Afro-Dominican dancer, choreographer and arts administrator based in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated in 2020 from Hunter College with both a BA in Anthropology and Dance. She has performed in various venues and festivals both live and virtually including City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, The WP Theater, The Estrogenius Festival, The American Dance Festival and more. She is currently a member of the Soul Dance Company and Interim Media and Communications Associate at Movement Research. Katherine has used dance to support climate justice and immigrants’ rights causes in New York City. She believes that dance is a powerful tool for community building. Katherine is a passionate choreographer whose work centers around themes of social inequality, LGBTQ+ stories, familial ties, immigration and mental health. Her work is born from a need to make direct political statements and to make visible often ignored inner healing processes. kdlcdance.com
Mars Garcia (they/them) is a Mexican American movement director, dancer, and stage manager. Their choreographies, installations and collaborations focalize queerness, worldbuilding and embodiment as pathways into failure, reflection, and healing. A graduate of NYU Tisch Dance, Mars has performed at The Joyce Theater, Battery Dance Festival, Dance Gallery Festival, CPR, ArtsOnSite, The Tank NYC, The Issue Project Room, GreenSpace, and the Baryshnikov Arts Center as a part of the Merce Cunningham Centennial, and abroad in France, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, and Los Angeles. In the pandemic, they toured a duet “Trellis” with Queensboro Dance Festival, co-produced Harvesting (2020-22), a Queens based performance party, and helped facilitate The UNtensive by Kai Hazelwood and Sarah Ashkin, hosted by Arcos Dance. Mars currently is the Project Manager for 7NMS|Marjani Forté Saunders + Everett Saunders’ new work PROPHET, enjoys teaching GYROTONIC Ⓡ sessions, and fosters dogs. Instagram: @marsgarcia_works, @move_with_mars
Would you be interested in opportunities to bring this vital performance experience to your community? Edisa has ideas for a version of Action Songs/Protest Dances adapted for a large chorus of voices! We are seeking commissioners and presenting partners for the continued development of Action Songs/Protest Dances for the 2024-25 performance season. Interested to know more? Please reach out to KCA Director Jon Yanofsky (jon.yanofsky@qc.cuny.edu) or AS/PD Project Manager Marýa Wethers (marya.wethers@gmail.com) for more information.
Share your AS/PD photos and videos on Instagram. Tag us @kupferbergcenter and use #ActionSongsProtestDances