Who Yo People Is

"Who Yo People Is" jingle sanga, episode editor, season 2 producer - my daughter - Sonja Perryman is Guest Host for this episode!! Sonja interviews my wife/her other Mama - Omi Osun Joni L. Jones!!!

Omi talks about growing up in Chicago's Southside suburbs - the youngest in a Black middle class family/raised by folks that migrated from the South - and their protocols. She shares about what initially moved her towards her long term/ongoing connection to Yoruba spiritual practices; she names her gratitude to the Ancestors as a source of Inspiration that she leans into when she is afraid or overwhelmed by her work and goals. And after 40 years of teaching (28 of which was at University of Texas at Austin) Omi speaks about walking with herself post retirement/discovering and activating her work now . . . and her role models for how to be an academic without being connected to (one) institution/which include: Alexis Pauline Gumbs (https://www.alexispauline.com), Celeste Henry.

Omi Osun Joni L. Jones’ work is committed to exploring strategies for promoting healthy communities through personal Joy. She is an artist/scholar/facilitator who employs Black Feminist aesthetics in her performance work, her pedagogy, and her consulting. She has performed at The New Black Fest (NYC), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), and Links Hall (Chicago), and has served as a workplace facilitator with Thousand Currents (Oakland) and NoVo Foundation (NYC). Her scholarship has appeared in The Drama Review, Obsidian, and Theatre Journal as well as solo/black/woman and Blacktino Queer Performance. Her most recent book is Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Àṣẹ, and the Power for the Present Moment (Ohio State University Press). She is Professor Emerita from the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin. https://www.theatricaljazzbookparty.com https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/caaas/faculty/jij2555

Guest Host: Sonja Perryman is a screenwriter, producer, performer, and facilitator, with an MPH from UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health. She has a passion for telling female-driven, diverse stories that explore socially relevant issues in unexpected ways. Her work includes: Director of Research & Development at Wise Entertainment, where she also served as associate producer on Hulu’s six-time Emmy-nominated television show, East Los High; associate producer on Time 2 Surrender, an award-winning short film written, directed, and starring actor Elvis Nolasco and executive produced by Spike Lee; and season 2 staff writer for the Facebook Watch show, Five Points, executive produced by Kerry Washington. Sonja serves on the board of FYI Films, a non-profit that teaches filmmaking to incarcerated youth, and has been a guest lecturer and keynote speaker at institutions around the country. More at: https://www.whoyopeopleis.com/jingle

Alicia Bauman-Morales is an Oakland born Boricua tomboi, a queer woman, a dancer/organizer/performer/trouble maker. During our conversation Alicia brings the wealth of her Ancestry forward by calling the names of many in her blood lineage as she speaks of coming from fantastical storytellers, people committed to doing things on their own terms. Alicia shares a bit about her piece: huracán: storm medicine - a personal dance story, living altar and town hall about destruction, translation, and the transformative power of storms. And she names some of her influences, as she shares her Journey of learning how to nurture/and be in her body.

Alicia's performance practice is shaped by Oakland turf dance (she grew up in Oakland and her first studio was the sidewalk), tomboy physicality, house dance, martial arts, kitchen and backyard salsa, altar building, western modern forms and, recently, Step. She is or has been a proud collaborator/performer with Arthur Aviles Typical Theater, NWA Project, Renegade Performance Group, MBDance, Brown Girls Burlesque, Roots and River Productions and PISO Proyecto, and has shown work in four of the five boroughs of New York and Puerto Rico. She is a proud organizer with ACRE, Artists Co-Creating Real Equity.

Regarding organizing in solidarity with people in Puerto Rico right Alicia suggests, "direct support of our people in PR via donations of money and supplies, and by writing notes...and putting political pressure on politicians in the U.S" and check out: Colectivo Ilé https://colectivo-ile.org, a women's collective doing racial justice work and community sustainability through women's entrepreneurship.

During our conversation Alicia names some of her teachers and influences/including: Amara Tabor-Smith http://www.deepwatersdance.com Arthur Aviles http://www.baadbronx.org/arthur-aviles-typical-theater.html jumatatu m. poe https://www.jumatatu.org Luisah Teish https://www.yeyeluisahteish.com Marc Bamuthi Joseph https://www.kennedy-center.org/artist/B305518

More about Alicia at: https://www.whoyopeopleis.com/season-2

In this conversation Renita speaks about being from Terry Mississippi/feeling the Angels, Ancestors, animal Life and Trees playing “all up in my head.” Renita talks about learning how to navigate Spirit, and growing towards her mission of advancing social and economic development in our communities through the creation and promotion of world-class art. More at: whoyopeopleis.com/season-3

Amara speaks of having family members who were Seers/that didn't talk about it - and how she learned to navigate her own Seeing. She names that we are living in present day traumatic stress syndrome as she talks about her walk with depression, learning to hold both grief and sorrow, and valuing what she has come to view as an opportunity to be bought into a space of darkness - darkness that holds possibility. Orisha traditions gave Amara a feeling of coming home and helped her move towards becoming more herself. Amara says that all her work is about healing. She says, "I am a death doula for patriarchy. Every piece is I make is really in service of helping patriarchy die."

Amara Tabor-Smith is a dancer, choreographer, and the artistic director of Deep Waters Dance Theater. Tabor-Smith’s work, as described by the artist, is Afro Futurist Conjure Art. Her dance making practice utilizes Yoruba spiritual ritual to address issues of social and environmental justice, race, gender identity, and belonging. Tabor-Smith is a recipient of the 2018 USA Artists Award, the 2016 Creative Work Fund grant, the 2017 MAP Fund grant, and the 2017 Kenneth Rainin Foundation grant, and a co-recipient of the 2016 Creative Capital Grant with longtime collaborator, Ellen Sebastian Chang. In 2017, she received the UBW Choreographic Center Fellowship. Her work has been performed in Brazil, the Republic of the Congo, New York, and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area where her company is based. Tabor-Smith is an Artist in Residence at Stanford University and faculty at UC Berkeley.

More about Who Yo People Is: http://whoyopeopleis.com Amara's Ed Mock Tribute: He Moved Swiftly but Gently Down the Not Too Crowded Street | Ed Mock and Other True Tales in a City that Once Was: http://www.deepwatersdance.com/portfolio/hemovedswiftly Support Amara and her collaborator Ellen Sebastian Chang's "New ChitlinCircuitry: Reparations Vaudeville": https://www.gofundme.com/f/ReparationsVaudeville

Check out Amara's website: http://www.deepwatersdance.com

In this episode Ebony Noelle Golden speaks of being from People who fight for justice and practice Love as action . . . Love in the DNA, and Seeing at the Cross Roads.

Ebony is an artist, scholar, and culture strategist. Her creative work consists of site-specific performance rituals and live art installations that explore relationships between creativity and liberation. She is the founder of Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, LLC a culture consultancy and arts accelerator based in NYC.

More about Ebony and all dem Guests HERE.

Ebony's Website HERE.

Ebony on YouTube HERE.