Episode 20 - Alicia Bauman-Morales

Explicit content warning

01/27/20 • 53 min

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

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

Previous Episode

Episode 19 - Omi Osun Joni L. Jones

"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

Next Episode

Episode 21 - Lisa C. Moore

In this conversation Lisa speaks of growing up in a Louisiana based family with a long history of music and education traditions. She shares her Journey as someone with a life mission of creating synergy/serving connection . . . and the fruits of that, which include RedBone Press. One of the architects of the Fire & Ink writers festival for GLBT people of African decent, Lisa talks about the work and research that went into working with Joseph Beam's mother, Dorothy Beam, to re-print, Brother to Brother and In the Life. Always graceful, humble and fierce, Lisa lays down words of wisdom for people trying to be in their Yes in the face of no.

Lisa C. Moore is the founder and editor of RedBone Press which publishes award-winning work celebrating the culture of black lesbians and gay men and promoting understanding between black gays and lesbians and the black mainstream. Moore is the editor of does your mama know? An Anthology of Black Lesbian Coming Out Stories, co-editor of Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Gay/Lesbian Identity, and co-editor, co-compiler and co-publisher (with Vintage Entity Press) of Carry the Word: A Bibliography of Black LGBTQ Books. In addition to her work as a publisher, Moore is a reference archivist at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans.

More about Lisa and all dem Guests: https://www.whoyopeopleis.com/season-2

More about RedBone Press: http://redbonepress.com