Program of Events24th Annual Conference
BLACK THEATRE NETWORK
Empowering the Profession:
Best Practices in Black Theatre & Performance
Los Angeles, California
July 30 – August 2, 2010
Friday, July 30
| 10:00am – 1:00pm | BTN Executive Board Meeting |
| 2:00pm | Registration |
| 2:30pm | Warm-up & Welcome Framing the Conversation- The First Power Facing Challenges to our Physical and Fiscal Lives |
| 3:00-4:00pm | Out for Us: Telling True Tales Presenter: Tom Bardwell, M.A., Ed., Cambridge Cares About AIDS, Cambridge, MA. This interactive workshop will provide participants an opportunity to learn how to implement the Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) as an innovative strategy that combines community mobilization and the identification of key health disparities with HIV positive Black gay and bisexual men, and other men who have sex with men (MSM). The presenter will share lessons learned from Boston, Massachusetts pilot cycles of the Out for Us Story Telling Series, a project of Cambridge Cares About AIDS. |
| 4:15- 5:15pm | Full Frontal Marketing: How to get a BUTT in every seat! Presenter: Glenn Alan Designed to expose theatre marketing ideas in a real life setting and a fast changing world; this workshop aims to present concepts of strategic marketing within arts and theatre and its marriage with the creative arts world. The facilitator will take you through the basics of redefining your market niche, creating a compelling message and developing a new plan of innovative marketing strategies |
| 5:15- 6:30pm | Happy Hour Silent Auction Hotel Lobby/ Round Table |
| Dinner on your Own | |
| 8:00 pm | BEST OF LA- Grand Performances Lula Washington Dance Theater One of L.A’s treasures, Lula Washington Dance Theatre, celebrates 30 years of influential community service with an evening of new and revival works. Free, outdoor concert at California Plaza in Downtown L.A. http://www.grandperformances.org/en/gp/homepage.html |
Saturday, July 31
| 8:00am | Registration |
| 9:00-9:30am | Warm up and Welcome Acting Warm up / Improvisation |
| 9:30-11:00am | WORKSHOP Etuding the Script Presenter: Darryl Davis, Ph.D Candidate, Wayne State University This workshop explores the process of etuding in rehearsal, a process that yields substantial benefits to character development and ensemble cohesiveness. Scripts will be provided to workshop attendees in an effort to allow them to follow along in marking of the text as well as observe fellow attendees walk through the process. (Number of hands-on participants limited) |
| 11:15am-1:00pm | Luncheon and Keynote Address Adilah Barnes, Executive Director- Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival Adilah Barnes is one of few veteran actors in Hollywood that have mastered the art of self-marketing and utilizing her many creative skills, while staying true to herself and maintaining integrity. In addition to extensive credits on stage, television and film, Ms. Barnes is an award winning author and Co Founder of the prestigious Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival; an annual, multi-cultural festival that showcases female artists in theatrical performances, dance, music, spoken word, and comedy that has produced well over 400 artists globally and is in its fourteenth year. |
| 1:15- 2:45pm | Panel #1 Crossing Ethnic Lines on Stage—Does Race Matter? Panelist: Robert Michael James, MFA Directing Candidate, Minnesota State University Because of character specifics the theatrical community is perhaps the last remaining professional field where hiring based on racial consideration or other prejudices are not illegal. It is time to bring the issue into focus and provide a line of reasoning through which the theatre community can better judge when or if the practice is justified or inappropriate. |
| Staging Respectability in New York City: Intimate Apparel and Dr. May Edward Chinn Panelist: Dr. Marta Effinger-Crichlow, New York City College of Technology, CUNY An examination of how black women are depicted in two dramatic narratives set in early twentieth-century New York City. More specifically, it considers the extent to which black female characters embrace and/or reject guidelines of respectability in Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel and Laurence Holder’s Dr. May Edward Chinn. The panelist offers teaching tools to college-level instructors, who are encouraged to use the play setting to stimulate discussions about race, gender, class and sexuality. | |
| The Scottsboro Effect: Langston Hughes and the Radical Left Panelist: Catherine Vtris, Ph.D. Candidate, Tufts University As a result of the CPUSA’s involvement in the Scottsboro trial, a number of prominent African-American intellectuals moved toward the left. The radical shift in Hughes’s politics followed soon after the Scottsboro trial, and is represented in his jazz agitprop play Scottsboro, Limited. The case of Langston Hughes, and of Scottsboro, Limited, illustrates the complex relationship between the Communist Party and the African-American intellectuals they courted. | |
| 3:00- 4:00pm | The Business of Performing Arts Presenter: Kathlyn Zaheerah Sultan, MA Candidate, Columbia College Chicago This workshop examines the process of establishing and maintaining a business in the performing arts. Issues that are addressed include; establishing a performing art business, the selection process and best practices for your board of directors, current situation or SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats) analysis for your company, creative financing and the importance of networking. |
| 4:15 -5:15pm | BTN Business Meeting TCAP Connection – reflective questions |
| 5:30-7:00pm | Hollywood Happy Hour Baron Kelly, Michelle Shay, Charles Robinson and others discuss working in the business. |
| Dinner on your own | |
| 8:30pm | BEST OF LA |
| Viver Brasil presents Alaafia/Harmony Ford Theatre ($35) Members of L.A.’s Viver Brasil dance company have steeped themselves in Afro-Brazilian culture, working with leading practitioners from Bahia, Brazil, and producing vibrant Ford evenings. Peace, as expressed in the tradition of the Yoruban community, is at the center of this year’s performance. http://www.fordamphitheater.org/en/events/details/id/86 | |
| 8:00pm | Rehearsals for Sunday Performance- TBA |
Sunday, August 1
| 8:00-10:00am | Registration |
| 8:30am | Salute to the Ascendants An annual celebration and remembrance of departed members, friends, and theatre personalities. |
| 9:00am | PERFORMANCE Kwanzaa Musical African American Drama Company- Youth Theatre- Phillip E. Walker, Director A lyric Kwanzaa craft produced by San Jose’s African American Drama Company (the nation’s most extensively toured fine arts organization) and performed by The Third Theatre Troupe the San Francisco Bay Area’s hot new children’s theater group. |
| 10:00-11:30am | The use of Ritual Poetic Drama Within the African Continuum (Ritual) Presenters: Olisa Enrico Johnson and Donzell P. Lewis, MFA Candidates, Virginia Commonwealth University This workshop explores the power of a holistic pedagogic methodology. Using the drum; artists connect to their creative Dance power/Music power/Word power, through improvisation, creation and Rite of Passage Journey. Participants will focus on the aspects of Ritual that connect the artist/participant to their individual/unique content and their authentic voice. |
| 11:40am–1:15pm | BTN AWARDS BRUNCH 2010 Recipients:
|
| 1:30-3:00pm | Panel #2 - Ritual Performance |
| Appropriations, Parodies, and Constructs of Blackness in Contemporary African Theatre and Performance Panelist: Connie Rapoo, Ph.D. Lecturer, University of Botswana The making of innovative theatre and performance in Africa happens through syncretic formations that blend “traditional” ritual theatre with modern aesthetics, intercultural performances, Theatre for Development (TfD) and diverse entertainment genres of the African Diaspora. These practices go beyond colonial reversal and colonial mimicry to underscore the power of Black performance and popular theatre to incorporate, reinvigorate, and transform various identities. The panelist seeks to tease out how African theatre and performance artists utilize theatrical conventions, cross-Atlantic cultural traffics, and musical genres to re-present black culture and identity. | |
| Carnival & Cultural Transportation Panelist: Andre Harrington, Assistant Professor, CSU San Bernardino & Christine Menzies, Associate Professor, CSU Northridge The carnivals of Trinidad and other Caribbean islands have generated similar large-scale festivals in cities that have received significant Caribbean immigration since World War II. These contemporary ‘Caribbean’ carnivals, in North America and the British Isles, share a common heritage with those of South America, most notably Brazil. This presentation examines, relates and exhibits the current observations and trends of carnival performance past & present. | |
| The Emergence of Carnival as a complimentary Theatre in Nigeria: An Appraisal of the Unilag-AfriCaribbean Festival Panelist: Cornelius E. Onyekaba, Department of Creative Arts, University Of Lagos This study takes a cursory look at the meaning of organization and uses of carnivals as a complimentary form of theatre with a special emphasis on the University of Lagos-AfriCaribbean Festival. It traces the origin of carnivals from the pro-western as well as the pan-African perspectives; with a strong bias for the African origin of Carnivals. | |
| 3:15-4:45pm | S. Randolph Edmonds Young Scholars Papers & Awards Presentation Reception immediately following presentations Ms. Anna Clauson (1st Place – Division I) Mr. Gregory Olsen (2nd Place – Division I) Mr. Isaiah M. Wooden (1st Place – Division II) Ms. Cynthia Lytle (2nd Place – Division II) |
| 5:00-6:30pm | BTN Business Meeting TCAP Connection – reflective questions |
| Dinner On Your Own | |
| 8:00pm | PERFORMANCE SHOWCASE An evening Highlighting Performances for Young Audiences and Others who need Education James Baldwin; A Soul On Fire - Charles Reese |
Monday, August 2
| 8:00am | Registration (Continental Breakfast) |
| 9:00-10:00am | Black Theatre: Glad To Be In The Service of Higher Education Presenter- Regina Turner, Ph. D. Indiana University, Purdue University This session demonstrates the types of scripts that can be used to create a marriage between theatre in higher education and the African American community; explore some of the music produced by this idea, and discuss ways the scripts may be used to strengthen the idea of theatre’s value, necessity, and power. |
| 10:15-11:45am | HaMapah / äîôä : Performing Mixedness Presenters: Daniel Banks, Ph.D. & Adam McKinney, DNA Works, NY Selected excerpts from HaMapah / äîôä a multimedia dance journey tracing African, European, Native American, and Jewish heritages. In Hebrew, HaMapah / äîôä means “the tablecloth” or “the map." HaMapah / äîôä weaves contemporary dance, archival material, personal interviews, songs, and video set to traditional, contemporary, and classical music. The session will investigate performance as a catalyst for arts-based community dialogue. |
| 12:00-1:00pm | LUNCH On Your Own |
| 1:00- 2:30 | Panel #3 - Classroom Translations Hip Hop and Theatre in the Classroom: A New Way of Teaching |
| “Barely There”: Professor as Performer, Performer as Professor Panelist: Nicole Anderson-Cobb, Ph.D, Roosevelt University Presents a portion of the panelist’s solo show “Barely There: Why Faculty Fade” which examines the complex role of college educators as performers---specifically college educators of color. The paper examines acting, theater and performance as a critical vehicle for giving voice to the experiences of women and minorities in higher education. | |
| A Pedagogical Approach to The Jazz Age: African American Visual and Performing Artists of the Harlem Renaissance, 1915-1936. Panelist- Anthony Hill- The Ohio State University The presentation demonstrates and explains how the works of performing and visual artists of the Jazz Age may engage students from diverse cultures such as Asians, Hispanics, blacks, and whites within a college classroom. | |
| 2:45-4:15pm | BRIDGE CONVERSATION- BEST PRACTICES (Round Table) Facilitator- David Catanzarite, Watts Village Theatre Members of Watts Village Theatre and others discuss the perils and possibilities in current practice. |
| 4:30pm | BTN Business Meeting/Executive Board Installation A- Planning BTN 2011 B- TCAP finalize |
| 5:30pm | Adjournment |
| 7:00pm | Reception at ATHE Please join us at the Hyatt Hotel and Conference Center For a Town Hall Meeting! Your BTN Badge is your admission! |
