Facilitator: Meghan Guidry
Title: When Convention Fails Us: Re-Imagining Form for Sharing Our Stories
Overview: Often, our experiences do not fit into conventional literary structure (short stories, novels, poetic forms, etc.). How do we create forms and structures that reflect our experiences in a way that is accurate to our stories and, more importantly, authentic to our stories? This workshop will explore that very question by engaging students in discussions about form and experimental writing, by reading short texts by authors that created their own forms and styles, by exploring the stories we hold that require unconventional form and, finally, by participating in in-class writing exercises to open possible expressions for our words.
Facilitator - Joyce Angela Jellison
Title: Poetry and Movement: Liberating Language with Our Bodies
Overview: Get ready to move! Poetry and Movement: Liberating Language with Our Bodies is a workshop allowing writers to reconceptualize the images they create and the themes they explore by expressing what they have written through their own choreographed or "freestyle" movements. This workshop is highly interactive and participants will be asked to work individually as well as in groups to design a poetry/movement piece to share with others.
Facilitators: Binahkaye Joy, Jade Andwele and Shonda Goward, The Saartjie Project
Title: All the World's a Stage
Overview:The Saartjie Project will present footage from it’s latest production: “Deconstructing the Myth of the Booty” and facilitate a lively talk-back discussion about the company’s creative process and what it means when you create sacred spaces “on stage”.
Facilitator:Teisha Marie McKie
Title: Passion and Purpose: They CAN Be Combined
Overview: There is a contradiction between passion and purpose in our modern-day society. Mainstream media furthers the contrary notion that purpose is non-existent and self-preservation is paramount. The goal of this workshop is to share strategies to defy mass-marketed stereotypes for female performers of color. Through personal testimony, recording artist Teisha Marie will introduce participants to non-traditional media outlets and illustrate how one’s purpose and passion can be combined through intentional planning and networking.
Facilitator: Sariane Leigh, MA The George Washington University
Title: Brown Women and “Green” Dollars:The Web as a Location for the Emerging “Green” Market for Health Conscious Women of Color
Overview: This workshop will highlight the work of contemporary African American women visual artists, who have historically been ignored or under-recognized by the mainstream art community, have effectively used cyber-based technology and social media to convey their stories through art either through unique experimental installations or promoting their artwork to improve accessibility to a wider audience.
