Friday, May 14, 8:00pm
Saturday, May 15, 8:00pm
Rainier Valley Cultural Center
It is 1972, and 16-year-old Desiree Hailey, admittedly the school dork, and one of only two Black students at Seattle’s White High School High, has just read Eldridge Cleaver’s revolutionary memoir, Soul On Ice, and her life will never be the same. Suddenly she’s on a mission to engage with her Black roots, to really “get into” her Blackness. When one of her classmates commits suicide, Desiree realizes the tenuousness of life and goes into overdrive to accomplish her goals. Top of the list is to start the first Black history course in her school district. This solo performance piece conceived, written and performed by Amontaine Aurore, combines comedy, drama, multiple characterizations, music, dance, and elements of vocabulary and history. It explores the multi-layered issues around identity, and the distress and disorientation resulting from the uncertainty about one’s self and one’s role in society. It invites the audience to share the joys, sorrows, failures and victories of one girl’s search for her true worth.
Also performing that evening will be Okanomode SoulChilde, Cristina Orbe and Storme Webber. We are this year’s Creation Project artists, and the performance marks the culmination of a year-long new works and professional development program created by the CD Forum for Black performing artists based in King County. A local panel selected four participants representing a range of artistic performing arts disciplines. Each participant received a monetary award and participated in professional development seminars and peer discussions that began in June 2009. The Creation Project is funded by Microsoft and the National Endowment of the Arts.
Check out more about the Creation Project and the CD Forum (Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas) by visiting www.cdforum.org
Oh well, performing arts is just very interesting for me.,.: