Seventeenth Annual Festival

 “MEETING THE NEW DECADE”
March 25-28, 2010

and

“TRIUMPH!”
March 31-April 2, 2010

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Festival Line-Up and Ticket Purchase

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Festival Dates and Event Titles
Click on Event below to view Festival Line up

"meeting the new decade" 
electric   lodge 
1416 Electric  Ave
venice, ca 90291

Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 7 p.m. - "Gala Awards Ceremony"

Friday, March 26, 2010 at  8 p.m. - “Beyond Boundaries” 

Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 2 p.m. matinee. - “Of The Spirit and the Soul”

Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 8 p.m. - “Taking Flight”

 Sunday March 28, 2010 at 2 p.m. - “DNA”

Sunday March 28, 2010 at 7 p.m. - “Getting Real”

"Triumph!"
Plummer Park
7377 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90046

Wednesday, March 31, from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. - “HeARTwork" (Free Workshop)

Wednesday, March 31, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. - “Decolonizing the Heart” (Free Workshop)

Thursday, April 1 at 8 p.m.- “Triumph! Performance”

Friday, April 2, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. - “Identity As an Act of Courage" (Free Workshop)

Friday, April 2 at 8 p.m. - “Triumph! Performance”

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"meeting the new decade" 
"Gala Awards Ceremony and Champagne Reception"
7 p.m. Gala  -  8p.m. Awards Ceremony

Hosted by:  Hattie Winston (Becker) and Ted Lange (Love Boat)

Written and Directed by Adilah Barnes

"In Tribute"
 

Performers: 

INGRID GRAHAM - "Trinity" (Dance) A celebration of womanhood, exploring through movement how women embrace their sensuality and strength.

Juliette Marshall  -  “Shift Happens” (Cabaret): A newly single mom joins the Brentwood Divorce Club as she looks for love in all the wrong places, while trying to be a good role model for her daughter.

MZURI MOYO - "Sojourner"  (Theatre/Music/Song) From Miami, Mzuri pays homage to. ex-slave and women’ advocate Sojourner Truth.

BONNIE WEISS - "Great Rock of Inner Seeking" (Dance) A 73 year old modern dancer expresses a piece that was inspired by sculptor Isamu Noguchi. 

Item name: Champagne Gala - SINGLE TICKET
Item number: LAWTF_Gala_032510_7PM
Price: $40.00 + $3.00 Processing Fee 

Item name: Champagne Gala (TWO TICKETS)
Item number: LAWTF_Gala_032510 (2)_7PM
Price: $75.00 + $3.00 Processing Fee

Item name: VIP 03/25-28/10 Ticket
Item number: VIP all Electric Lodge event ticket
Price: $125.00 + $3.00 Processing Fee

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“Beyond Boundaries”  

Hosted by Karen A. Clark, US Bank Official Sponsor and Adriana Sevahn Nichols (Actor, Playwright-in-Residence at Mark Taper Forum - Taking Flight)

Performers:

AMY CAMPION- “DUA” (Dance) DUA uses a fusion of street dance with modern  dance movement to illuminate a path of struggle and realization. 

Sheetal Gandhi "Bahu-Beti-Biwi" (Daughter-in-law, Daughter, Wife) (Dance/Theatre): A solo tour de force combining dance, stirring vocalization and percussive text that glides between humourous portraiture and active resistance.

CYNTHIA LEE - "ruddha (rude, huh?)" (Dance) North Indian rhythmic dance syllables transform into nonsensical English gossip and indiosyncratic postmodern movement that suddenly shifts into classical Kathak.  
                                                                                  
MINA OLIVERA- “LOL: Latina On the Loose" (Theatre) We take a comedic snapshot of a young Brazilian who comes to live in America. 

The Lindz - in “WASP (Performance Poetry): This poet contributes relationship-related, socially conscious, goofy, insightful, sardonic and riotous performance poetry.

MZURI MOYO - "Sojourner"  (Theatre/Music/Song) From Miami, Mzuri pays homage to. ex-slave and women’ advocate Sojourner Truth.  

Item name: BEYOND BOUNDARIES
Item number: LAWTF-General_032610_8:00PM
Price: $20.00 + $2.00 Processing Fee

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Electric   lodge 
1416 Electric  Ave
venice, ca 90291

“Of Soul and Spirit”

Hosted by Tanna Frederick (“Hollywood Dreams”) and Levy Lee Simon (For the Love of Freedom)

Performers:

Ellen Hagan - in “Crowned” (Performance Poetry): Political poetry based on girlhood, sexuality, media and home.

TAYLOR HARVEY - in “Taylor Harvey” (working title) (Vocalist/Pianist) A 16 year old precocious teen expresses her self-written songs through the piano and voice. 

Ruth Otero (Dancing With My Demons) A theatre piece about owning Puerto Rican identity and fear, with a disco twist.  
                                                            
RALEIGH R. PINSKEY - "Evolution of Soul 685" (Theatre) A disgruntled soul's dilemma "to evolve or not to evolve" evokes educational forays, life altering challenges, and really bad hair days in this piece from Carefree, Arizona. 
                                     
BONNIE WEISS - "Great Rock of Inner Seeking and "Doesn't Everyone Want to Do a Spanish  Dance?” (See Thursday night's line-up for description).   This is a piece that honors Spanish dance.  

Item name: OF THE SPIRIT AND THE SOUL
Item number: LAWTF-General_032710_2:00PM
Price: $20.00 + $2.00 Processing Fee

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Electric   lodge 
1416 Electric  Ave
venice, ca 90291

“Breaking Free”

Hosted by Dawn Didawick (Antaeus Theatre, Erin Brockovich) and Jude Narita (Coming Into Passion/Song for a Sansei)

Performers:

BARBARA COLE - "Surviving Chrysalis" (Storytelling) One woman reconciles motherhood and career with her journey toward self-actualization.

ELAINE DEL VALLE – “Brownsville Bred" (Theatre) This New York based performer chronicles her coming of age story of living in Brooklyn's African American "Brownsville."

LAURA ELAINE ELLIS - "When Strength Is My Weakness" (Dance) This dance piece from Oakland, CA explores a woman's struggle to find renewed strength when pressures become insufferable.

FEE KING - “Mama Was a Bad Mutha….Shut Yo’ Mouth”  Fee takes the audience on a rollicking journey with her partying mother and colorful, card-playing friends.

Item name: BREAKING FREE
Item number: LAWTF-General_032710_8:00PM
Price: $20.00 + $2.00 Processing Fee

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Electric   lodge 
1416 Electric  Ave
venice, ca 90291

“DNA”

Hosted by Sy Richardson (Pushing Daisies) and Tata Vega (The Color Purple)

Performers:  

Erika Green SWAFFORD - “The New Black” and “Gone Fishin” (Storytelling). These two pieces look at both a musing on the evolution of “Blackness,” and a girl’s relationship with her father and his guns.

DINA MORRONE - "The Italian In Me" (Theatre) Dina takes the audience on her roller coaster ride     to her motherland of Italy where she tries to find a career as an actor in a foreign country.

LYDIA NICOLE - "Calling Up Poppi”(Theatre) We take a sober look at one girl's life, growing up in Spanish Harlem as the daughter of a prostitute and a father who is a pimp.  
                                                             
GLORIA ROSEN - "Listen, Can You Hear Me Now?" (Storytelling) A hearing child of deaf parents shares her life coping with parents who reside in the non-hearing  world. 

Item name: DNA
Item number: LAWTF-General_032810_2:00PM
Price: $20.00 + $2.00 Processing Fee

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Electric   lodge 
1416 Electric  Ave
venice, ca 90291

“Getting Real” 

Hosted by Margaret Avery (The Color Purple) and Florence LaRue (The Fifth Dimension and Just As I Am)

Performers:

JESSICA LYNN JOHNSON - "Oblivious to Everyone" (Theatre) This comedic piece explores America's obsession with pop culture and media as it touches upon homophobia, racism, sexism, materialism and much more.

Micia Mosely - “Where My Girls At?” (Theatre): Meet Ziggy & Lady-D, two of the four excerpted characters from this show who are competing to be selected  as the ONE Lesbian on a new reality TV show.  Participate in this innovative in-studio competition and cast your vote.

ERICA WATSON -  "Fat Bitch" (Stand-up) Funny, yet thought-provoking, a big woman  from New York enlightens the audience on what it is like to perceived by society based on looks.

FABIENNE ZUIJDWIJK - "I Am Here" (Performance Art) This multi-media performance art piece from Holland erases the line between performer and audience. 

Item name: GETTING REAL
Item number: LAWTF-General_032810_7:00PM
Price: $20.00 + $2.00 Processing Fee

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"Triumph!"

Plummer Park
7377 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90046

"HeARTwork" (Free Workshop)

New York performer/facilitator Chelsea Gregory will lead this workshop

The arts have long been used to cultivate compassion and deeper understanding of ourselves and each other. This workshop is for those interested in addressing race, identity and social justice from a heart-centered place through performance art. Participants will work in small groups to create artistic material in the medium of theater, poetry or dance. They will then share their work with the larger group, and engage in dialogue based on Liz Lerman’s widely recognized Critical Response Process. New York performer/facilitator Chelsea Gregory will lead this workshop. This is a FREE workshop (donations accepted).

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Plummer Park
7377 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90046

"Decolonizing the Heart" (Free Workshop)

Chelsea Gregory facilitates

Conversations about race can be frustrating and abstract when we speak only from a political, intellectual or academic perspective. This workshop seeks to heal that divide by re-connecting us to our personal experiences of race and our desire for racial reconciliation. We will look at the social constructs that exist in cultures built upon colonization and exploitation, and consider the impact of those constructs on our emotional and spiritual selves. Chelsea Gregory facilitates. This is a FREE workshop (donations accepted).

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Plummer Park
7377 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90046

“TRIUMPH! Performance”

Hosted by Sky Palkowitz (Hellbent for Hollywood) and Tico Wells (The Five Heartbeats)

Vanessa Adams-Harris in “A Simple Act of Courage- Rosa Parks.” (Theatre). Ms. Adams-Harris returns to  the Festival from Oklahoma to perform for the first time this dramatic portrayal, a thought-provoking, moving account of Rosa Parks’ quiet, courageous act which reverberated throughout the United States, changed the course of history and catapulted her into the role of “Mother of the Modern Civil Rights Movements.”

Carlease in “FIFTY! It Doesn’t Look This Good on Everybody” (Theatre).  Carlease recreates her 50th birthday that includes her eclectic group of gay and straight friends that her conservative mother meets for the first time.

Stacie Chaiken in “The Dig: Death, Genesis and the Double Helix” (Theatre). In this theatre excerpt, an American archeologist is summoned to a dig in the ancient Arab-Hebrew town of Jaffa, Israel. They find something they think might change everything----and she is the only person in the world who can tell them what it is.

Cynthia Lee and Shyamala Moorty in “not two not one.”  (Dance) .In this dance duet choreographed and performed by Cynthia Lee and Shyamala Moorty, a relationship is depicted that is so intimate that it’s not always clear where one person starts and the other ends. Negotiating the exacting rhytms of North Indian kathak, the piece shifts between sensual connectedness, weight-sharing, and rough-and-tumble humor. Original music: Paul Livingstone. Los Angeles Premiere.

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Plummer Park
7377 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90046

“Identity As an Act of Courage - A Storytelling Workshop to Celebrate the City of West Hollywood and Its Residents" (Free Workshop)

Facilitated by writer/performer Terrie Silverman, MFA, Artist-in-Residence at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Who we are has everything to do with where we come from and where we call home. Whether you’re  a native or a transplant, this workshop will explore why West Hollywood is home and how it has changed or impacted your identity. Using oral storytelling and spontaneous writing, experience the power of community as you give and receive personal stories.  This is a FREE workshop (donations accepted).

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Plummer Park
7377 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90046

"TRIUMPH! Performance"

hosted by writer/actor Heather Woodbury (Tale of 2Cities: An American Joyride on Multiple Tracks )and writer/performer/arts educator Terrie Silverman

Chelsea Gregory returns from New York to perform in “The 6 Project.” (Theatre).  In the town of Jena, Louisiana, six African American youths accused of the beating of a white student were subjected to discriminatory handling by the judicial system. This nationally-toured theatre piece explores that incident.

The Lindz (aka Lindsay Halladay) in “WASP” (Poetry). This artist contributes relationship-related, socially conscious, goofy, insightful, sardonic and riotous performance poetry.

Mzuri Moyo returns from Miami to give an encore excerpted performance in “The Fannie Lou Hamer Story.” (Theatre and Music). Accompanied by song and music, this nationally-toured theatre work pays homage to the well known Civil Rights activist, who fought tirelessly for the vote for African Americans in Mississippi.

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