Wanda's Picks

This is a black arts and culture site. We will be exploring the writing, visual and performing arts of African people in the Diaspora. It is my claim that the artists are the true revolutionaries, their work filled with raw unfettered passion. They are our true heroes. Ashay! Remember to tune in on Wednesdays from 6 AM PST to 7 or 8 AM and on Fridays from 8 AM to 10 AM. We also host special broadcasts from time to time.

Today we speak to maverick media worker and artist, Ava DuVernay whose latest film Middle of Nowhere is hitting US theatres by storm after DuVernay won the 2012 Sundance Best Director Award. The film looks at a woman whose husband is incarcerated after a life together on the outside and how that affects not just the wife but all those connected to her.  The film is opening in San Francisco at Stonestone this weekend. We close with a conversation with Amara Tabour Smith who is bring her Our Daily Bread back to CounterPulse next month, Nov. 15-18, 2012. vAfter a run of 8 sold-out shows and 8 standing ovations in the spring of 2011, CounterPULSE is bringing back the community building, body nourishing, heartwarming performance — Our Daily Bread. A collaboration between Amara Tabour-Smith's Deep Waters Dance Theater, director Ellen Sebastian Chang and visual artist Laura Diamondstone, Our Daily Bread delivers a thoughtful message and a powerful experience. The production is made rich with music by Ajayi Jackson and Guy de Chalus, costumes by Dana Kawano, and performers Eyla Moore, Stephanie Bastos, Melanie Cutchon, Alicia Walters, Pippa Flemming, Tossie Long, Fe Bongolan, and Zakiya Harris. The performance is a visual and visceral feast, in what Hyphen Magazine calls “an explosive, multi-disciplinary (dance, multi-media, theater, live music, song) whole body exploration about what it means for human beings to eat.”

The broadcast will feature actress and producer, Michelle Banks and her partner, Richard Graham. They are producing an event which is bringing together deaf and hearing artists in Washington, D.C. for the first time called In-Sight and Sound: Live De(a)f Poetry,  Nov. 11, from 8 PM to 10 Pm at Busboy and Poets in Hyattsville, MD. They have a kickstarter campaign we want to help them raise $3000.00 by Nov. 1 which means we don't have time to think, we just need to give. No amount is too small, because if they do not raise the minimum, which is $3000, they get nothing and this show next month sounds off the chart.  Visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1460383050/in-sight-and-sound-live-deaf-poetry?ref=email The $3,000 will help cover production costs and artists' fees. For tickets: [email protected] for tickets which are $15 dollars in advance, $20 at door, and half price for Veterans. The show is on Veterans Day.

A Benefit for The Fountain Project: Cure the Blues III with Lloyd Gregory and Lena Sunday is Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, 7 PM at Yoshi's in Oakland. This morning we speak to Ms. Sunday and Mr. Gregory as well as Dr. Erlene Chiang who is one of the founders of The Fountain Project, an organization that offers free medical care from both homeopathic, Chinese as well as Western or allopathic modalities ten times a year. The next session is in El Cerrito on Nov. 17. Phone registration is Nov. 16 (510) 524-1057. Visit http://fountainproject.org  For tickets: [email protected] or (510) 524-1057. We close with an interview with playwright, Christopher Chen and director, Desdemona Chiang re: Chen's The Hundred Flowers Project which is in previews tonight (pay what you can), opening Monday and continuing Wed.-Sat. at 8 PM Nov. 1-17, 2012 at The Thick House, 1695 18th Street, in San Francisco. Visit www.crowdedfire.org or call (415) 746-9238.  Music: Lloyd Gregory's A Moment in Time; Gentle Warrior and a smidgeon of Haiti (smile).

We'd hoped to catch up with Kendra Kimbrough, whose dance company is celebrating its 15th Anniversary this weekend (smile), but we were not. Winou Wakayo, director, Rehoboth Economic Development for Women and Children or "REDWC," whose organization just had its first graduation of its first cohort of women entrepreneurs. Visit http://www.wredwc.com/about-us The fundraiser this weekend is a way for the director to support the next class, expand the project and pay for the on-going support for the children whom she is supporting financially.  The fundraiser to support these tenacious women is Saturday Oct 27th the Fund Raiser will be at 2525 8th St (at Dwight) in Studio 12 (the "Sawtooth Building") at 6:30pm EDWC will have a fundraiser for low income women and children in Ethiopia. All proceeds will go directly to the women, and their children, whose tenacity and hope in the face of great adversity is tremendous. Ms. Wakeyo is cooking delicious Ethiopian Cuisine for her guests (smile). Unique and beautiful quilted hot-pads, made by the REDWC women will be for sale. The event is for all ages. We close with an interview with Grace C. Stanislaus, Exceutive Driector, Museum of the African Disapora. She speaks about the current exhibitions: Desert Jewels: North African Jewelry and Photography from the Xavier Guerrand-Hermès Collection and Tuareg and Anima: Photographs of GRACE by Elisabeth Sunday through Jan. 21, 2013. We close with a short interview with director Ken Burns and subject in Burn's latest doc. The Central Park 5, Raymond Santana. The film is in theatres Dec. 14, 2012. Music: Amikaeyla's "Dreamer" and "Being in Love."

Noche Diaz is a young revolutionary who faces years in jail if convicted on unjust charges. He has been arrested five times since October 2011 and has had 11 charges piled on him in four New York City boroughs, all for observing and protesting the illegitimate actions of the NYPD. Noche was one of the first members of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and helped organize protests that kicked off a citywide struggle against stop-and-frisk. He is well known to the people—and to the NYPD—for being a member of the People’s Neighborhood Patrol of Harlem.  Noche joins us to talk about the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. People are asked to wear black in solidarity and/or a black arm band with the name of a friend or loved one killed by police. Call Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance (212) 335-9000 to protest charges against Noche Diaz and the Queens District Attorney, Richard Brown, starting at 9:00 am. at 718 286 6000.  Tell the DA to drop charges from November 19, 2011 on Carl Dix, Jamel Mims, Robert Parsons, and Morgan Rhodewalt and of course, Noche Diaz.  Visit http://www.october22.org/Assembly.html and to learn more about Noche's case visit http://revcom.us/a/272/drop-the-prejudicial-prosecution-of-noche-diaz-en.html  Music: Hunter Poetry: Breath of Life, Leon Williams: The Creator Has a Master Plan.

We speak to formerly incarcerated woman prisoners, Samantha Rogers and Deirdre Wilson. Joanna Sokolowski, filmmaker, joins us as well to talk about the 1 year anniversary celebration, Sat., Oct. 20, 2012, of Fired Up! a network of people who have been or are currently behind the walls of San Francisco county jail building community with others who are committed to breaking down the barriers those walls produce. For information visit http://firedupsf.wordpress.com/ At the event Sokolowski will screen Still Time, a short film chronicling the life of the first juvenile given a life sentence in CA, LaKeisha Burton, who will also be present at the event. Incarcerated at the age of 15 and released at 35, LaKeisha must start from scratch to rebuild her life, discovering that although being out of prison can be just as unpredictable as life inside, she can still find her way back home. The event tomorrow is from 6-8 p.m. Doors open at 5:45 p.m. The Clean Lounge is located at 1641 LaSalle Avenue, Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco. There is a $5-20 donation; however, no one will be turned away.  The Clean Lounge is ADA accessible.If anyone needs a ride call (408) 386-8955. We close with an extended interview with director, Zeinabu irene Davis, one of the directors showcased in the film program currently at UC Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive, LA Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema Sept. 6-Oct. 30. Compensation, Davis's film, screens Tues., Oct. 23, 7 PM. Her feature is proceeded by Iverson White's Dark Exodus. The independent filmmaker and full Professor of Communication at University of California, San Diego. A veteran of independent film and video, her vision is passionately focused on the depiction of African American women - their hopes, dreams, past and future. Visit bampfa.berkeley.edu or (510) 642-5249.

We are broadcasting at 1 PM to accomodate special guests: Biko Eisen-Martin and Bowman Wright as Booth and Lincoln respectively in Suzan-Lori Parks's Topdog/Underdog directed by Timothy Douglas at the Marin Theatre Company which has been extended to October 28. Biko Eisen-Martin (Booth) makes his MTC debut with Topdog/Underdog. Originally from San Francisco, he has appeared in the Bay Area in Fuku Americanus at Intersection for the Arts, Radio Golf at TheatreWorks, 365 Plays/365 Days at Z Space, Patricide Revisited at SF Theatre Fest, Clockwork Orange at Renegade Theatre, All God Chillun Got Wings at the Eugene O’Neill Festival and Basha at Brookside Repertory Theatre. He has also appeared in the film Poetic License. Eisen-Martin is a graduate of the National Theatre Conservatory (MFA) and Brown University (BA/MAT). Bowman Wright (Lincoln) makes his MTC debut in Topdog/Underdog. He was last seen in A Raisin in the Sun at the Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, New York. His other regional credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream at La Jolla Playhouse, The Dreamer Examines His Pillow at Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts, The Piano Lesson at Virginia Stage Company, Since Africa and A House With No Walls at InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia and Fences at Actors Theatre of Louisville. He is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego, (MFA) and the University of the Arts (BFA). We have two prerecored interviews one withPeter Nicks, an Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker about his film, The Waiting Room, opening Friday, Oct. 19, 7 PM at the Grand Lake Theatre followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker moderated by N'Jeri Eaton (ITVS). We are looking to close with Grace Stanislaus, Executive Director, MoAD about Desert Jewels: North African Jewelry and Photography from the Xavier Guerrand-Hermès Collection.

Though PBS'sIndependent Lens aired Brad Lichtenstein's film As Goes Janesville last week, ITVS is hosting a free screening/discussion at the San Francisco Main Library tomorrow, Tues., Oct. 16, 5:30-6:30 PM. Join us this morning in conversation with director and filmmaker to talk about  "Janesville, Wisconsin: Paul Ryan's hometown." President of 371 Productions, a Milwaukee-based independent production company that makes documentaries, commercial work, technology projects and community engagement campaigns, the director has produced for FRONTLINE and Bill Moyers and the PBS series Local News. With New York based Lumiere Productions, he produced With God on Our Side: The History of the Religious Right; André's Lives, a portrait of the "Jewish Schindler"; The Discovery Channel's Safe, about domestic violence; PBS's Caught in the Crossfire, about three Arab New Yorkers after 9/11and the BBC/Court TV co-production of Ghosts of Attica, for which he was awarded a duPont. He made the ITVS film Almost Home, a PBS Independent Lens documentary about people who live and work in a elder-care community.His current projects include What We Got: DJ Spooky's Journey Through the Commons, a documentary/fiction/transmedia enterprise about the over-privatization of what belongs to all of us.Brad has taught documentary film production at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,where he also founded docUWM, a documentary center that provides students an opportunity to learn by making professional films.he is a father & husband. Before you watch the 2nd Presidential Debate on PBS,share in a riveting Community Cinema experience. Visit http://itvs.org/films/as-goes-janesville Music:Archie Shepp's "Cousin Mary."

Deborah Vaughn, Latanya Tigner of Dimensions Dance Theatre, and choreographer, Herve Makaya, special guest choreographer, speak about Down the Congo Line II, Sat., Oct. 13, 2012, 8 p.m. at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts in Oakland, (510) 465-3363. Feasts of Words artists and programers, Anna Pulley (artist) & Lex Leifheist (host); Muisi-kongo Malonga joins us to talk about Congo Week; we close with feminist critic and writer, Silvia Federici who is in town this weekend in San Francisco.