Works In Progress

The composer, bandleader, and pianist Arturo O'Farrill has his hands full. The seven-time GRAMMY Award-winning jazz musician is a professor of global jazz studies at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where he is also the associate dean of equity, diversity, and inclusion.

O’Farrill, the director of the renowned Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, has just released the album "...dreaming in lions...", his debut on the legendary Blue Note Records label. O'Farrill is also working to open a permanent home for his orchestra in East Harlem.

On Monday, Nov. 22, O'Farrill will participate in the UCLA Arts public discussion series "10 Questions" to discuss the question, “How do we sustain?”

On this episode of "Works In Progress," O'Farrill talks about the power of music to overcome divisions and distances, the backlash he's experienced for expressing his political views, and how music has allowed him to give back to the community.

Rap and hip-hop are the most popular musical genres in the United States. At the end of 2017, Nielsen Music, which tracks music listenership, noted that the combined genre of R&B and hip-hop had surpassed rock to become the most-consumed style of music in the country. 

Hip-hop continues to grow and evolve, and Adam Bradley has been tracking its changes. He teaches English at UCLA and founded the Laboratory for Race and Popular Culture, known as RAP Lab. 

In his books, which include “Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop” and “The Anthology of Rap,” he makes the case for rap’s literary merit. 

On Monday, Nov. 15, he’ll take part in the UCLA Arts public discussion series "10 Questions" to consider the prompt, “How do we build?” 

On this episode of "Works In Progress," Bradley talks about hip-hop's cultural significance, the value of working in collectives, and the need to make failure more acceptable.

In July of 2020, soon after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police along with the murder of many other Black men and women, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors established an anti-racist County policy agenda. They also created an executive director of racial equity position for Los Angeles County with a charge of creating a strategic plan to eliminate structural racism and bias in the county, and appointed D’Artagnan Scorza to fill that role.

Scorza is a long-time justice activist who views education as a tool for civic and social empowerment. After getting a bachelor’s degree in the study of religion at UCLA, he joined the Navy and served in Iraq, then returned to UCLA to get a PhD in education, while launching a nonprofit called the Social Justice Learning Institute. He served the Inglewood Unified School District as president of the Board of Education, and is the current president of the UCLA Alumni Association. He also created the Urban Scholars program to train students to be social justice youth leaders.

On Monday, November 8th, he’ll join the UCLA Arts public discussion series “10 Questions,” responding to the question “How do we change?” 

In this episode of "Works In Progress," Scorza talks about his journey of growing up in Inglewood, studying at UCLA, serving in Iraq, creating educational opportunities for underserved students, and promoting anti-racist policies at the county level.

The search engines that we use throughout the day, like Google and Yahoo, aren’t just useful digital tools. They’re also multi-billion dollar companies that track our browsing habits and sell that data to advertisers and marketers. They also invest heavily in developing artificial intelligence – highly complex algorithms meant to predict and manipulate our behavior. But just as humans have biases, so do the algorithms. And that has real-world implications that can lead to greater inequity, particularly against people of color and women. 

This is the subject of Dr. Safiya Noble’s research. She’s an associate professor of gender studies and African American studies, as well as founder and co-director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. Her bestselling book “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism” helped popularize the current interest in AI bias. And she's a 2021 MacArthur “genius grant” recipient. 

She’ll join the UCLA Arts public discussion series “10 Questions” on Monday, Nov. 1 to respond to the question “How do we fail?” 

In this episode of the UCLA Arts podcast "Works In Progress," Noble discusses the problems inherent to digital technologies and the collective power of individuals to change the culture of Silicon Valley.

Diane White-Clayton found her voice in the church. As a little girl in Washington DC, the church was central to her community. The classically trained singer and pianist studied music at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and at UC-Santa Barbara, where she received her masters and PhD.

Music has brought her around the country and around the world, where she performs, conducts choral groups, composes original music, and leads workshops of gospel, jazz, and classical music. 

White-Clayton, popularly known as “Dr. Dee,” is now a lecturer in ethnomusicology at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA. She also directs the African American Music Ensemble, is the Artistic Director of the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers, and the Founding Director of the BYTHAX Ensemble.

She’ll join the UCLA Arts public discussion series “10 Questions” on Monday, October 25 to discuss the question “How do we heal?”

In this episode of "Works In Progress," White-Clayton discusses her musical upbringing and the power of music to heal, uplift, and connect.

Leroy Moore is a writer, poet, community activist, and a hip-hop and music lover. He was born with cerebral palsy, and has dedicated much of his writing and activism to disability rights. He co-founded Krip-Hop Nation, a movement that uses hip-hop as a means of expression for people with disabilities.

Moore is currently a doctoral student in linguistic anthropology at UCLA. He writes and delivers lectures and performances that reflect the intersections between racism and ableism, in the United States and abroad. His most recent book “Black Disabled Ancestors” came out in 2020.

Moore will join the UCLA Arts public discussion series “10 Questions” on Monday, Oct. 18 to discuss the question “How do we remember?” In this interview with the UCLA Arts podcast "Works In Progress," he reflects on his life-long activism in racial and disability justice, and how hip-hop provided a platform for that movement.

Luis Alfaro is a celebrated and award-winning artist and writer. His plays, short stories, poems, and performances are often set in barrios like the Pico-Union district of downtown Los Angeles where he grew up, and tell stories about working class people and the systems that trap them – systems of poverty, incarceration, racism and homophobia. Alfaro is a MacArthur "genius" fellow, teaches theater at the University of Southern California, and was recently named the Associate Artistic Director of Center Theatre Group.

On Oct. 11, Alfaro will join the UCLA Arts series “10 Questions” to help us answer the question “how do we connect?”

He joined the UCLA Arts podcast "Works In Progress" to talk about how the movement for equity, diversity and inclusion is reshaping theater, how LA theater specifically needs to change to reflect the stories of its audiences, and how live theater will recover from the pandemic.

The arts can heal and transform us. This is something that Ping Ho has been advocating since she founded the group UCLArts & Healing in 2004. It trains artists, educators, therapists, health care professionals, and community members to use visual art, movement, music and writing, in concert with mental health practices, to build social and emotional skills and foster self-discovery. 

These alternative health practices have gradually become more integrated in traditional health settings, and are now increasingly viewed as important tools for preventative care and for beginning the process of addressing more serious traumas and conditions. This work combines Ping’s lifelong experiences in performing arts and her graduate education in counseling psychology and public health. 

Ping Ho will join the UCLA Arts event series “10 Questions” on October 4th to respond to the question “How do we begin?” She joins the UCLA Arts podcast "Works In Progress” to talk about the power of creative expression to improve social and emotional well-being. 

California Assemblymember Isaac Bryan ran in a special election earlier this year and won the California State Assembly seat representing the 54th District. The district includes a wide swath of West LA and South LA, including Westwood, Mar Vista, Culver City, Ladera Heights, View Park and Leimert Park.

Prior to holding elected office, Bryan was a longtime organizer and educator, and the director of public policy at the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African-American Studies. He was also founding director of the Black Policy Project at UCLA.

Bryan will be a featured panelist in the “10 Questions” public discussion series, presented by the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, responding to the question “Who are we?” on Sept. 27. For this interview for “Works In Progress,” Bryan discussed his election, his policy priorities, and the centrality of the arts in his community.

The Fowler Museum at UCLA has brought together approximately 200 objects from collections across campus for an exhibition called "The Map and the Territory: 100 Years of Collecting at UCLA." The show was set to open last spring to coincide with UCLA’s Centennial, and will now open in July.

Thematically linked and geographically diverse, the objects – such as a guitar made from an armadillo, a meteorite, a Star Trek manuscript, and the bodies of Arctic terns – tell stories of migration, home, and the unknown.

Through their juxtapositions, the objects included in the exhibition make new meanings in exciting and unexpected ways, and also tell a larger story about UCLA’s pursuit of knowledge in our global society through its collections.

In this episode of the UCLA Arts podcast Works In Progress, we hear from several curators about the special collections at UCLA, and the stories that these remarkable objects tell.