Wendy Jane's Soul Shake

I want to give major props to all the activists out there fighting the good fight. The good, hard, exhausting, frustrating, dangerous fight against racism. Personal racism. Systemic racism. Institutional racism. Jim Crow racism. The New Jim Crow racism. And every other kind of anti-Black racism in-between.

See, I’m like a baby taking its first steps when it comes to learning what it means to organize, to march, to protest, to take concrete political action to fight against racism.  Before this year, the only two things I could put on my activist’s resume was […]

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to write an article for Providence Monthly about my favorite non-profit arts organization here in Providence, Rhode Island,  Everett Company, Stage & School .

I frequently attend their Friday Night Live Improv Shows with my daughters, and with my grown-up friends, their Open Stage open mics,  their Case Closed Hip-Hop Dance Troupe performances, and their highly popular Brain Cafe series–a combination of performance and discussion centering around a theme such as the intersection of the brain, science and creativity, and this year, on the criminal justice system.

I’ve always loved the intimacy of Everett’s carriage house space, a place that seems to make everyone feel at home.  Couple that with the professionalism, quality, thoughtful and high-energy artistic work that springs forth from their artists, teachers, and students, and you have quite a wonderful community arts experience right at your fingertips.  What I also love, is that Everett is about diversity and inclusion–its artists, students and audience, a mix of ages, races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds, all coming together to experiment, learn, create, express themselves, and perform for the community.

If you live in town, or anywhere close, since Rhode Island is so small, and Massachusetts right next door, you should make it a point to catch one of Everett’s many performance offerings–the Friday Night Live improv show will only set you back $5, and I guarantee you will laugh, a lot.  Everett also offers a variety of classes in improv, hip-hop, film making, Polynesian dance, ballet, and more for young people of all ages, and has an intensive arts camp happening this summer.

Visit www.everettri.org for more information, and to learn how to volunteer or make a donation to support their work.

Here is the link to the Providence Monthly article.  Thanks for reading!:
http://www.providenceonline.com/stories/they-like-to-move-it-move-it-everett-company-providence-monthly,11909?category_id=7&town_id=1&sub_type=stories,packages,photos,blogs,dining
 

Photo Credit:  Stacey Doyle for Providence Monthly

Dorothy generously thanked me and then she gave me her insights into the evenings’ performance and talk-back.  I had failed to mention in my post that when the young boy at the center of the A Boy Named Nothing performance meets up with dancer Sokeo Ros, who represents Scar Face, or the “bad guy,”  Scar Face convinces the boy that they need him to be the bad guy because it makes them look good.

Here’s an excerpt of Dorothy’s note, that gave me another perspective on how to frame what I witnessed at the Everett performance:

I’ll admit it.  Sometimes I read something, or hear something related to race and race relations, and it’s serious and it’s important, and so I feel an obligation to blog about it here, but then I sometimes get that, “oh, geez, this feels too much like work–like I’ve got a big school paper to write, and I don’t feel like doing it.  So there.”  Some form of writers’ block I suppose.

See, because what I really want to do is write something “fun” like about […]