Adia Tamar Whitaker

24 Jun, 2009

“Ampey!”, line, circle, he(r)art

2009-06-24T03:46:36-07:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: , , , |

line "the concepts that shape ..." are where I'd have to begin ... better yet, "SHAPE!" is where I'd have to begin if you REALLY want to talk about what we do as folklorists, performers, teachers, students etc. This residency is an opportunity for us to build new models of discussion, exploration, and experimentation around folkloric based performance art forms. It's an opportunity for us to examine the methods of assessment that already exist inside of tradition as opposed to

29 Jul, 2009

Ayelo yeku daba

2009-07-29T11:21:58-07:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: , |

beginning (circle) kokou katamani When I first formed my company, Ase Dance Theatre Collective, Kokou Katamani taught us a song. I'll never forget that he came all the way from California just to perform in one of my pieces. I was a student at The Ailey School then and it was my first time living away from home. Colette Eloi, Kimberly Anderson and Sekou Alaje came as well. For folks to roll all the way out to the East Coast just to

4 Aug, 2009

Freedom

2009-08-04T20:21:52-07:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: , , |

middle (line) Look fast. Move slow. The ground is on fire, but I don't worry myself with that anymore. If I was at home I would ask if the fumes were toxic. Now, toxic is relative and intersections are the eye of the storm. In Ghana, 'Nature' is the holy book that tells people what to do and how to do it. The land is Jesus. The people his disciples. Judas is the juju that prevents progress, but holds the

19 Aug, 2009

The Memo

2009-08-19T10:19:12-07:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

I didn't get the memo. You know the one that breaks down the ways in which descendants of enslaved Africans have a different (but just as post traumatic stress disordered psychosis) than the descendants of colonized Africans. To be fair, I looked completely different when I've traveled abroad before (I had long hair), AND there is no pronoun for "he"or "she" in Ghanaian language. Word. My bad. Yet and still, I was expecting some kind of Haiti-ish/Southern American Negro/Caribbean stratification

29 Aug, 2009

Cry into the song

2009-08-29T19:36:19-07:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

The Ewe say " ... you must cry into the song." A man in the taxi said "... you are beautiful when you cry." ... But these things are not easy. To cry into the song when you are still so sad ... To let your beauty shine thru when you feel as though there is nothing to hold you up. Today "Ampey!" took it's first breath. It's a girl and a boy. A mommy and a daddy ... very

15 Sep, 2009

Untangling Webs

2009-09-15T02:30:35-07:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: , , |

ind (circle) -  the ghana blogs 2008 - (i feel you Colette!) Where clear crabs slide sideways across broken seashells and glass, there is a magnificent tossing and turning. At night they sing saltwater mountains of rage and revolt, a stampede of white stallions trample screaming angels and choke a caterwauling into the sea. Like fire shooting out of high voltage outlets into frazzled plugs, every grain of sand, salt and sea was charged and exploding. My feet sank as I sang

29 Sep, 2009

You have tried

2009-09-29T10:43:08-07:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: , , |

now and then adia wrote: not heads, just faces april 13, 2009 In sidewalk cracks and florescent puddles, busted spindles stack grief and silence. Violent at the core a snake rises unraveling in a double helix born of war. A blank stare slips and falls into the wrong hands. Crimson bends black across corners in Brooklyn. The blood has been washed away. A new ancestor waits to pass. One on Dean street, the other on Bergen. I went home. The new skyscrapers in Frisco are the

22 Oct, 2009

Performing Diaspora on the Airwaves!

2009-10-22T17:30:44-07:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, Charlotte Moraga, CounterPULSE, Danica Sena Gakovich, Homepage Links, Performing Diaspora, Podcast|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

With Performing Diaspora fast-approaching, some of the artists took a break from the stage and headed over to KPFA's radio studios in Berkeley for a musical sneak-preview of their work on Stephen Kent's show, "Music of the World." In between tracks, our Executive Director Jessica Robinson Love joined them in the conversation about their performances November 5-8. If you missed the program live, give it a listen here!

9 Dec, 2009

WATCH: CP on Culture Wire

2009-12-09T19:45:17-08:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, Charlotte Moraga, CounterPULSE, Gema Sandoval, Homepage Links, Performing Diaspora, Video|Tags: , , , , , , |

We are super excited to have had the opportunity to meet the truly kind and professional folks from the San Francisco Arts Commission's Culture Wire. Watch the video below to hear from Jessica Robinson Love and 3 Performing Diaspora artists Gema Sandoval, Charlotte Moraga and Adia Tamar Whitaker talk about what Performing Diaspora meant to them.

6 Sep, 2010

The Sound of Shattering Glass

2010-09-06T23:49:18-07:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|

It started off as a ringtone that made me laugh. It became an ironic reflection of how I broke in Ghana. An upstairs neighbor of Counterpulse threw empty 40 ounce bottles from the window down onto the sidewalk of 9th and Mission the day we practiced at the bus stop. We were playing our shakers too loud. We had to run. There was glass everywhere. That part wasn't on youtube or in the pictures. Afterwards, we went inside to perform our Work-In-Progress showing to the sound of shattering glass. We ran again.

23 Sep, 2010

The Great Shrinking

2010-09-23T13:05:45-07:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|

First there was a dungeon. Then there was a boat. We died. We survived. We got sick and never quite got better. All of us stayed behind thinking the others had been rescued. We found a way in through the skin and the hair, but haven't found another way to talk about it since. Gunshots come closest.Our tongues were cut off and replaced with shiny new ones. They had motors that made them move all by themselves. They made funny

23 Sep, 2010

“Ampey!” Kickstarter http://bit.ly/b6FanA

2010-09-23T13:26:26-07:00By |Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|

I am very pleased to announce that we launched the "Ampey!" Kickstarter page on Monday September 13, 2010! We've raised $1,140 so far. We now have 79 days left until the end of our campaign. Our goal is $6,500. $73 a day should keep us on track. We're raising funds to assist with the artist fees and production costs of expanding my work. To ensure that we surpass our goal, our Kickstarter page will be up until Sunday December 12,

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