ONSITE: House/Full of BlackWomen

Amara Tabor-Smith, Ellen Sebastian Chang and Dancers’ Group present:

The 14th Episode of House/Full of BlackWomen
New Chitlin Circuitry: Reparations Vaudeville

Photo by Robbie Sweeny
[Image description: Group of performers clothed in different variations of white dresses, pants, shirts, and skirts dancing in a parking lot between several cars. One woman with big curly hair, in a white pantsuit with a black tie steps up onto a box in the middle of the circle.]

House/Full of BlackWomen is a site specific ritual performance project that addresses issues of displacement, well being, and sex trafficking of black women and girls in Oakland.

Set in various public sites throughout Oakland over a Five-year period, this community-engaged project is performed as a series of “Episodes” that are driven by the core question, “How can we, as black women and girls find space to breathe, and be well within a stable home?” The House/Full of Blackwomen project will culminate in 2021.

Support House/Full of Black Women‘s GoFundMe Campaign

Events:

All offerings are subject to change and cancellation due to the uncertainty of these days. They will be limited with in-person audiences between 15-40, with temperature checks and masks required to attend.

Learn about upcoming activities on Instagram
Also find more on Dancers’ Group Facebook page

Sun, Oct 11, 6pm @ Betti Ono Gallery (1427 Broadway, Oakland)
Excerpts from “Laveau” by Britt Frazier, Directed by Margo Hall with ritual offering by Portsha Jefferson and Rara Tou Limen. Laveau, performed by Cathleen Riddle, is a public ritual for the healing and protection of the black femme spirit. A callback conjuring of our ancestral womb blood, divine connection to water and nature and our lineage black girl magi noir. Through song, dance, storytelling and ancient ritual we conjure Laveau. The piece serves as a haunting of New Orleans’ most powerful Vudu Queens Marie Laveau the first and second, in the time of Covid, racial uprising and the housing crisis among black and brown women and artists today, for healing.
Come wearing bright colors in honor of your favorite Goddess!
Capacity limit: 15 Folks

Thu, Oct 15, 6:30pm @ Betti Ono Gallery (1427 Broadway, Oakland)
Illusions, Mesmerism with Zakiya Oyadolu Harris and Yvette Aldama. Video art and Music w/ Alexa Lexigon Burrell. Where we destroy illusions with sleight of hand, awaken from the hypnosis of “Dr. Mesmer’s Memes”, holla the music of crows, strikes and rent strokes and project the magical beauty of our black feminine genius…delight! delight! delight! delight! This is conjure art.
Capacity limit: 15 Folks

Fri-Sun, Oct 16-18, 7:30 @ Liberation Park (6955 Foothill Blvd, Oakland)
The Trinity of Souls and Mother Pine Installation and Song/Poem/Prayer Circle. An Installation created in honor of the divine dark feminine and the phases of the moon created by Stephanie A. Johnson, Shelley Davis Roberts, Jazmine Schwinges-Williams and Karen Smith.
Bring a song, poem, prayer, movement to share (optional).
Capacity limit: 40 Folks

~~Sun, Oct 18, 3-4pm @ Betti Ono Gallery (1427 Broadway, Oakland)~~ (CANCELLED)
Value Formation Session: A Safe-Tea Gathering led by Amber McZeal. A healing conversation for these times, for all times.
“Through restructuring our consciousness, we change the value meanings of black and white. We transform the internalized racial ritual, that hierarchy of value. Through sacred intellectualism, we unpackage the performance of a value-less being in our racial caste and alchemize how that mandate crystallized in cells and hearts.”
Capacity Limit: 10 folks