3/26+27 Radical Performance Fest Rocks the Bay Area

For Immediate Release

Radical Performance Fest Rocks the Bay Area
on March 26 & 27
The 10th year of the Bay Area's longest-running, multi-disciplinary, political theater festival


SAN FRANCISCO, CA – March 8, 2004 – Ten years after its inception at a tiny bar in the Tenderloin, the Radical Performance Fest is still rocking the Bay Area by presenting diverse, vital local artists who are about changing the world with their thought-provoking, passionate performances.

On March 26-27, 2004, the Radical Performance Fest will present conscious visual and performing artists in San Francisco in a two-night benefit celebration. For the tenth year in a row, Alli Starr of Cultural Links and Darryl Smith of the Luggage Store Gallery have teamed up to produce what has become a spicy, critics-choice Bay Area tradition. The Fest features some of the finest, known and emerging, local performers. Artists are chosen not only because of the high caliber of their work, but because their vision speaks directly to the need for creative action in responding to the local and global issues of our times. Dozens of socially-conscious artists bring their voices to The Fest by presenting new works of poetry, dance, theater, music, hip-hop, a cappella singing, spoken word, aerial circus and satire.

The Radical Performance Fest began as a fundraiser for the San Francisco IN THE STREET Theater Festival in the Tenderloin, and has since grown to be an institution in its own right. The event now raises funds for youth scholarships for Art in Action camp, a project of Cultural Links in collaboration with other youth activist organizations. Art in Action’s 10-day gathering empowers young visionaries from low-income urban communities through sharing art and activism skills. In 2004 Art in Action camps will occur in Santa Cruz, California and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where collectively created performances will be presented on the last day. Funds will also be shared with Oakland’s DREAM -- Hip-Hop theater company who is planning a summer tour of their new work (see bio below).

The Radical Performance Fest was founded by Alli Starr of Rebel Girl Productions, Dancers Without Borders and Art and Revolution Street Theater Collective. Ms. Starr is also the founder of Cultural Links and the Art in Action Summer Camps and Road Shows. Since 1989, Ms. Starr has helped build bridges between the worlds of art and activism through productions, workshops, public speaking and creative rebellion in the streets and on the stage.

All of the artists and producers are donating their time. 100 % of the proceeds after expenses goes to the beneficiary groups.

" In the past few years we have seen a resurgence of artists whose work speaks creatively to the issues of our times both in the theaters and in the streets. Socially-conscious art is needed now more than ever in this mad world. Art helps us remember our deepest humanity, and motivates us to take action." Said event organizer, Alli Starr.

Event Details

Who & What: The 10th Annual Radical Performance Fest, with performances by:
devorah major, San Francisco Poet Laureate
The Dance Brigade, socially relevant, feminist dance company
Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company, critically acclaimed, multicultural teen performance group
DREAM, redefining urban underground culture for the stage
San Francisco Mime Troupe, America's Finest Political Comedy
Poets for Global Justice: Drew Dellinger/Danielle Drake AKA SoulsJourney
Youth Speaks Poets: Aimee Suzara/Adriel Luis
Samsara, revolutionary a cappella music trio
Art in Action, Covenant House Youth Poets: MC Cole/Gutta Grimey
Colored Ink, Brava's youth-led Hip-Hop Theater Company
headRush, Oakland's satirical guerilla performance crew
Jack Hirschman, poet for the generations
Sparlha Swa, Music for spirit uprising
JB Rap of Deep Dick Collective
Amanda Starr of Circo Zero, angelic aerialist rope-climber with attitude

Also featured:
Board of Supervisors President, Matt Gonzalez (http://www.mattgonzalez.com for bio info)

Call for nightly line-up. Performances will run approximately 100 minutes with a 10-minute intermission. Food and beverages will be available by donation.

Socially-Conscious Visual Arts Gallery Opening, photos, paintings and giant sculpture curated by Carlos Martinez. Auction/Raffle of original art, massage and other gift certificates.

When: March 26 - 27, 2004
Friday-Saturday 8:00pm -

Where: SomArts Gallery
934 Brannan St, Between 8th and 9th Streets
San Francisco, CA 94103-4906
(415) 552-2131

How Much: $10-20 Sliding Scale
Food and beverages available

More info: 415-285-9734


devorah major became the 3rd Poet Laureate in San Francisco in April of 2002. She is a poet, novelist and spoken word artist, and arts educator and activist. Her most recent books are two volumes of poetry where river meets ocean (2003- City Lights Publishing), with more than tongue (2003 Creative Arts Books, Inc. She and Opal Palmer Adisa created Daughters of Yam, a jazz poetry performance experience. http://www.daughtersofyam.com

Dance Brigade is a cotemporary dance/theater company that was founded in 1984 by artistic directors Krissy Keefer and Nina Fichter. Since the time of Dance Brigade's inception in 1984, Dance Brigade has performed all over the world with their high energy content driven materials. Aside from traditional venues, they have performed for women's studies programs, women's groups, and women's festivals, benefits, and coalitions. All of which is in support of a multitude of community and progressive causes. http://www.dancemission.com/brigade/company.htm

The Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company provides a dynamic, creative forum for young people to express their fears, hopes and strategies for confronting challenging personal and social issues. This group of multicultural teenagers write, script, choreograph and create original full-length performance pieces, in collaboration with professional artists, that enrich the lives of both participants and audiences. By taking the creativity and wisdom of these young performers into schools and communities, their work inspires non-violence and hope for a better future. http://www.destinyarts.org

DREAM (Destiny Re-defining Education through Art and Movement) is a collective of multidimensional professional performance artists redefining urban underground culture for the stage. The racially and ethnically diverse group of 8 young men and women create inspirational educational pieces that are technically powerful, soulfully expressive, and profoundly meaningful. Their vision of personal and social transformation pays respect to cultural history and values. http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/DREAMPerformanceCompany.html

The San Francisco Mime Troupe does not do pantomime. We mean 'mime' in the ancient sense: to mimic. We are satirists, seeking to make you laugh at the absurdities of contemporary life and at the same time, see their causes. We’ve done shows about most of the burning issues of our time, generally shows that debunked the official story. We perform everywhere from public parks to palaces of culture, aiming to reach the broadest possible audience. http://www.sfmt.org

Poets for Global Justice: Drew Dellinger/Danielle Drake aka SoulsJourney
Danielle Drake known on stage as SoulsJourney is a writer / spoken word artist originally from Los Angeles, CA who moved to Oakland in 2000. Though she has been writing since 1998 she only began performing poetry before audiences in August of 2001 and has taken the world of spoken word by storm becoming a member of the 2002 Oakland Poetry Slam team within her first year performing poetry. Since then she has performed in “Sauce,” a production directed and choreographed by UC Davis MFA graduate Ecsailama Artry-Diof, and was selected as one of five Bay Area poets to travel to NYC to compete in the Hottest Poets Competition. Currently Ms. Drake is completing a CD. She is also a member of Poets for Global Justice, a non-profit organization dedicated to shedding light on injustice and informing the public of opportunities to better the global community through poetry.

Drew Dellinger, spoken word poet, teacher, and activist, was listed as one of the “important musical voices” of the “new international, broad-based (global justice) movement” by YES! magazine. Dellinger has rocked mics and inspired minds at hundreds of conferences, colleges, rallies, and protests across the U.S., from World AIDS Day in San Francisco, to the Campus Greens SuperRally in Chicago, to the mass demonstrations against the World Economic Forum in New York City. His poems have been published in magazines and books, including the anthology Global Uprising. In 1997 he received Common Boundary magazine’s national Green Dove Award for his work. Dellinger has studied cosmology with Thomas Berry since 1990, and currently teaches at Naropa University in Oakland and Prescott College in Arizona. He is founder of Poets for Global Justice, a project building movements for social and ecological change by unleashing the poetry in everyone. Dellinger has just released his first collection of poems, love letter to the milky way. He lives in Oakland, CA. (1-866-POETICS, or drew [at] poetsforglobaljustice.org)

Writer/translator Jack Hirschman was born on December 13, 1933, in New York, NY. Hirschman received his Bachelor of Arts degree from City College New York in 1955, and earned both his A.M. and Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1957 and 1961, respectively. He is a member of the Union of Street Poets, the Union of Left Writers, the Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade, and the Jacques Roumain Cultural Brigade. In his career Hirschman has worked as a poet of Dartmouth College (1952--); instructor and assistant professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles (1959-61; 1961-66); painter and collagist, with exhibitions in Los Angeles and Venice. He has translated over 25 books from the original German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Albanian, and Greek. He has taken the free exchange of poetry and politics into the streets, where he is, in the words of poet Luke Breit, called, “America’s most important living poet.” He uses his skills to help awaken the American people to homelessness as an expression of a system that can no longer take care of its people. He has written more than 50 volumes of poetry and essays. His impassioned readings challenge his audience. He speaks on the artist’s role in social transformation.

Colored Ink
In July 2001, a cadre of Brava Theater Academy graduates, proudly marched into a BRAVA Board of Directors’ meeting and presented the vision and name of their newly formed company, Colored Ink. Now in its second year under BRAVA’s mentorship, Colored Ink- “The folks that make you think”-have created numerous original productions at the Brava Theater Center, as well as led classes in the CI style. Colored Ink received its first funding with BRAVA for a project called Two Generations, One HeartBEAT that pairs new spoken word artists with beat generation poets like Ferlinghetti, Janice Mirikatani, devora major and Jimmy Santiago Baca.

headRush is a guerilla performance crew is made up of educators from Oakland that came together to put forth a rush of psycho-politico head trips, satirical commentary, and straight up buffoonery. Recently opening for Nuyorican comedian, Bill Santiago at Berkeley’s La Peña, headRush has toured colleges and universities around Northern and Southern California with the End-Dependence Poets, and during the Recall Campaign, hR was performing an anti-prop 54 piece anywhere and everywhere: house parties, community fairs and at a Ward Connerly appearance on the campus of UC Berkeley. If you're down to trip out on something different...hit us up at headrush [at] riseup.net

Youth Speaks
Aimee Suzara is a 28-year old environmental and social justice activist, poet & writer currently working at Youth Speaks as a creative writing mentor/teacher and a coordinator of writing workshops in high schools throughout the Bay Area. She is also a rape crisis counselor and staff member at San Francisco Women Against Rape. Ms. Suzara is a performing member of multi-ethnic women's revolutionary arts troupe Dancers Without Borders, and is a founding board member of environmental justice organization Filipino/American Coalition for Environmental Solutions, which works to educate around the toxic waste left at former US military bases in the Philippines. She volunteered for several months at the former Clark air base, interviewing community members sick with toxic waste related diseases; this became the subject matter for much of her activism and performance.

Adriel Luis is from the darkest shadows of the suburbs, past pink lawn flamingos and in the alleyways between Chevys and Krispy Kreme, there stalks a creature. subSCRYBE the Yellow Pimpslap!! By day, he's Adriel Luis, a Community & Regional Development and Asian American Studies student, web and graphic designer, and mentor at YouthSpeaks, a literary arts organization in San Francisco. But by night, he dwells in the midst of poets, making peoples' heads explode out of the sheer wackness of his wannabe spoken word poetry. To make matters worse, he has released CutLoose, his first chapbook, and is currently working on his next, Wannabe SpokenWord Poetry, his poetry comic book Jube-iLL-E, and his album. Adriel's current project is Broken English, an Asian Pacific Islander American arts and activism conference to be held at UC Davis on April 24. For more information, please visit http://www.brokenenglish2004.com. http://www.ill-literacy.org

Art in Action, Covenant House Youth Poets
MC Cole (aka Rancid Cole Slaw) has been writing and producing hip-hop and heavy metal music for 14 years and has created over 900 rap beats. He is age 21, and is also known as the Venter from Los Angeles. Cole gew up in group-homes and has been living on the streets for the last 4 years. Without a mother and father he still managed to weather the storm. Cole comes deep and emotional in his music, and avoids all the commercial crap; he likes to conceal the true meaning of his music. Rancid Cole Slaw will drop his new album “Luterndasi” on November 21st, 2004.

Jodii Le’Grand Everett, also known as Gutta Grimey, is a young talented MC from the Oakland based Raparations Record Company. He has worked on many community projects in the Bay Area, and has performed at numerous venues throughout Oakland. He is a graduate of Art in Action Camp 2003 where he inspired all with his truth.

Samsara is an a capella women's trio who unite fierce, extraordinary vocal music with passionate struggles for justice. They strive to connect the music of struggle, freedom and tradition, creating the new generation of the culture of resistance. Samsara's repertoire ranges from traditional folksongs, sea songs, worksongs and spirituals with new arrangements, to original music on current topics, all with tight, searing, dissonant and bittersweet harmonies and intricate vocal percussions. Loren Olds, Rebecca Anders and Susan Appe are activists, teachers, musicians and artists, and as Samsara they have been performing everywhere from the streets to the Union Halls. Samsara has taught workshops on ‘using your voice as resistance’ across the country and have been performing in, and are organizers of, numerous benefits and demonstrations for social, economic and environmental justice, and they are thrilled to announce the release of their newest CD, “Wild Roses”.

Sparlha Swa Music for Spirit Uprising
Sparlha Swa sings to you from the place where sound meets spirit. An irresistible blend of soul and folk, with simple yet powerful guitar accompaniment and profoundly moving lyrics, her voice carries you into the deepest within yourself, and there offers insights that heal, inspire, and uplift. This music, often born of sorrow, for the sake of release and, covers issues both spiritual and political, and holds uncompromisingly as its aim, the uprising of the highest in each of us. Check out her website at http://www.sparlhaswa.com

Circo Zero aerialist Amanda Starr grew up spending her summers traveling with a vaudeville troupe, The New Old Time Chautaqua. Currently, Ms. Starr performs throughout the Northwest with the Flying Karamotzov Brothers. She performs annually at the Radical Performance Fest and with Keith Hennessy's Circo Zero in San Francisco. Ms. Starr sends special thanks to her artistic director, Gypsy Snyder and to Chimene Pollaard for character development. mae1 [at] ix.netcom.com

Jeree:Brown:Rhythm.Art.Poetry.(JB:R.A.P.)
My Re-Education was done in the midst of chaotic change, as surroundings had to Rearrange and attitudes were encountered and considered strange; I needed to shift. A 2003 gift to his parents, JB graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) with two Degrees (BA of Arts/Social Change). JB:R.A.P. came to fulfill the embodiment of KOOL, learning how to BE and CREating good soul food to aid in the embedding of a Soul-filled manhood now Understood. Carving ways for Youth Culture and Social Health. Presently involved in theatrical production, dance and exhibits Visual-works around NYC and the Bay Area with Naked Souls Artists Alliance (http://www.nakedsouls.com / http://www.cyp3rcollective.com ) Also R.A.P. is a one of many Proto Emcees in the http://DeepDiCkollective.com who has more than likely released an album or two recently. So ChecK IT!

Cultural Links is a community-based program that houses several arts-activism and youth-led education projects. Cultural Links helps coordinate Art in Action, an annual summer camp for youth. Cultural Links produces arts-education traveling road shows, which address specific social justice issues, and provides regular community events and workshops to teach street theater, anti-oppression and anti-racism for schools, community groups and non-profit organizations all over the United States. Cultural Links also sponsors Danza Sin Fronteras, a young women’s activist dance troupe in San Francisco.


Stop Bush Oil Wars: Carpool to Rad Perf Fest: http://www.spaceshare.com/rpf