Welcome To Alternate ROOTS!

Gwylene Gallimard & Jean-Marie Mauclet's collaborative experiences include two community-oriented French cafes; art installations about the health insurance industry, the fast food phenomenon, religious beliefs; archives & history, globalization, gentrification, populations displaced by war, dictatorship. Their endeavors have involved school populations, a homeless community, a refugee organization, art institutions, other artists and activists.

“YOU. WILL. NOT. STOP. DANCING.

The best part about living in the ‘2000’s is the different genres of music that smash like atoms, creating a brilliant flash of energy. Such is the genesis of the Inner City All Stars, who slams together old-school funk, New Orleans jazz, D.C. GO-GO, rap from back in the day and blaxploitation wah-wah rock into one big booty-shakin’ jam.” - JONANNA WIDNER, DALLAS OBSERVER

I'm a storyteller who "carries words" from times in places where the Old South met the Original South; stories born by melding and conflicts between Indigenous peoples and colonizing immigrants, truly southern stories lived in spirit and flesh. As a writer and performer for WagonBurner, the Native American radio theater directed by Leanne Howe, my characters often spoke from the lives of people who I knew as neighbors living in small, Indian settlements in rural Alabama. Theater written from oral literatures, oral histories, papers tossed into courthouse basements or jumbled for sale with recipe books by a roadside flea market vendor.

My scholarship retains a focus on the American Indian south during segregation, seperate Native communities along the gulf coast. As a shell-shaker, a stompdancer, I'm intrigued by the relationship between revivals of danced spirituality traditional to southeastern Native American cultures & Indian identity.

Participants in Charlotte's Tree re-fashion often discarded materials into holiday art items & ornaments, a re-cycling project by which socially marginalized or disadvantaged persons participate in community life while celebrating holidays. Artists & organizations along the central gulf coast re/circulate human, material and creative resources through ArtShares, a collaboration affirming art as a meaningful exchange to nurture healthy lives and grow vibrant community life.

Diana (Morningstar) Ault is a community artist, activist, producer, performer and fulltime grandmother of three now! She's been on the boards and staff of over a dozen non-profit organizations locally, statewide, nationally and internationally. She loves creating cultures of peace by bringing people together to play across lines of race, class, and culture, recognizing the oneness and interdependency of all beings. She's been a regional leader with InterPlay, a set of improvisational forms and principles for 8 years and is now arranging transformative travel to tours of Morocco, Malawi and other places.

By day I'm the Deputy Director of the Southern Arts Federation working with our staff, board and regional partners to build a better South through the arts. I'm particularly interested in arts participation, strategic planning and action, organizational learning and working with a great creative team. I also create glass art and jewelry as Southern Flameworks; I'm a consultant and facilitator in critical response, audio description, participation building and other arts areas; and I see and hear as much work as I can in Atlanta and beyond.

Guerrilla Girls On Tour is a New York City based touring theatre company that creates fresh and original comedies celebrating women’s history -- past, present and future. All of our work is presented using masks and draws from a variety of classic theatre techniques such as physical theatre, vaudeville and parody resulting in our own unique style that allow us to imaginatively portray a wide range of characters and scenarios with minimal technical elements. We are a theatre company of national and international renown that also trains and educates via workshops, gallery exhibits, master classes and community collaborations which have resulted in participatory performance projects and site-specific productions that include local women’s history. Guerrilla Girls On Tour has presented over 200 performances and 100 workshops in theatres, classrooms, art galleries, community centers, cafes and the great outdoors. We have been featured in many festivals in the US, UK, Poland, Argentina, South Korea, Spain, Ireland, Japan, China and France.

Sarah Powers is an artist based in Raleigh, North Carolina whose mixed media work focuses on industrial and rural landscapes and landscape details. Her work has been featured in galleries across the U.S. including Rhode Island’s risd l works, The Sarah Doyle Gallery at Brown University and The Mahler Gallery, The Collectors Gallery, Long View Gallery, Rebus Works, Vision Gallery and Artspace in North Carolina. Powers is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and maintains a studio at antfarm in the Boylan Heights Neighborhood of Raleigh. Sarah is currently the executive director of Visual Art Exchange, a nonprofit art organization that supports emerging artists and produces SPARKcon, an annual interdisciplinary art festival.

Tambone is a writer with a versatile style and many years of experience communicating with a wide range of audiences. She's a performer at heart, whether as a singer, dancer, actor, storyteller, impersonator, public speaker, and an all-around “ham" (thus the nickname "Tambone"). She's also a dedicated activist on behalf of social and environmental justice and sustainable development in Appalachia, and for years she has produced graphic art in the form of posters for non-profit organizations, activist and educational events, and cultural festivals.

Tambone’s primary medium for the past decade has been video shorts on a variety of social and cultural issues in Appalachia. She is interested in film as a medium for storytelling, not only in the context of researching and documenting on behalf of others but in empowering communities and individuals to tell their own stories through film as well. Her educational background and research interests include women's studies, Appalachian studies, Hispanic cultures, religious studies, community development/activism, and sustainability.

Stage manager, actor, dancer, writer, fiber artist, gardener, lover of cats and music and all forms of chocolate.

Carlton Turner is the artistic director and co-founder, along with his brother Maurice Turner, of the performing group M.U.G.A.B.E.E. (Men Under Guidance Acting Before Early Extinction) a group composed of two brothers performing a theatrical blend of jazz, hip-hop, spoken word poetry and soul music. M.U.G.A.B.E.E. has released two albums, "Earth Tones" (2002) and "World Domination" (2006). They are currently touring a new play "Batteries in the Killing Machine" across the country. Carlton studied English and history at the University of Mississippi from 1992-1996. M.U.G.A.B.E.E. is currently working with Mondo Bizarro to create a two-year performance project on issues of race and racism in the United States. This work will premiere in the summer of 2009.

Melisa Cardona – Was born to two immigrant parents and raised between Atlanta, Georgia and their native land Colombia, South America. After several years of world travel, theater and film performances throughout Atlanta and the west coast, Melisa’s gaze organically turned to the wetlands and is now based in New Orleans, LA. She is currently collaborating with various artists and theatre ensembles around the city as a community organizer and performer including Mondo Bizarro, Art-Spot Productions, Alternate Roots, M.U.G.A.B.E.E., RISE and many others. She is also exploring activist driven art with a focus on arts and culture advocacy, cultural equity and immigrant rights, ranging from language/culture studies, Colombian artistry, Spanish mountain music, poetry, film, translations, and Spanish lessons for young students.

She sees this work as building blocks contributing to the cultivation of her number one goal within her craft: The ability to construct art in a way that will reflect international diversity and inspire positive change to our polluted yet beautiful world, for a new mañana.

Does poetry performanices, and workshops to encourage people to change, and create change.

Sage Crump has been involved in the arts community for 20 years. Her company Sagacity Productions has produced multi-state music festivals, peace concerts and staged theatrical readings. She has worked with and for such organizations as 89.3 WRFG, Comedy Plus Review, Omenala Afrocentric Teaching Museum, and Alternate ROOTS. She is a founding member of Young African Writers Collective (YAWC) and Oyster Knife writers group. Sage founded Community Theater Initiative to support the growing number of theater artists interested in art for social change. She is currently Program Director of the Performing Arts Exchange for the Southern Arts Federation. Sage is a performance poet, actor and vocalist.

I am a stage director, arts and community cultural development organizer, and teacher. I work in conventional theater spaces and in "found" , indoors and out. I direct written scripts and I develop new work through collaborative processes. I am interested in plays that engage in direct audience interaction and that offer contributions to relevant public dialogues in the communities of the play's production. I am on the CAPP/RSC WorkGroup and am an RSC trainer. I am director of the MFA in Theatre at Virginia Tech, where I teach the MFA programs in Stage Management, and in Directing and Public Dialogue.

I am a Healthy Lifestyle Consultant and Personal Trainer.

Dan Brawley is the director of the Cucalorus Film Festival and an artist working in a wide range of disciplines. Dan's artistic practice is defined by a collaborative approach to the artmaking process. Recent installations included musicians, performers and a host of visual artists.

Sheila Kerrigan, The Juggler Who Drops! The Mime Who Talks!, performs and teaches mime, communication, conflict resolution, collaborative creative process, juggling, and theater. In her performance for adults, Mime Explains String Theory, she starts before birth, ends after death, and in the middle she discovers the meaning of life and valiantly struggles to communicate it. 

She wrote the Performer’s Guide to the Collaborative Process. She works with youth to create original performance about issues important to the youth. She taught Community-Based Performance at Duke, served on Alternate ROOTS’ Resources for Social Change, integrates English, Social Studies and Theatre Arts curricular goals as a teaching artist for Charlotte’s ArtsTeach, Raleigh’s Artist-in-Schools Program, and Durham’s Creative Arts in the Public Schools, and conducts professional development for teachers and teaching artists as a Fellow with the A+ Schools.

Has worked as a Arts Administrator, Stage Manager, and Techie in Atlanta for 15 years. Started a drama program at Lee Arrendale State Women's Prison in 2009. The program is in its infancy but Wende is hopeful that it will take hold and expand.

Art allows a voice for support and for protest, and like a hammer can help build movements and help tear down what stands between us. The central theme of my work is the absolute imperative that human creatures recognize their symbiotic relationship with the rest of the planet. We cannot fix anything alone without recognizing what these connections offer us: peace, empowerment, rationality, deep roots. Bugs, bats, vines, eggs, seeds and bones mix and intertwine in my work. They loop into lungs and out of mouths. They tie everything together: the workers, the ants, the despots, the tree roots.

An actor/director/activist Trey is Associate Director for The Conciliation Project, a social justice theatre organization promoting dialogue on Racism in America. He has a background in theatre administration, facilitation, devising new works, and developing non-profits. Based in Richmond, Trey's next project is G.O.Rilla! Theatre co-founded with Louisa Sargent. G.O.Rilla! Theatre's main premise is "going out and really doing it", making all arts accessible to the Richmond community. He has two works in progress, his solo performance titled, "Who is Starlet Begonias?" and "Galakdicka Girls", a piece of drag theatre in collaboration with two other artists, Donzell Lewis and Jordan Frink.

Jo Carson is the author of seven books including Stories I Ain’t Told Nobody Yet which is taught widely in Appalachian Literature courses. TCG has recently published Spider Speculations: A Physics and Biophysics of Storytelling, which considers how stories work in our bodies and our lives. Liars, Thieves, and Other Sinners on the Bench is a collection of Jo’s favorite material from the community story plays she has written. Liars, Thieves… is also performance material for Jo. She has won five national awards for her traditional plays (including the Kesselring Prize for Daytrips) and these plays have been produced widely this country, including Hartford Stage Company, the Women’s Project in NYC and the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Jo has also written more than 30 plays for a variety of communities in this country over the last 15 years. Jo teaches playwriting at East Tennessee State University, and teaches the how-to’s of story collecting and writing for communities across the country. She lives and writes in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Having lived in Blacksburg, VA for ten years, Shannon was wrapping up her M.F.A. at Virginia Tech when the tragic shootings occurred there in 2007. She worked in the Blacksburg community for nearly a year following the tragedy to spearhead an organization called HERE: Honoring Experiences, Reflections, and Expressions. HERE's goals were to facilitate ongoing artistic response and dialogue toward the community's healing. She recently published an article on the Community Arts Network, about the year-long journey with HERE, which culminated with a multidisciplinary arts program on the anniversary of the shootings. You can watch a video of Shannon's performance piece related to this project here.

During the MFA program, Shannon was also involved in a campus/community arts & dialogue project called [classified]. [classified] was an original play devised from student and community member stories, produced for the campus and community, which explored themes of safety, diversity, harassment, and community. A full article about this performance/dialogue project can also be found on the CAN website. Shannon worked for over a year as development director for Synchronicity Performance Group in Atlanta, GA.

She enjoys her residence in the Little 5 Points community, and along with her active membership in Alternate ROOTS since 2005, she serves on the Advisory Board for the Community Arts Network.

Nick Slie lives and works on the disappearing wetlands of coastal Louisiana. He is Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of the New Orleans based performance collective Mondo Bizarro. He is an actor, director, writer, educator and community activist. Nick’s performance work ranges from physical theater to multi-disciplinary solo work, from digital storytelling to collaborative ensemble productions. He creates original works of performance that are rooted in a particular sense-of-place reflecting the needs, desires, memories and possibilities of the community from which it is born. In the last two years, he has collaborated on a vast array of local and national performance projects that include: co-creator/performer for Mondo Bizarro’s FLIGHT and Catching Him In Pieces; co-creator/performer for the national tour of UPROOTED: The Katrina Project; dramaturge for olive Dance Theater’s Brotherly Love; co-producer of The State of the National Art and Performance Festival and co-creative director of Mondo Bizarro’s post-Katrina story project The I-10 Witness Project (www.i10witness.org). He serves on the Executive Committee for Alternate ROOTS and is the Board Chair for the Network of Ensemble Theaters.

Composer of music for theater, film, even television (once). Violinist, classically trained but working the other side too. Performing ensembles include the DeLuxe Vaudeville Orchestra, the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra & the Albany Symphony. Teacher of violin and director of string program at Glennwood Academy in Decatur GA. Vaudevillian, perhaps, depending on current definition.

I am a teacher educator who has some experience in various art forms but is primarily a "patron of the arts" and a researcher who uses "arts-informed" inquiry in exploring the experiences of schools and teachers. I use arts-based projects in my classes when possible but try to use my classroom and research as a venue for the work of working artists. My primary interest is in aesthetic education (as opposed to arts education) and have studied at Lincoln Center and with Maxine Greene. I want to increase my efforts to promote that approach in public education.

Jessica Solomon, Founding Producer of The Saartjie Project, a growing theatre company committed to exploring and transforming sterotypes and politics surrounding the black female body. The tumultuous life of Sara "Saartjie" Baartman (also known as the Hottentot Venus) is the catalyst for the boundary stretching stage presentation. Jessica was recognized as an “Emerging Artist” by the historical Lincoln Theatre and has participated in community theater and several documentaries. She is currently a youth worker, consultant to several art-centric organizations and is completing a master's program in Organization Development at American University. She can be reached directly at jessica@thesaartjieproject.org.