Artistic Assistance Final Reports From Participants
Launching SPEED …
By Andrea Assaf
Through the support of the Alternate ROOTS Artistic Assistance grant, I was able to spend an intensive week in January 2011 with Carpetbag Theatre (CBT) in Knoxville, TN, engaging the mentorship of Artistic Director and playwright Linda Parris-Bailey, and exploring the possibility of collaborating on an exciting new work.
Over the next two years, CBT will develop a new play entitled Speed Killed My Cousin, a multigenerational, multi-discipline work by Linda Parris-Bailey, rooted in the story of an African American female combat soldier and her struggle with PTSD upon her return home. A third generation soldier, the central character considers death by vehicular suicide.
During this intensive exchange, we explored process, shared ways of working, and delved into the themes of the play, allowing me to learn more about CBT’s approach to new work development, and to explore concepts with an interdisciplinary team of artists. The experience expanded my toolbox for creating community-based theatre, especially work that deals with women’s issues, trauma and war, themes that are central to my own artistic work. Linda is a prolific and accomplished playwright, a nationally recognized arts leader, and has demonstrated throughout her life a tireless commitment to community-based, activist-oriented cultural work. I have tremendous respect for her artistry, her leadership, and her important role as a woman of color in the national and international arena of original theater creation. And although I’ve known Linda for years through ROOTS, the Artistic Assistance exchange was the first time I’d actually had the honor of working with her creatively.
In that week in January, we were able to have in-depth dialogue and visioning sessions with local veteran and organizer, Umoja Abdul Ahad, who is working with CBT as a Vietnam War consultant on the project, connecting key artists with veteran organizations in the area. We also lay the foundation for partnerships with the Highlander Center, and Tufara Waller Muhammad, who is interested in working with CBT to organize story circles with Muslim women in the region and relevant community organizations. As the project develops, these partnerships will lead to collaborations that directly address issues of racism, prejudice, class, and war with communities in the U.S. South, and beyond.
Speed Killed My Cousin directly relates to the mission of Alternate ROOTS by serving communities in the U.S. South, as a creation of original work rooted in place, tradition and spirit. It has the potential to inspire unique community dialogues, stories and creative exchanges that can bring together African American, Arab/Middle Eastern American and Muslim communities. The current wave of Islamophobia in the U.S. is impacting both Arab Americans and African Americans (as well as anyone who “looks Muslim,” all new immigrants impacted by racial profiling, and community activists, through the destruction of civil liberties under the Patriot Act and Homeland Security policies). Military recruitment also disproportionately targets communities of color and working class families. As more and more soldiers return home, with lasting physical, emotional and psychological injuries, we must face the impact of our choices as a society and confront what 10 years of war and violence has done to us as a nation. The in-depth exchange that ROOTS supported lay the foundation for doing that hard work of bringing communities together across lines of identity and experience that are often hard to cross, to address the current wars we are in, and their affects on our lives and souls—as veterans, as Americans, as people of color, as human beings. By engaging both African American and Arab American communities, with a focus on women’s experience, we necessarily have to confront and uproot deep issues of racism and oppression, in multiple and complex ways. Exchanges such as this help us build new solidarities and community collaborations for the future.
This initial mentorship-exchange with Carpetbag Theater was a wonderful experience, and led to CBT inviting me to direct the premiere production of Speed Killed My Cousin in 2012. This past summer, the project had a developmental residency at the Ko Festival in Massachusetts, and a work-in-progress reading at ROOTS Fest 2011 in Baltimore. CBT has received a NPN Creation Fund commission for this work, with co-commissioners Junebug Productions Mason/Rhynes Productions, which ensures that the play will tour to New Orleans and Washington, DC. One of CBT’s goals for this project is also to take it to the Women Playwrights International (WPI) festival in Stockholm, Sweden in August 2012.
The ROOTS Artistic Assistant grant launched not only a new artistic collaboration, but a multi-year journey for me, of working with Linda Parris-Bailey, Carpetbag Theater, the Knoxville community, and returning veterans. I am certain that I will continue to grow artistically, as a theater director and cultural worker, and as a human being, through this journey. I am thankful to ROOTS for this program, and for all the beautiful, hard work it inspires us to do.
Reflection on Work from Artistic Assistance Grant
HawaH
The Artistic Assistance grant that I received allowed me to develop as an artist and expand the reach of my work beyond literature. I have high hopes to continue and learn and develop my craft over the coming years, and specifically extend my experimentation with art into the realms of film and music. The grant provided me with a huge stepping stone to move closer to that long-term goal.
Through the mentorship and collaboration with Michelle Webb, a dynamic and gifted sound engineer, I learned how to successfully mix and produce my very own music. I also gained the needed confidence to do even simple audio production/ direct action news announcements with little equipment and just a microphone and basic audio software.
I was able to address the mission of Alternate ROOTS in this grant because it enabled me to further develop as an artist that wants to grow skills in a new field (sound production and engineering). By the end of the grant cycle, I was more autonomous and skilled at doing audio production on my own without significant outside help. Through the support of this grant, I was also able to create new original musical compositions that drive home important messages of environmental, social, and economic justice.
The grant support was not only beneficial to me, but also to other artists in the Washington, DC community where I serve. Through the grant, I was able to collaborate and build partnerships with local musicians and artist activists. I took time to bring them into the studio with me (and at times they too were receiving mentorship from Michelle Web), which gave them increased capacity to do their own audio production.
With my new skills I hope to create audio clips that are addressing current events in real time as they happen, instead of having to schedule studio time and making sure that someone else’s calendar is clear to help me. This will allow me to incorporate more multi-media work into my efforts and professional activities. I believe this independence, in the world of technological advancements, is essential to stimulating, fueling, and pushing forward the everlution!
How I Learned to Love My Website and Take Care of It
By Bailey Barash
http://bbarash.com/
I am very grateful for the Artistic Assistance Grant I received from Alternate ROOTS in 2010. It allowed me to complete the work I had begun in December 2009, to revamp my website in collaboration with Ana Willem, another ROOTS member and website designer who created the current ROOTS website.
I had worked with other web designers in the past but had never felt confident that I could follow up their work by changing text, links or images within my website myself. Ana's approach was much more successful. She said at the beginning of our work that because the information I put in would be web-based, I would not have to learn any programming language and that during the process of creating a new website that I, not she, would be populating the website with my choice of text, images, links and icons. This has indeed been the outcome; I am now able to load information onto the website myself.
The reason behind the effort was to put me in charge of my website, and in the process, make the website more modern looking and functional, incorporating more video links and interaction with visitors. Now it is much easier for the visitors to see everything I have to offer and sell.
Ana explained to me that the website format, drupal was her preferred choice because it was free and in use by many community-oriented groups. As described on the drupal.org website, “Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual, a community of users, or an enterprise to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website….”
And that “Drupal is open-source software distributed under the GPL ("GNU General Public License") and is maintained and developed by a community of thousands of users and developers.”
The plan was for Ana to set up the website with my choices of color and structure, using the drupal format, then for her to teach me how to add the text, links, images, logos and videos. I was admittedly intimidated by this process but Ana was persistent in assuring me that I could learn how to do it and it would make sense. This approach also appealed to me because Ana would only be doing half the work. I would be doing the other half, meaning her fee would be much less than it would be if she were doing it alone.
We worked together in steps. Ana taught me how to add still images, then text, and then links to videos. As we worked, she tweaked the set-up so that it would be easy for me to alter in the months to come. If there was a process that might be prone to mistakes on my part, Ana found a way to simplify that process and make it more intuitive and easier to remember.
We simplified the Pay Pal function so that my 3 documentaries could be purchased through my website. We added many more hot links to my films and to clients' websites. She added appropriate drop-downs and made sure in each instance the funders and supporters' logos are featured on the pages for each of my independent projects.
Through this process I learned that it is possible to have a major creative role in the design and maintenance of my website, using a modern format, with the help of a patient, experienced, generous, creative, capable website designer, teacher and collaborator. Here is the link to my website: www.bbarash.com
Here is the link to Ana Willem’s website: http://www.jellobrain.com/