Sidewalk Festival 2021 Schedule

Saturday, August 14

Jefferson - Chalmers 2:00 PM - 8:00 PM
259 Manistique, DETROIT, MI 48215

2:00 Naima Shamborguer and the pick and roll band with ian Finkelstein on piano, jarebu shadid on bass, and djallo kate on Drums.

Playing straight-ahead jazz, jazz blues and Latin jazz.

3:00 Feel your heart and Moment by Joori Jung

"Feel your heart and moment" project is an interactive performance with the audience. Tea will be shared and a moment to walk and dance. Jung will teach Korean traditional steps with breath inhale and exhale. People can connect with their bodies through steps and join the group, as we will walk together and be connected "WE ARE ONE."

3:30 Thornetta Davis

Detroit’s very own “Queen of the Blues” ! Thornetta’s lastest CD Honest Woman, which she wrote and produced, has won numerous awards including eight Detroit Music Awards, 2 BLUES MUSIC AWARDS 2017 Nominations for "Best Song" and "Best Blues Album Emerging Artist" also Blues Blast Magazine Music Award for “Best Soul/Blues Album, Thornetta was also nominated for a 2019 and 2020 Blues Music Award for best Soul/ Blues artist female. Thornetta also received a French 2017 La Academie du Jazz Award for Best Blues Album. Thornetta’s live performances will leave you feeling uplifted and asking for mor

4:30 Cherise Morris, Visions of the Evolution

A healing ritual performance that inspires and affirms collective liberation. The Visions of the Evolution ritual-performances explore healing through visual/performative representations, sound/spatial design, ensemble performance, movement, and interactive healing practices and ritual rites, creating immersive experiences that engender individual introspection and collective reimagining. Visions not only ask us to critically contemplate what freedom, justice, and loving truly mean to us in individual and collective contexts but carves out physical spaces within public space for us to feel safe embarking on this intergenerational healing work and new-world building together. These spaces of communion and the liberatory act of collective ritual allow us to access a space of transcendence and connection and within that space, construct expanded archives of possibility together as we move through this liminal space between past and future to reassemble our world. Each installment of the project includes an original and distinctive interactive healing ritual designed and facilitated by me for audiences to engage with and participate in. Although this project doesn’t endorse, promote or abide by any specific religious or spiritual traditions, it grounds Black liberation in diasporic ontologies, cosmologies, and various ancestral ways of being, seeing, and understanding.

5:30 ahya Simone

Ahya Simone is a Detroit-based harpist, singer, artist, and organizer. She earned her degree from Wayne State University, where she was the principal harpist for the Wayne State University Wind Symphony in 2011. She has performed extensively in Detroit, and internationally in Scotland and Canada. Ahya’s versatile approach to harp and vocal artistry includes classical, jazz, and soul. She is also an emerging filmmaker, and was awarded a Knight Sundance Fellowhip in 2018. She is in the midst of developing “Femme Queen Chronicles,” a web-series sponsored by the Trans Sistas of Color Project and the Detroit Narrative Agency 2.0

5:30 FLY I DROWN by Jennifer Harge (located at 211 Manistique St on a porch)

FLY | DROWN is a dance folktale performance taking place on a porch in the Linwood-Dexter neighborhood. It is an interwoven story of two characters, elder and nyeusi, and moves between the mundane, the majestic, fact, and fable. nyeusi, a Sankofa bird from the ocean (and perhaps elder’s child from another lifetime) has been conjured into the home to teach elder how to find the flight in her flesh. This project proposal builds on a performance installation originally created in 2019 at the Detroit Artists Market. The work was a collaboration between curator Taylor Renee Aldridge and performance artist Jennifer Harge, platforming the ways Black women have used domestic spaces to exercise acts of pleasure and self- sovereignty. FLY | DROWN excavated the interiority of Black women’s lives and Black aesthetic making to trace corporeal and material cartographies utilized to obtain a Black freedom. The culminating work transformed Detroit Artists Market--a traditional storefront art gallery into a simulated version of Jennifer Harge’s grandparents’ home in Detroit, Michigan--where they landed after leaving the south during the Great Migration. While the 2019 version of FLY | DROWN was a solo dance performance executed by Harge, in which she played both nyeusi and elder, this iteration will transform the original structure of the work into a duet where Harge will perform nyuesi and a dance collaborator will perform elder. This new structure creates an opportunity to deepen character development and relationality. By being on the land that initially inspired the work, this iteration is an opportunity to honor the legacy of a specific Great Migration story and celebrate the many ways Black folks made homes for themselves as places of refuge in the wake of ongoing white supremacy in the early and mid 20th century. As Detroit continues to experience Black cultural erasure, FLY | DROWN platforms the ways Black folks have been here, and the ways we build worlds through cultural (blood) memory.

6:30 Michigan Opera Theatre curated by MOT’s artist-in-residence, Davóne Tines

Performers include Olivia Johnson (Mezzo Soprano), Avery Boettcher (Soprano), Brandon Hood (Baritone) with more TBA!

Heralded as a "singer of immense power and fervor" and “[one] of the most powerful voices of our time” by The Los Angeles Times, the "immensely gifted American bass-baritone Davóne Tines has won acclaim, and advanced the field of classical music" (The New York Times) through his work that blends opera, art song, contemporary classical, spirituals, gospel, and songs of protest, as a means to tell a deeply personal story of perseverance that connects to all of humanity. Called a “next generation leader" by Time Magazine, Mr. Tines is a path-breaking artist at the intersection of many histories, cultures, and aesthetics.

Mr. Tines is Artist-in-Residence at Michigan Opera Theatre—an appointment that culminates in his performance in the title role of Anthony Davis’ X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X in the spring of 2022—and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale’s first-ever Creative Partner. His ongoing projects include Recital No. 1: MASS, a program exploring the Mass woven through Western European, African-American, and 21st-century traditions, with performances this season at the Ravinia Festival, in Washington, DC presented by WPA, and at the Barbican in London. He also performs Concerto No. 1: SERMON—a program he conceived for voice and orchestra that weaves arias by John Adams, Anthony Davis, Igee Dieudonné and Mr. Tines himself, with texts by James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Maya Angelou—with the Philadelphia Orchestra and BBC Symphony.

Mr. Tines is a member of AMOC and co-creator of The Black Clown, a music theater experience commissioned and premiered by The American Repertory Theater and presented at Lincoln Center. He has premiered works by today’s leading composers, including John Adams, Terence Blanchard, and Matthew Aucoin, and his concert appearances include performances of works ranging from Beethoven’s Ninth with the San Francisco Symphony to Kaija Saariaho’s True Fire with the Orchestre national de France.

Davóne Tines is a winner of the 2020 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, recognizing extraordinary classical musicians of color. He also received the 2018 Emerging Artists Award from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and is a graduate of Harvard University and The Juilliard School.

7:30 Gabriel Brass Band

This Brass Band honors the rich history of New Orleans music while bringing fun and funk to you live and direct! Spearheaded by 5th generation musician Dameon Gabriel, with a few Gabriel family members and a host of close friends, continues the New Orleans flavor that the Gabriel family brought to the Motor City in the 1940s via New Orleans.

ONGOING PERFORMANCES, VISUAL & INSTALLATION ART:

Bubble therapy Experience by Reshounn ‘Sun’ Foster

This Bubble Therapy Experience celebrates the poetic, mental, and social benefits of bubble blowing. There is a need to calm down and re-center ourselves, to “come into unity” as a community. The intention of this synchronous bubble-blowing experience is to help cleanse the air, literally and metaphorically. The performances with bubble wands creating amazingly huge bubbles are such an awesome sight to imprint upon our collective minds and bring us into one accord. Blowing bubbles with our lungs, we'll breath take moments to breathe the same air in unison together. This activity is something we can all take to the Zoom meetings, opening or closing them with meditations or prayer.

portal: Fire by cyrah dardas, Paper street press co

An interactive installation and performance of the transformational power of fire and sacred rage. In this interactive installation, the artist invites participants to engage in a meditative drawing centering on the transformational power of fire and its resemblance to our sacred rage. They will be provided with paper and handmade ink made from ash and water and asked to consider the many formations and properties of fire. A drawing mediation is a reflective tool for kinetic relaxation and regulation. It creates space to process emotions in a safe and healthy way. Using art as a process, the practice of drawing mediations focuses on the healing power of drawing while engaging both the mind and body. The goal is not the end product but to reflect, regulate and replenish through the joyful act of creating.

Spectral Slumber :: Spectral Shade by Matthew Daher

An outdoor immersive sheet-fort installation permeated by ambient sounds and soft lights, providing participants with shade, space to sit or lay down, rest, rejuvenate, and receive various healing offerings. Live ambient sound baths provided by sound artist Matthew Daher, Reiki and other healing offerings from Ashley Lightsey-Thompson, and prompts and materials for written and non-verbal reflection will be available for participants. 

An Invitation by Meg Heeres (Paper making workshOp)

Paper-making workshop with found materials. All ages/abilities create their own personal invitation. One of the most important aspects of a party is the invitation. Writing to friends, acquaintances, family, and perhaps those you hope to be a friend, to invite them to engage. This outreach is an act of care, of belonging, and of vulnerability - opening up your heart, mind, and physical space to gather together. With this project, I am proposing a paper-making workshop where participants create their own invitations from found paper and objects that can be used as "inclusions" in the pulp that help contextualize the invite. These invites can be for something real, imaginary, aspirational, or challenging. For example, some participants may want to create an invite to an estranged family member to ask them to connect. Others may want to invite themselves to be more kind and generous to themselves. Perhaps a participant just wants to create a series of silly, fun invites to a real-life party. Participants will be able to learn simple paper-making processes and techniques that will provide them the skills to create at least one artwork that they can take with them. Once the paper work is dried (at home), participants will be encouraged to write their own personal invitation in whatever format feels appropriate. The act of paper-making, in combination with meaningful found objects, will be a way to make the outreach tangible and visceral, even if the invite never gets delivered. Paper-making gives us the opportunity to break down one material, to make anew. It is a metaphor for our relationships, both with ourselves, our communities, and the larger world, which are in a constant flux of healing, re-making, repairing, and hopefully some sense of healing

The healing memorial project by The riverfront conservancy and Cranbrook museum (art activity)

The creation of The Healing Memorial will be a summer-long engagement at the public sites programmed by the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy. The project was conceived by world-renowned and Cranbrook-educated artist Sonya Clark as an interpretation of her Beaded Prayer exhibit, which has traveled the world for more than a decade. For this project, residents will be encouraged to create a small memorial pouch (fits in the palm of the hand) using fabric from their loved ones or donated material. These fabric pouches will be gathered by the thousands to create a tapestry of memories to be displayed at Detroit’s TCF Center downtown. The first phase of the memorial will premiere on August 31, 2021, but the project will continue to take submissions and expand its physical footprint at the TCF Center. Facilitating this workshop is Halima Cassells.

bird watching and Gardening for wildlife by the Detroit Audubon with ava Landgraf

Watch and learn all about common birds and wildlife in Detroit, from bird calls and songs to the flowers that birds love! Join Ava for a hands-on and kid friendly activity.

Saturday, August 7

Joy-southfield 4:00 PM - 9:30 PM
189OO JOY RD, DETROIT, MI 48228

4:00 pm African dance performance

5:30 PM The attunement by Tene Dismuke/House of bastet (dance & installation)

The Attunement is an experimental piece combining the healing and performing arts to engage the audience and performers in a healing revival of mind, body and spirit. Using the visual arts, music, song and dance.... universal energy will be used to facilitate healing on all levels. This performance includes dancer/healer- Tene' Dismuke, musician- Aisha Ellis, vocalist- Maat Dismuke-Beaver, visual designer- Nivek Monet, stage technician- Tiamat Dismuke-Beaveri, and revival dancers-Mama Het Heru, Wild Spirit, Sophisticated Hips & Golden Moves Dancers. The company was founded in June 2009 by the dance instructors at the House of Bastet LLC., an empowerment center focusing on healing through all forms of dance & movement with the purpose of reeducating minds of the connectedness of movement and the original intent behind it. Energy is moved wherever they perform and the choreography is infused with cultural and sacred history and knowledge which blends Modern, Samba, North African, West African, Afro-Haitian, Cuban, Hip Hop, Jazz and Hatha Yoga.

6:00 PM QWNTYM

The Shuffles, Redemption, and Victory of Detroit Dance is a three-part, live performance. Shuffles represent our stumbles through lifeas well as the foundational steps of our city’s original dances: Jit and Funkateer. Healing comes through social interaction via learning the shuffles in order to assist the host: QWNTYM, in a multi-song set. Redemption is the second part of the project where the audience will be renewed and inspired by performances of Detroit legendary dancers. We will look outside ourselves momentarily and pay homage to a couple of dance groups from our city’s not too distant past. For the finale- titled Victory, DJ Deadline will turn up the music and supply a truly unforgettable dance set- the Detroit way!

7:00 pm Duality/Detroit

Duality/Detroit is a project led by Ian Finkelstein. Musically it is a hybrid of jazz, house music, techno, and hiphop. Sets are completely improvised and have included repertoire from artists such as Marcus Belgrave, Prince, Anita Baker, Omar-S, Underground Resistance, Marvin Gaye, Lyman Woodard, Aaliyah and countless others. Guest musicians frequently sit in, and musicians such as conguero Dez Andres, DJ Scott Grooves, saxophonist Marcus Elliot, trumpeter Allen Dennard, and vocalists Salakastar, Supercoolwicked and CJay Hill, have all made appearances at Duality/Detroit. The group is led by Ian playing keyboard and synth bass alongside drummers and percussionists, the most regular iteration being Marquis Johnson on drums and Dez Andrés on congas. This performance experience would include improvisations, possible guest musicians and overall freeform collaboration.

8:00 pm Community Sing with Brandon Waddles (Presented by UMS)

Dr. Brandon Waddles, a Detroit native, is no stranger to the city’s rich legacy of vocal music in schools. An alumnus of Renaissance High School, he was a member of the Renaissance High School Varsity Chorus, under the direction of renowned music educator Nina Scott. Waddles credits Scott and the late Dr. Brazeal Dennard as founding influences on his work in choral music. He went on to receive his B.A. in Music from Morehouse College (Atlanta, GA) and an M.M. in Voice Performance & Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College of Rider University (Princeton, NJ). Dr. Waddles earned his Ph.D. in Music Education with a Choral Conducting emphasis at Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL). Before pursuing his doctorate, he served on the Conducting and Sacred Music faculty at Westminster as conductor of the Westminster Jubilee Singers. As a composer, conductor, educator and music director, Dr. Waddles enjoys a multifaceted career spanning the musical gamut. His choral compositions and arrangements have been published and performed by choral ensembles around the world, including the Morehouse College and University of Michigan Glee Clubs, Oakwood Aeolians, Westminster Choir, Brigham Young University Singers and the Slovenian Philharmonic Choir. In 2019, he was awarded as the inaugural recipient of the ACDA Diverse Voices Collaborative Grant. For years, Dr. Waddles has worked as a transcriber of Black gospel music for numerous choral octavos, hymnals and hymnal supplements published by GIA, including his recent work as a contributor editor for the One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism hymnal. He recently released Just In Case You’ve Forgotten, the first selected compendium of works by the late Thomas Whitfield, the subject of his dissertation.

9:00 pm Iyawo Dance Theatre

ONGOING PERFORMANCES, VISUAL & INSTALLATION ART:

We Must Love Each Other And Support Each Other by Talking Dolls and One Custom City

We will provide four screen printing stations with each of the stanzas of Assata Shakur's chant for participants to print onto fabric. It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains. Community members can pull the print themselves or one of our team can complete it for them. We will immediately cure the ink so they can staple their fabric onto crossbars, turning it into a roughly 18"x24" hand-held banner. At the close of the event, a micro action— can be as simple as walking around the block—with our new banners will commence with music and chants. Participants will be able to take their banners home with them, but should anyone want to, they can donate their efforts to live in Talking Dolls' banner lending library. All members of the community are welcome to participate: all ages and we will ensure accessibility support for disabled folks. We will also be offering the option to print on clothing or bags brought by the community to the event, to be worn or displayed at the parade and beyond the day of the Sidewalk Festival. This will be an interactive, collaborative performance with the full community's involvement encouraged.

olivia rae gutterson

Under the name Lumenality, Gutterson will investigate the role of wonderment, nature, and light as a source of inspiration and peace. As a This is an immersive installation comprised of patterned, light cubes that double as seating and a vibrant constellation of intricate, handmade lanterns. This installation is an invitation to dream and hope in this moment of existing in the liminal space of where we have been and where we might go.

Lara Sarkissian and Levon Kafafian

Tension/Reflection is an immersive multi-channel sound installation and performance utilizing hi-visibility reflective threads as a generative source of sound. The performance centers on Vanagad, a spirit being of obsidian flame who weaves webs of light with her mythical qanun (zither), illuminating the night with thread and sound. Reflective thread will be installed throughout the space to reference weavings/webs in progress, tying into Vanagad's qanun (in the form of a shaped frame loom). When the threads of the loom are plucked, sound will be generated via the synthesizer modules attached to it. The technical and sensory qualities behind the sound in In Tension/Reflection are shaped by immersive experiences in physical spaces of spirituality, natural environment and architecture intended for communal gathering (such as the dancefloor or monasteries), and here enveloping the senses, connecting to ritual in music, ancient chants and electronic dance.

Saturday, July 31

chadsey-condon NEIGHBORHOOD 2:00 PM - 8:00 PM
6900 McGraw Ave, Detroit, MI 48210

2:30 PM MOTORCITY STREET DANCE ACADEMY (dance performance)

Tapping into the creative economy blossoming in Detroit, Fresh Classics exists to provide a dancing experience unlike any other in the city. Hailing from different cities and crews, Fresh Classics consists of Mav-One(Team Gurren), Just, Seoul(61syx Teknique/Crooks Crew), Roy Da 5’5(Vertical Ambition), and Shane-T. Knowing what it takes to succeed as performing artists they would need to work with the best of the best, which is why every member is a teacher, mentor, or director who has spent years traveling in the competitive street dance scene. The group formed in 2016 rallied around raising the bar for street dance in Detroit & challenging themselves to bring a fresh style of movement to the forefront while carrying on the classic traditions they spent years training in. Fresh Classics bridges multiple styles with dynamic movements over a wide array of genres of music. Supporting many local artists and performing for some of the biggest names to come into Detroit, Fresh Classics always delivers!

3:30 PM wilder/ried duo (music performance)

Kaleigh Wilder and Everett Reid come together to form this new, burgeoning duo. They each embody distinct musical upbringings: Everett’s foundation on the drums is embedded within the jazz tradition, but he also has roots in electronic music; Kaleigh’s musical roots are mostly classical, but she diverged to embrace free improvisation. While their musical upbringings are different, they share common threads that make for a rich collaboration. The diversity in their backgrounds creates a spontaneous, melodic, raw, rhythmic, and spacious sound. Their process involves deeply engaged listening, musical trust, discussion, and ample free play in order to synthesize this wholly new sound. The two musicians together reach depths of extreme vulnerability as their musical expressions are laid bare. Kaleigh composes works for the duo that are set against completely free improvised pieces. Her compositional style is still evolving, but this duo has allowed her to experiment with through-composed pieces, compositions that deal with orchestration rather than notation, and pieces that take on jazz compositional forms yet have the element of completely free improvised solo sections. Kaleigh is continuing to compose for the group so they can perform in Detroit and, eventually, beyond.

5:00 PM BALLET DE FOLKLORICO

Ballet de Folklorico’s mission is to preserve the Mexican culture and heritage by offering dance instruction to those who wish to grow in the Mexican Folkloric Arts while providing youth the opportunity to be a positive influence in their community. Led by Lance Rodriguez, a choreographer, teacher, and artistic director with over 18 years of dance experience. He has studied and performed with various troupes, choreographers, professors and maestros of Mexican Folklorico. He began work as a choreographer in 2013 when he established Ballet Folklorico De Detroit, growing from 4 dancers in a church basement to a 40+ member performing troupe. He has choreographed dances using the historically correct style of dance required of folklorico while keeping the dances fresh with modern choreography. He has danced at hundreds of venues including the White House.

6:30 PEREGRINA (peregrine)

Director Karilú Alarcón Forshee

PEREGRINA (peregrine) is a performance that blends experimental theater, music and movement. It is rooted on the religious term PEREGRINA which represents the person who embarks on an extensive journey to a temple or sacred place as a symbol of faith and commitment to god. In the piece I explore the female perspective, women embarking on a journey to that sacred place of justice and freedom as a commitment not to God but to one self. The piece navigates through problematic situations such as the stories of many women victims of femicides in Latin America. These being the consequences of a disease that affects women from all walks of life. Through the exploration of pain, anger and resilience we will walk the creative journey to liberation. A liberation that comes from, self love, sorority, LUCHA (fight) and hunger for a shining future. Exploring the femicides specifically from Juarez, Mexico puts a light on how we have to face the ugly in order to free ourselves and those around us. This symbolic theme was chosen to wake up our shared humanity and take the hard path towards change. It is vital to be shook by reality in order to move forward. We will navigate the feelings as we give ourselves and the audience permission to feel hoping to connect, heal and liberate ourselves.

Cherry Wood

The Cherry Pie Contest is an immersive performance installation piece that speaks about personal grief and the US job market disparities for minority communities. Through studies and facts carried out by corporate America, The Cherry Pie Contest juxtaposes an array of personal feelings dealing with death and sexual innuendo alongside behavioral shopping characteristics adopted by minority communities. The piece comes to life using live and prerecorded voice-over and sound effects, with ritually inspired shamanic and folkloric mestizo performance activities that interact with the audience. The cherry pies are the conceptual reward, uneatable and soured. With a sound collaboration performance with Josué Emmanuel Fierro.

Arturo Herrera, aka Cherry Wood, is an American mestizo artist from Honduras via Canada living in Detroit. Wood's work is autobiographical, exploring national boundary issues, including the politics of race and language, borders, and sexuality. Wood's most recent work, Dole Sessions, is currently featured at the Art Gallery of Windsor in Canada. Previously Its work has been featured at the Montserrat College of Art, at the University of Michigan, the Detroit Historical Museum, the Detroit Public Library, the Venice International Performance Art Week in Venice, Italy, and many others.

Josué Emmanuel Fierro was born in El Paso Texas, in 1989. Fierro is a mixed media multidisciplinary artist and musician working primarily in sculpture, installation, printmaking, and performance. Fierro earned his BFA in Sculpture/Printmaking from the University of Texas in El Paso and his Masters of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Arts in Bloomfield Hills Michigan. Josué currently lives in Detroit Michigan and works in the service industry.

ONGOING PERFORMANCES, VISUAL & INSTALLATION ART:

HEALING SESSION BY DEON JAMAR

Enjoy a healing dance party with sounds provided by DJ Deon Jamar throughout the day!

interactive street mural by freddy diaz

Come paint with us! Muralist Freddy Diaz invites festival goers to help create a street mural throughout the day. Coming from a graffiti background since 2005, Freddy is an internationally known artist recognized for his versatility in artwork that varies from murals, canvas, sculpture and clothing. Taking a root from graffiti art, SW Freddy was started as a way to enhance the community he has grown up in as a way to build a platform and relationships with local and international business owners. As a result, over the years SW Freddy has been able to tie into the corporate market as well as the art gallery culture.

"For our loved ones" Aztec Dance, ceremony and Ofrenda installation.

This project provides an interactive experience of building a "Tlalmanalli" (Aztec day of the Dead altar), which focuses on ritual, community healing, in a meaningful native way. Artist, Kia I'x Arts will guide the audience in building this altar while we listen to traditional music, explaining its significance for the Day of the Dead celebration. The altar will be made of organic materials and flowers, and will be built on the floor. We finish our community ofrenda with a traditional Aztec dance demonstration.

Subterranean Garden by Josh Kochis

Subterranean Garden is a big collection of sculpture made mostly from scrap material in direct response to its immediate surroundings. In an alley, it would end up looking like an assemblage relief mural built onto a long row of pallets or wooden fences that gradually accumulates depth and variety as community members add to it. In a public garden, the process could result in large decorative raised beds for food crops or flowers. Taking place in a park, part of the installation might incorporate freestanding potted plant sculptures embedded with native grass or wildflower seed that would potentially sprout from the sculpture itself, or once the structure has deteriorated into a pile of wood and dirt. The results are open-ended, but will be made collectively and built from as much locally sourced material as possible.

LAMARRE AND DANCERS

Lisa Rose LaMarre Wilmot is a choreographer testing the boundaries of performance-based responsive artwork and screen dance: working to bring dance away from the stage and into the realm of everyday life. Lisa has created over 100 original live art performances, 6 dance films, and was a 2018 Kresge LiveArts Panelist. Her focus is on the utility of the human body in response to sites, sounds, and surrounding stimulates. She is the director of LaMarre and Dancers, teaches at Wayne State University, and is a teaching artist for Michigan Arts Access where she shares dance making with special education classrooms.

Lisa holds a Master in Arts in Teaching Artistry, in Theater and Dance, from Wayne State University and a Bachelor of Arts from Western Michigan University where she was a Presidential Scholar. She is a member of both Michigan Dance Council and National Dance Education Organization. Her work has been produced for Wayne State University, Grand Valley State University, Oakland University, ArtPrize7, Defibrillator Gallery, DDCdances, People Dancing, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit Contemporary, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Music Hall, Sidewalk Detroit, ArtPeers, Multikulti, What You Will Festival, WNUR, Hatch Arts, Pubic Pool, Chicago Calling, Rapid Pulse, Access Arts, and numerous public and private spaces nationally. Lisa has been a seed grant recipient for ArtPrize 7 premiering “They Were Displaced...And Again” in an unused house curated by res345 at The Rumsey Street Project. Her film “mechanical response” was exhibited at N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, and most recently she’s been investigating intergenerational exchanges and how authentic movement can generate vulnerable, honest dance in response to the environment and the people sharing energy in that space at the same time.

SOFA STORIES BY ANDREW MORTON

Sofa Stories is a community arts project using live theatre and digital media to amplify the stories of young Detroiters who have experienced homelessness or housing insecurity and have resorted to couch-surfing as a means to survive. Performed by actors sitting on sofas to one audience member at a time, at any given performance, an audience member will experience an intimate solo performance exploring an aspect of youth homelessness and housing insecurity and learn more about how they can support local efforts to end youth homelessness in Detroit.

RAIN DATE IN EFFECT: Sunday, July 25

DEXTER-LINWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD 2:00 PM - 8:00 PM
12041 DEXTER AVE, DETROIT, MI 48206

2:00 pm STUDIO DETROIT (DANCE PERFORMANCE)

STUDIO DIRECTOR ANGELA LYOD-BLOCKER
Throughout her career, she has built an impressively decorated dance resume. Angela has worked alongside distinguished entertainment industry leaders such as New York “Harlem Nutcracker's” Donald Byrd; actor and choreographer, Savion Glover; singers Mandy Moore and Ginuwine; Dance Theater of Harlem creator, Arthur Mitchell; the late Marcus Belgrave; Bill Summers; Debbie Allen; and actresses Robin Givens & Drew Sidora. Most notably, Angela danced as lead principal dancer for the late Aretha Franklin.

3:00 pm DANCING IN THE STREET (WORKSHOP)

CHOREOGRAPHER/INSTRUCTOR PAULETTE BROCKINGTON
Paulette Brockington will lead a workshop for all ages and abilities featuring street dances of the 50s and 60s. She currently holds 2 positions at Michigan State University as an Assistant Professor of Dance in the Theatre Department and as a Master Teacher in the Michigan Traditional Arts Program. She is a former Arts Educator of the Year and Michigan Heritage Award Fellow. She directs A Company of Dancers, The American Lindy Hop Championships and has an online and downloadable dance app called Savoy Dance Bums. Additionally, she is a Fulbright Specialist for World Learning in the US State Department with a 3-year appointment ending in 2025..

4:30 pm “Spirit of Water” (DANCE + LIVE MUSIC)

CHOREOGRAPHER MARSAE MITCHELL
Water reflects, cleanses, transports, and revitalizes but water can also resist, rebel, rise up destroy, and reform. Performance will consist of live vocal and instrumental music and the embodied evocation and interpretation of the power and spiritual connection that water has on the African Diaspora.

5:30 house of jitt (dance)

House of Jit is a collective group of artists specializing in Detroit's footwork style known as Jit. The company was founded by three dancers who share a passion for Jit. Michael Manson and James Broxton showcased Jit to the sports world as NBA dancers where they danced alongside with artists such as Flo’Rida, Bell Biv Devoe, Bobby Brown, Mc Hammer, Jay Sean, Morris Day, T-Pain, Salt N’ Pepa, 112, Sheila E, Debbie Gibson, and Robyn S. Michael Manson, our leader, was featured on a television show called So You Think You Can Dance performing the Detroit Jit. He was also able to take Jit around the world such as Paris and Bolivia. Michael Manson was recently nominated as a 2020 Kresge Fellowship grant winner for his visual arts of the Detroit Jit. Recently, Lilanie Karunanayake (Lily) has become a member of the team and the three artists want to make a difference in the dance community, as well as continue to spread Detroit Jit culture.

6:00 Telephone (the dance game)

AJARA ALGAHLI + MELINDA ANDERSON
You’ve heard of the game telephone, right? Ajara Alghali, urban planner and dance practitioner of Culturvated and TeMaTe Institute collaborates with Melinda MeMe Anderson - Designer and Creative Director of Studio M Detroit, to bring to you the game of “Telephone”. But, wait….what happens when you use west African dance as the mode of communication?

7:00 community singing

THE HINTERLANDS FEATURING SIMONE CATO
The Hinterlands is a Detroit-based company creating performances and public events equal parts playful and surreal. Through an ongoing physical and vocal practice that undergirds our collaborative process and catapults across disciplines and contexts, our work pushes into the unknown parts of personal and collective history with fearless physicality and a sense of humor. The Hinterlands was founded in 2009 by Richard Newman and Liza Bielby.

INTERACTIVE & INSTALLATION ART

IMMERSIVE FLOWER MEMORIAL BY VILLEKULLA FLORA

Ollie Dodt is an interdisciplinary artist and flower farmer. They founded Villekulla Flora in 2018. Villekulla Flora is an urban flower and herb farm, a perennial work in progress and a social space striving for intersectional queer sanctuary

6:00 PM FEATURING PERFORMANCE BY CHLOE WHITING

Chloe Whiting Stevenson is a physical theatre performance artist, director, and instructor based out of MI and OH.  She specializes in butoh dance, circus arts, stage combat, and mask work.  Her piece, “I am _____ and I have become ________ “ is a piece that invites the audience to fill in the blanks to these questions if they would like. Chloe will be using these answers, as well as answers previously collected, to create a performance art piece based in movement and danced in memoriam to how this past year has shaped, changed, and influenced us as individuals and as a community.

INSIDE/OUT

Founded in 1995, InsideOut's goal is to transform the lives of students in metro Detroit through the written and spoken word arts.

Title: Poetry for the People - InsideOut Literary Arts Youth Poetry Workshops and open-mic and chalk and marker art.

Guest Artist: Stacey Malasky

Bio: Stacey Malasky is a Detroit based artist, teacher and screen printer. The prints and drawingsshe creates are often inspired by plants, animals, nature and telling a story through images. Sheis endlessly fascinated by the world around her, especially her backyard eco-system. She is a founder and former owner of Ocelot Print Shop, a community screen printing shop and artist collective in Detroit’s Cass Corridor.

How Can I Pray For You? A Prayerful Offering of Art & Performance

ARTIST YVETTE ROCK
As participants share, I will share back. I will offer a live on-site performance and/or create a work of art as a gift of healing. Being heard is healing. Being given a gift freely - one of which many are accustomed to paying for - is an act of rebellion. As individuals share their heart/thoughts/prayers, whether it's towards a loved one, to pray for equality, to fight for social justice, to pray for inner peace, etc., I will make myself available to my sharer. My hope is that the giving of myself through performance and art- making will bring healing to those I interact with. And that the healing they experience will be shared with others which can lead to communal revival!

MURAL ART BY RAFT

Our objective is to attract and retain local, regional & non-regional Creatives, and their entrepreneurial capacities, to the metropolitan Detroit area.Founded in 2015, R A F T is a nonprofit organization and is a collective of creatives whose aim is to curate and incubate other creatives in the Detroit area and worldwide. We offer an apprentice/mentoring programming for youth, creative consultation for cities and municipalities, event planning and curatorial services..

Guest Artist: Trae IsAAc 

Bio: I Am Trae IsAAc; driven by a genuine passion for manifesting awe-inspiring and psychologically empowering pieces of art. Based on my life as person who has had to find power through loss and peace through discomfort. Primarily raised by my grandparents, losing my youngest brother and mother to cancer in my mid-teens were and still is the primary fuel to the fire that I use to push myself to create and provide for my family through art. What inspires my psyche is a need to do and be greater for myself and those around me who I in-turn inspire and motivate. My artistic inspiration derives from the aesthetics and cultures of ancient Egypt, India, and Japan. I take those inspirations and combine them with the philosophies I’ve learned and developed, to create the images I do to this day