EastSide Arts Alliance, Dnaga GirlProject Presents.

Lemonade Crunchy Ice

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17- MARCH 22, 2021

4-5:30 PM PST 

Online via ZOOM

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Power and Joy GP Fam! GP is gearing up for a new precious session of creativity and togetherness with Master Teachers Ellen Sebastian Chang, Tarika Lewis, Indigo Mateo, Hamida Yusufzai, and Claudine Naganuma!!!! We are excited y'all!. We got plans to play and build in this 4 part program celebrating Food, Art and Rituals. Every Wednesday 4-5:30pm PST Starting Feb 17- May 22. Fill out Registration form by giving a visit to girlproject.org for more details.

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EastSide Arts Alliance, NAKA Dance Theater, and Amara T. Smith Present...

LAIR: back and FORTH / Nicia De'Lovely

TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2021 at 7 PM PST

7PM PST 

Facebook Live

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Poetess/ARTivist

Oakland, CA native Nicia De'Lovely is an acclaimed published poet, creative, multifaceted artist, anti child-molestation/CSEC advocate, community servant and spirited survivor. She creates provocative survivor-based performances for education and healing of sexual traumas and other offenses committed against our marginalized populace under the production name, "Nicia De'Lovely Presents." In 2019 her provocative one-woman debut show, GET UNCOMFORTABLE, earned her a Best of the San Francisco Fringe Award. 

Since 2004 Nicia has sown compassion throughout the Bay Area by holding healing gatherings and reciting at women shelters, community centers, places of worship, grade school campuses and universities. As a former event coordinator for Sony Ent., she lends her skills to non-profit fundraisers, while continuing to host her own empowering community events throughout the year. Her once monthly Pad-bag Pop-up has become an anticipated event, where she invites community to join her in passing out toiletries to our displaced sisters.

In 2018, Nicia was called by her mentor Regina Evans to participate in a significant project designing a healing wall for Conjure and Mend, a safe haven for survivors and Abolitionists of CSEC, co-owned by Amara Tabor-Smith. The experience further nurtured Nicia’s enthusiasm for using multiple textures to create mesmerizing altars and backdrops. Since then, she has added textile artist and scenic designer to her portfolio, with work appearing in local premier productions.

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EastSide Arts Alliance, NAKA Dance Theater, and Amara T. Smith Present...

LAIR: back and FORTH / brontë velez

TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2021 

7 PM PST 

Facebook Live

Transdisciplinary artist
brontë velez

brontë’s work and rest is guided by the call that “black wellness is the antithesis to state violence” (Mark Anthony Johnson). as a black-latinx transdisciplinary artist, designer, trickster, educator and wakeworker, their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking & prophetic community traditions, environmental justice, and death doulaship.

they embody this commitment of attending to black health/imagination, commemorative justice and hospicing systems of oppression through serving as creative director for Lead to Life design collective, educator for ancestral arts skills and nature-connection school Weaving Earth, and quotidian black queer lifemaking ever-committed to humor & liberation, ever-marked by grief at the distance made between us and all of life.

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EastSide Arts Alliance, NAKA Dance Theater, and Amara T. Smith Present...

LAIR: back and FORTH / Zakiya Harris

TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 2021

7PM PST 

Facebook Live

Cultural architect and sh8peshifter

Zakiya Harris, affectionately known as Sh8peshifter, is a woman charting her own path in life. A Cultural Architect, she has over 2 decades of experience working at the intersections of Art, Education and Spiritual Entrepreneurship. Zakiya is the co-founder of nationally recognized projects Impact Hub Oakland, The Black Permaculture Network, Hack the Hood and a Culture Bank West Oakland Fellow. Currently, she serves as the Business Navigator for ArtsWeb, a decentralized community that connects community-based artists with business service providers. Zakiya is a published author and intuitive life coach on a mission to midwife purpose driven women from stagnation to activation through creativity and wellness. As a successful performance artist, she has released two EP’s and is also the company member of Ase Dance Theater Collective and House Full of Black Women. Awards and recognitions include the Ella Baker Center Future Leaders Award and YBCA 100. In 2019, she traveled to Osogbo, Nigeria where she became initiated as a priest of Oya in the West African Spiritual tradition of Isese. In her spare time, you can find her near a body of water, reading Octavia Butler, cooking with her 15 year old daughter.

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EastSide Arts Alliance, NAKA Dance Theater, and Amara T. Smith Present...

LAIR: back and FORTH / Jennifer Johns

TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2021

7PM PST 

Facebook Live

Jennifer Johns is a powerhouse, vocalist, songwriter, producer, activist, and entrepreneur who creates sounds, experiences, and products that are sure to stir your soul, inspire your mind and move your body.  
Ms. Johns has taken her brand of “afro-diasporic world music” all over the globe, rocking stages from Denver to Dusseldorf, Los Angeles to London, Kuala Lumpur to Kampala. Jennifer has shared line ups with some of the best in the business including the likes of Ms. Lauryn Hill, The Black Eyed Peas, Mos Def, Capelton, Ziggy Marley, Gil Scott Heron, Wyclef, Les Nubian, De La Soul, and Common to name just a few.  
Jennifer’s journey as a recording artist began in 2004 with the underground success of her first album, HeavyElectroMagneticSoularPoeticJungleHop. Songs like the title track “Heavy” with its accompanying artfully futuristic video, broke through the national and international underground soul and hip hop scene making Jennifer a notable force in her field.  
In 2008, Jennifer shifted her attention from the entertainment industry to leveraging her art for social movements. Immediately she began to find herself sharing stages with thought leaders like Reverend Dr. Michael Beckwith, Van Jones, Phaedra Ellis-Lampkins, Malkiya Cyril, Dr. Shawn Ginwright, and more. Her brand of soul-inspiring sounds has landed her gigs at The Kennedy Center, The Apollo, and on stage for both NFL World Bowl and The NFL Hall of Fame.  
Over the last 8 years, Jennifer has also become a Green For All Fellow, a BoldFood Fellow, Artist in Residence at Food First, the First Artist in Residence at Langston Hughes Center for Performing Arts Institute, and a Montalvo Performing Arts Guest Fellow.  
In February of 2016, Jennifer began a journey called The F.U.N. Manifesto to ask people about their ideas of freedom. What was meant to be a three-week trip became a 10-month odyssey that ultimately produced Jennifer’s first official release in nearly 10 years, AZANIA.  
While in most circles Jennifer is best known as a musician and activist, in the last 5 years since returning from Soth Africa, Jenn has explored more creative ways of being through performance installations and visual arts. In the summer of 2018, Jennifer presented Liv: A Ritual for Humanity at Montalvo’s Art on The Grounds where she simulated a citizen’s and ancestor’s arrest of a police officer. In the fall of 2019, she wrote poetry, story, and songs for reD:zONE a ritual and choreopoem. A stage performance on transmuting sexual trauma into the awareness of one's own divine power and joy. Produced by Kendra Barnes of K-Star Productions at Oakland’s historic Malonga Casquelourd Center. In the winter of 2020 Jenn presented Good Medicine at Zoo Labs, a series of images or "super -doodles", as Jenn likes to call them, accompanied by 3 songs produced by Kev Choice and vocals by Jenn. In the fall of 2020, Jenn collaborated again with Kendra Barnes and K Star Productions for a video installation featuring Movement by KKDE and music/story by Jenn under the working title Resilience in Joy. 
In the months to come, you will see more of Jenn's work through The F.U.N. Manifesto portal a place for Jenn's supporters to get to know one another. "After returning to cities year after year for shows, I began to realize that right in front of me was a little bit of everything a community needs to thrive- from bankers to teachers to developers to arts to students and though they lived in the same communities they didn't know one another. Music has the unique ability to bring diverse and sometimes divergent groups together in a way that when used well can change the world". Says Johns. Inspired by the ideals of groups like the Grateful Dead and Bob Marley, Jenn is building an online market

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EastSide Arts Alliance Presents...

LAIR Virtual:You Are Beloved Mural Reception

TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2021

6:30-7:30 PM PST 

Facebook Live

EastSide community! Join us for a virtual reception on January 12th at 7 pm, honoring the latest mural "You are Beloved" painted by great local graffiteras and muralistas: Cece Carpio, Leslie Lopez, Priya Handa, Frankie Gámez, Angelica Lopez, Inbal Rubin, and Sarai. "You are Beloved," the mural, is part of The Project Sarai Mural and Beloved: An Insistence, led by Regina Evans and Amara Tabor Smith in collaboration with EastSide Arts Alliance.

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We believe that art can be healing and transformative when the intention is clear. The Project Sarai Mural and Beloved: An Insistence are part of an ongoing commitment by artists, spiritual warriors, activists and abolitionists working together to end the culture of misogyny, child abuse, sexual violence and rape in our communities; and repair our collective humanity.

EastSide Arts Alliance uses arts and culture as a way to build community power and self-determination. We have been serving our neighborhood for over 20 years. We now have a third generation coming to our cultural center. We are dedicated to building deep connections between and among working class & low-income communities of color, communities whose histories, stories and cultures are actively erased from mainstream narratives. Through year-round programming at our cultural center and other public spaces in East Oakland, EastSide provides an example of how progressive artwork and the growing traditions of cultural offerings offer a creative framework for community solidarity and inclusivity. 

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Mural photo: Mark Lilly; Mural detail photos: Joe Keefe 

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The HAVEN Project, East Side Arts Alliance and RyanNicole presents..

HAVEN Video Premiere: Bay Area Artists for Housing Justice

On Sunday, November 1st HAVEN premiered a special video project by Bay Area Artists for Housing Justice. 

Full Length Video To Come​

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Featuring: RyanNicole, Jenn Johns, Kev Choice, Daveed Diggs, Goapele, Fantastic Negrito, Ruby Ibarra, Destani Wolf, Karega Bailey, Chris Riggins, Rocky Rivera, Gina Madrid, Zumbi, Alan Dones, Don Reed, and more!

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HAVEN is a cultural media production and distribution initiative for housing justice aimed at local Bay Area voters.  It is a project of EastSide Arts Alliance conceived by artist-activist Ryan Austin (RyanNicole).

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HAVEN engages local artists, media makers, experts, and leaders in the field to share their perspectives, experiences and testimonies on housing justice.  Through the creation and distribution of social justice media, HAVEN invites members of a community to radically imagine more just neighborhoods and cities.

We know that traditional campaign messaging can shift voter behavior for short-term electoral wins.  HAVEN hopes to use cultural media from popular and trusted artists to shift voter values and sentiments towards long-term and comprehensive, equity and justice actions and voting. Our supposition is that if popular media propagates songs, shows, fashion, and art that asserts a “brothers/sisters keeper” message, it will lead to a cultural shift towards collective caretaking, encompassing fair and equitable housing, education, medical care, etc.

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For more info visit http://havenprojectoakland.com/

EastSide Arts Alliance and dNaga Dance Company presents:

GIRL Project Virtual Hangouts:: Balance

Cyber Space via Zoom

Wednesdays 3:30-4:30pm 

Girl Project is maintaining weekly hour long hangouts via zoom where we kick it, take some time to catch up, create art, and get to see each others faces. All GP family is invited, alumni and current! 

Girl Project wants to remains here for our girls the best way we now how, by creating space and spending time together. Email to receive the zoom link and we will see you there!! 

And don't forget

HOLLA BACK VIRTUAL HOLLABACK ON IG

@Eastsidecultural