Living X Podcast

This episode was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.About "Freedom School"Freedom School is a large-scale community performance ritual in Detroit. Combining ancestral spirit work with modern Black and Brown spiritual technologies, The TETRA leads participants to sing, conjure, stomp, write, and shout their way through a night of 20 rituals. Liberation is as much an energetic fight as a physical one. Oppression is designed to keep communities of color stuck in lower vibrations. Freedom School explores each emotion, from shame to enlightenment, to create methods for how to unstick, safely feel, and freely move between them. Freedom School weaves lyric poetry, rap as interactive spell work (shadow choir), Afro-Caribbean drumming, and visual art installations into an experience described by audiences as an "initiation." About the TETRATHE TETRA is the Underground, an open secret for lion-hearted people looking to be free. Freedom is the art of becoming your highest self. This is a journey of rituals, ancestral technologies, and spirit work performed to activate a radical remembering that healing and wholeness are our birthrights. Here, we imagine a world beyond oppression and survival. Here, we not only thrive. We sing, dance, drum, and question into the storm until we become our own promised land.About "Spirit Plate"Spirit Plate is an immersive storytelling experience that uplifts the ancestral technologies of the people and the land here in Waawiiyaatanong (Detroit). Organized during Día de Muertos and the autumn Ghost Supper, the project uplifts and holds space for the indigenous cultural traditions of Mexico and the Anishinaabe. Unfolding over seven days, it features communal learning journeys, conversations, open studio events, and meals that culminate in a powerful live music performance of Spirit Plate. About Sacramento KnoxxSacramento Knoxx is a hardworking interdisciplinary artist with strong roots in Detroit from the southwest side. He produces a sound of electronic, indigenous, ghettotech, afro-latino, hip hop, soul, and rhythm & blues.Knoxx versatile background with different forms of music, allows him to blend traditional and contemporary styles creating dynamic storytelling experiences with live music performances, dancing, & video projections that take audiences on a participatory journey and a creative experience. Currently he travels nationally and internationally sharing interactive music performances, blending captured moments in life & creative imagery through large projection motion graphics. Building from raw experience and grit his works send vibrations to help assemble the worlds we want to live in.Want to know more. Visit artxdetroit.comhttps://www.instagram.com/artxdetroit/https://www.facebook.com/artxdetroit/https://www.twitter.com/rootoftwo/

This episode was recorded prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.About "Fly | Drown"FLY | DROWN is a month-long installation at the Detroit Artists Market that includes a series of performances, workshops, salon talks, and meals showcasing the ways Black domestic spaces provide sites for Black womxn to exercise acts of pleasure and self-sovereignty. The exhibition simulates Harge’s grandparents’ home in Highland Park, MI where they landed after traveling north during the Great Migration. Audiences sit in a living room on household furniture installed throughout the gallery to witness Harge’s choreography, becoming participants in the space and invited guests into the home. FLY | DROWN uses historical Black migration routes as points of departure from which to invoke the lineages of Black domestic spaces in the Midwest and gesture toward practices that both honor and queer our ancestral legacies. Aldridge and Harge invite scholars, friends, family members, and other artists to illuminate the personal and communal vernaculars of historical Black interiors.About Jennifer HargeJennifer Harge is a Detroit-based educator and movement artist. Her physical syntax embodies an ever-changing relationship to gravity, Blackness, and a teetering between surviving and thriving. Her creative research is committed to Black and queer vernacular gestures, codes, and rituals as ways of writing from and exploring histories that have been misnamed or gone unnoticed. In 2014, she founded Harge Dance Stories to create a movement and performance platform centering Black subjectivity. Harge has been recognized by various institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Washington National Cathedral, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Queer|Art, the University of Michigan, Duke University, and Wayne State University.About Taylor AldridgeTaylor Renee Aldridge is a writer and independent curator. In 2015, she co-founded ARTS.BLACK, a journal of art criticism from Black perspectives. Taylor has held a curatorial position at the Detroit Institute of Arts and has worked with the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art, and The National Museum of American History (Smithsonian Institution). She is a 2016 recipient of The Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for Short-Form Writing. Taylor has written for Art21, ARTNews, Contemporary And, Detroit MetroTimes, SFMoMA’s Open Space, and Hyperallergic. She received her MLA from Harvard University with a concentration in Museum Studies and her BA from Howard University with a concentration in Art History.Want to know more. Visit artxdetroit.comhttps://www.instagram.com/artxdetroit/https://www.facebook.com/artxdetroit/https://www.twitter.com/rootoftwo/

This episode was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.About "Our Voices Festival of New Plays"Culture, community, and education connect through Black and Brown Theatre’s Our Voices Festival of New Plays in which students write short plays which they direct and cast utilizing Detroit area adult professional actors, from Black and Brown Theatre’s database, drawing attention to the valuable stories of our community.About Emilio Rodriguez & Black and Brown TheatreEmilio Rodriguez is a playwright whose works tell the untold stories of underrepresented audiences. Focusing on a Latinx experience, Emilio creates a wide range of characters, from college students and teenagers in coming-of-age stories, to animals like sea lions. Emilio is the artistic director of Black and Brown Theatre.Black and Brown Theatre is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit theater that celebrates the voices of people of color onstage, backstage, and beyond the stage. Since its formation in 2016, Black and Brown Theatre has produced stage plays, workshops, and special projects for people of all ages. Black and Brown Theatre maintains a free digital database of actors of color in the Detroit area for local directors to cast stage plays, films, and other acting projects.About "Jit the Funk Up & Dance!"Jit the Funk Up and Dance! is a mini-concert and showcase that centers on Detroit’s techno sounds and its original urban dances: Jit and Funkateer. Hosted by QWNTYM, this event is packed with original music performances, DJ sets, choreography, and freestyle solos.About Ron "QWNTYM" Ford, Jr.Ronald Ford Jr. first began dancing at two years old, when he mimicked James Brown. Little did he know that 10 years later, he would be learning the only two original Detroit dance styles: jit and funkateer. Since then, he has been thrilling audiences in Germany, Korea, at the Palace of Auburn Hills, The Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre, and the Movement Electronic Music Festival’s main stage, to name a few. Along with his dance group, Unstoppables, he has danced for world-renowned acts such as Afrika Bambaataa, Run-DMC, Los Hermanos, and AUX 88. Using the stage name QWNTYM, pronounced “Quantum,” Ronald has also been composing electronic music for 15 years, mainly focusing on the Detroit techno and electro genres. His mission is to continue showcasing unique Detroit dances and music to the world. In addition to his music and dance endeavors, Ronald is also a playwright and director.Want to know more. Visit artxdetroit.comhttps://www.instagram.com/artxdetroit/https://www.facebook.com/artxdetroit/https://www.twitter.com/rootoftwo/

This episode was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.About "The Firefighters"Set to audio interviews collected over the past six years, The Firefighters is a contemporary puppet performance illustrating the effects that redlining and disinvestment in Detroit neighborhoods have had on the physical bodies and mental health of its firefighters.About Carrie MorrisCarrie Morris is a director and puppeteer who choreographs handmade objects to tell stories. The plays she stages are well-researched, involve multiple performers, and typically designed for adult audiences. Her works can be large scale (using life-sized elephant puppets) or small scale (3” silhouettes). In her performances, puppets are representations of bodies whose stories require clarity, urgency, and care to transmit.Carrie is interested in performance that includes multimedia elements, performing objects, and performance in experimental spaces. She was a Fulbright grantee in the field of performance art for multimedia shadow puppetry in Indonesia. Her creative work has been seen at NYC Fringe Festival, Detroit Institute of Art, Seattle’s Annex Theater, Detroit’s DLECTRICITY, and as a guest artist with the Grand Rapids Symphony. Her work has been supported by the Jim Henson Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. Morris holds a BFA in directing from NYU and an MFA in studio art from the University of Michigan. She is the director of Carrie Morris Arts Production (CMAP), an intimate performance space and forum for puppetry and theater in Detroit.Want to know more. Visit artxdetroit.comhttps://www.instagram.com/artxdetroit/https://www.facebook.com/artxdetroit/https://www.twitter.com/rootoftwo/

This episode was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.About "Cass Corridor Art & Beyond"Cass Corridor Art & Beyond tells the stories of a half-century of Cass Corridor artists, their importance, and the nuances and intricacies of their artmaking. Narrated by Bob Sestok, this live storytelling event uses photos, slides, and videos taken by Cass Corridor artists, providing an intimate portrait of this artistic community and their collaborative exchanges.About Bob SestokRobert Sestok is a sculptor, painter and printmaker who has worked in Detroit’s Cass Corridor since 1967. Together with other Cass Corridor artists, Sestok sought new forms and methods of artistic expression, using non-standard materials in response to civil rights struggles, the anti-war movement, and the pervasiveness of the automotive industry in Detroit. In 2015, he opened City Sculpture, a permanent public art space in Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood that exhibits three decades of sculptural work.Sestok’s work is in the permanent collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Cranbrook Museum of Art, and Wayne State University, among others. He has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Cranbrook Museum of Art, College for Creative Studies, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and Marianne Boesky Gallery. He is the recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.About "Neighborhood on the Edge"Neighborhood on the Edge is a sound and image installation featuring the voices and images of 10 Hubbard Richard residents reflecting a range of ethnicities, ages, and durations lived in the community. The installation involves 4x8’ portraits and other large-scale neighborhood landscapes by photographer Romain Blanquart, and a sound score edited from nearly 10 hours of residents’ testimonies installed at the Mexicantown Latino Cultural Center in the Hubbard Richard neighborhood.About Dr. Shaun S. NethercottDr. Shaun S. Nethercott uses immersive or mobile staging, audience engagement, and polyphonic voices to explore feminist, environmental, and other social justice themes. She has dedicated her life to creating plays that give voice to the unheard through structures that transmit their own meaning, and which engage audiences in personal, interactive, and place-based ways. Over her 30-year career as an artist, arts administrator, and activist, she developed and produced 32 new plays, including mobile works Fear and Faith, Raven’s Seed, and Ghost Waters; site-specific works Once Was Paradise and Boomtown 1925; and immersive pieces ’37-’87, Trial, and Mother Tongue. Most of her performances have integrated wide-scale community engagement activities developed in partnership with non-arts community organizations. As the founder of Matrix Theatre Company in Detroit, she has received numerous awards and commendations, including the Governor’s Art Award, Mattin Arts Award for work with at-risk youth, and the Theresa Maxis Award for Social Justice.Want to know more. Visit artxdetroit.comhttps://www.instagram.com/artxdetroit/https://www.facebook.com/artxdetroit/https://www.twitter.com/rootoftwo/

This episode was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic and before the August 4, 2020 tragedy in Beirut, Lebanon.About "The Detroitist"The Detroitist is a new anthology of Marsha Music's essays and lyric poems, focused on Detroit's history, mid-century transition, and contemporary changes. This anthology brings together the personal and the historical through writings on John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, and Detroit techno - as well as the 1967 Rebellion, and her years as an activist and labor leader. The Detroitist features “Requiem for a Record Shop Man,” Marsha’s narrative about her father Joe Von Battle’s record shop, Black Bottom; Hastings Street; 12th Street; and the Black experience in Detroit.About Marsha MusicMarsha Music was born in Detroit and grew up in Highland Park, Michigan. She is the daughter of legendary pre-Motown record producer Joe Von Battle and West Side Detroit beauty and music lover Shirley Battle. Marsha is a former activist and labor leader and a noted speaker. She has contributed to significant Detroit narratives, including Untold Tales, Unsung Heroes: An Oral History of Detroit’s African American Community, University of Michigan’s Living Music oral history project, and Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies: Lafayette Park, Detroit, as well as an HBO documentary on the Detroit Tigers. In 2015, she was commissioned to create a poem about Detroit for Tod Machover’s acclaimed Symphony in D, which she read in performances with Detroit Symphony Orchestra. A Detroit cultural luminary, Marsha was the opening speaker for the July 2016 launch of the Detroit '67 project at the Detroit Historical Museum and was commissioned to create a poem for the Belle Isle Conservancy. Music received a 2015 Knight Arts Challenge award and was a 2015 New Museum IdeasCity Detroit fellow. In 2018, she lost her husband, the artist David Philpot, and she feels his supportive spirit in this project.About "Raising Carlito"Raising Carlito is a documentary that highlights the challenges of imprisoned women of color raising their children. The film follows 10-year-old Carlito as he is being raised in Detroit by his paternal aunt, maternal grandmother, and imprisoned mother. The documentary takes a deep and personal look at the challenges he and his caregivers navigate both inside and outside of prison walls. Raising Carlito gives voice to the children and families navigating the complex circumstances and relationships stemming from incarceration.About T. MillerNatasha T. Miller is a performance poet, writer, LGBTQ activist, film producer, and founder of Artists’ Inn Detroit, a bed and breakfast for artists. Natasha is a three-time Women of the World Poetry Slam finalist and has been part of four national slam teams. In 2010, she starred in a national Sprite commercial and started her publishing company All I Wanna Say Publishing. Since then, she has published two books, Dreams of a Beginner and Coming Out of Nowhere, a social networking memoir about homosexuality, religion, and cyberbullying. Natasha has been on three national tours and performed at renowned venues across the country. She believes her purpose is to create change and peace like so many great leaders before her.About "marratein, marratein"marratein, marratein is a film about two cities: Detroit and Beirut. It is a film about belonging, diasporas, and the uncertainty of returning to a place to which one has never actually been. Shot on Super 8 to evoke the feeling of home movies, with voice-over excerpts from Lebanese American poet Etel Adnan, the film comments on the performance of tradition and the struggle of finding or creating one’s own sense of identity and cultural belonging at a time when such things have taken on renewed political and social significance.About Julia YezbickJulia Yezbick is a filmmaker, artist, and anthropologist. She received her PhD in media anthropology and critical media practice from Harvard University and an MA in visual anthropology from the University of Manchester. Her artistic work is grounded in long-term engagements with people and places and is often a critical part of her academic pursuits exploring labor and the body, the materiality of postindustrial urban landscapes, the senses, processes of creative knowledge production, and housing and the built environment. Her audio and video work has shown at the Berlinale Forum Expanded, MoMA PS1, the New York Library for Performing Arts, Pravo Ljudski Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Mostra Internacional do Filme Etnográfico, The International Ethnographic Film Festival of Quebec, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. She is a recipient of a Dan David Prize for plastic arts. Yezbick is the founding Editor of Sensate, an online journal for experiments in critical media practice, and co-directs Mothlight Microcinema. She lives and works in Detroit.Want to know more. Visit artxdetroit.comhttps://www.instagram.com/artxdetroit/https://www.facebook.com/artxdetroit/https://www.twitter.com/rootoftwo/

This episode was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.About "Detroit: 20 Minutes Apart"Detroit: Twenty Minutes Apart is a stage presentation that explores the neighborhood, family, and musical experiences of two musicians that grew up in very different neighborhoods, 20 minutes apart. One grew up in Detroit and the other in Plymouth, but they found commonality in art and music, forging a 30-year friendship.The program includes both popular and original songs that shaped their experiences growing up in Detroit with stories woven throughout. Archival photos and film join with personal family photos to chronicle the gentrification of one neighborhood and the near-destruction of the other.About Robert JonesRobert B. Jones Sr. is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist celebrating the history, humor, and power of American roots Roots music. He has been featured at blues and folk venues and festivals in the US, Canada, and Europe. Robert is also a nationally recognized storyteller and published writer, contributing to essay collections and appearing at the National Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, TN. As an educator, Robert has performed his American Roots Music in Education (ARMIE) presentations for over 250,000 students over the past 30 years. He has pastored the Sweet Kingdom Missionary Baptist Church on Detroit’s East Side for 15 years. Robert is the co-founder, along with Matt Watroba, of Common Chords, a nonprofit program that builds bridges between communities using music, storytelling, and art. About "Highland Park: City of Ogun"Highland Park: City of Ogun is a six-part musical composition that explores how Highland Park has changed through the lives and stories of its residents. Hayden interviewed community members during the Highland Park Music Festival, gathering the memories and narratives of different generations into a digital archive. Community memory is ephemeral; as we lose people through aging and displacement, the preservation of their stories increases in importance. Highland Park: City of Ogun preserves and protects these stories at a pivotal point in history by interweaving excerpts from these narratives as lyrics, improvisational themes, and word-scapes into a new musical composition.About Marion HaydenMarion Hayden is one of the nation’s finest proponents of the acoustic bass. Hayden is part of Detroit’s great jazz legacy, and was mentored by trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, pianist and composer Kenn Cox, and saxophonists Wendell Harrison, Donald Walden, and Charles Gabriel. She is co-founder of the groundbreaking women-led jazz ensemble Straight Ahead. Hayden has performed with Geri Allen, Bobby McFerrin, Regina Carter, Steve Turre, and Nancy Wilson.As an artist, Hayden works in the areas of jazz and creative improvisation, informed by the Black music traditions of gospel, blues and R&B. Her compositions are narrative driven and include work on the poet Phyllis Wheatley, the biblical book of Ruth, and a Solo Bass Score for “Eulogy for Detroit 1967” by poet Melba Joyce Boyd. She holds teaching positions at the University of Michigan, Oakland University, Michigan State University, and the Detroit Jazz Festival.About "Matrix X Detroit"Matrix X Detroit showcases music, spoken word and poetry, and dance to reflect the remarkable, unstoppable, and diverse Detroit community. This hour-long performance is anchored by three new original music compositions by Pamela Wise: “Adjusting to the Grid,” “New Faces and Places,” and “A Heart of Gold.” At its core, this work addresses the inequities of the current renewal and recovery taking place in Detroit.About Pamela WisePamela Wise is a jazz pianist and composer whose signature use of polyrhythmic meters traces that of her African ancestors, with a specific focus on West Africa. Pamela’s work has been showcased in collaborations with saxophonist Dave McMurray, violinist Regina Carter, saxophonist Wendell Harrison, and vocalist Naima Shamborguer. Pamela has multiple internationally recognized albums to her credit, including Kindred Spirits (2015) Pamela’s Club (2007), Negre con Leche (2002), and Songo Festividad (1994). Her compositions have twice earned her the Creative Artist Award from ArtServe Michigan. Pamela also serves as music minister at the Shrine of the Black Madonna. She is a sought-after piano teacher and is executive director of Rebirth Inc., a nonprofit jazz performing arts organization that produces live concerts and jazz education programs.Want to know more. Visit artxdetroit.comhttps://www.instagram.com/artxdetroit/https://www.facebook.com/artxdetroit/https://www.twitter.com/rootoftwo/

This episode was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.About AXDAXD is a city-wide, multi-disciplinary series featuring twenty-two newly commissioned exhibitions, performances and events developed by alumni Kresge Artist Fellows and Gilda Awardees immersed throughout Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park. The AXD curatorial theme is Living X. Living X explores the significance, ambiguity and uncertainty of this contemporary moment. The projects highlighted in this podcast series examine what it means to live and create in these undefined times - the X.About rootoftworootoftwo, LLC is a research- and practice-driven hybrid design studio led by Cézanne Charles and John Marshall. Formed in 1998, their work engages in civic future-making, using design methods to facilitate people to imagine and shape collective actions for more just, resilient, inclusive, and adaptive futures. rootoftwo creates innovative and tangible experiences, events, artifacts, spaces, methods, and strategies that allow us to perceive ourselves, the here and now, and the future differently. For more information visit rootoftwo.com.About the Kresge FoundationThe Kresge Foundation was founded in 1924 to promote human progress. Today, Kresge fulfills that mission by building and strengthening pathways to opportunity for low-income people in America’s cities, seeking to dismantle structural and systemic barriers to equality and justice. Using a full array of grant, loan, and other investment tools, Kresge invests more than $160 million annually to foster economic and social change. For more information visit kresge.org.Want to know more. Visit artxdetroit.comhttps://www.instagram.com/artxdetroit/https://www.facebook.com/artxdetroit/https://www.twitter.com/rootoftwo/

We welcome you to listen to the Living X podcast. In this trailer we provide an overview of what you can expect as you listen in to the stories of Detroit-based artists sharing what it means to live and work in times of great transformation. Want to know more. Visit artxdetroit.comhttps://www.instagram.com/artxdetroit/https://www.facebook.com/artxdetroit/https://www.twitter.com/rootoftwo/