AFROLOGICS NEWSLETTER: step ball change

Howdy,

Cue music "Brand New Day" from the Wiz and lets get our happy ending underway! Okay, so not exactly. Day one has brought the closure of Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, an end to the "global gag rule" on family parenting funding, but in municipalities across the nation, art instruction of all types is on the chopping block and education is hanging by a thread. LAUSD has still not paid those artists who'd completed their contract at the end of December. Community Colleges are reducing offerings. This week, the UC announced a reduction of the incoming freshman class by 6%. Large companies like Intel and Clear Channel are downsizing at a rapid rate, and other businesses have just called it quits altogether, witness Circuit City. The retired are realizing that they have to get back to work, and the young adults who can't get those courses at the CC or can't get into a Cal State or UC are also out on the prowl for jobs. It is a New Day, but it is one that requires inventiveness, optimism and daring. Gotta dare not to get caught up in the dire sounding statistics and risk being the lead innovator on community-enhancing projects. Cue that music, but use it to set tempo while you work.

Afrolicious. Afrologia. Afrodelic. Afropoesia. Afrologica. How big is your 'fro?
Fractal, improvisational, polemical, but always moving with spirit and in service to lifting us all up!
That's the Logic of the Afro--sign up, read up, be up--you can move mountains, now make it beautiful



BLOWIN' BACK DA 'FRO this week is the continued burgeoning of microdance productions. This week you can see dance in an industrial, in a highrise building, and in a venerable performance space. This type of art making is a great model to help us invigorate and focus discussions of change. So get out and check some of these performances as research...



TONIGHT -- LOTS of tough choices this weekend!
FIVE THIRTY THREE
533 S. Los Angeles St., 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA
Still Point: Harmony, Justin and Hana
Friday, January 23, 2009 & Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 8:30pm; $15 at the door, no reservations.
A choreographic analysis of a poem by TS Eliot, Four Quartets, Still Point will instead feature six solos that examine stillness.



HIGHWAYS
1651 18th Street, (at the 18th Street Arts Center), Santa Monica, CA 90404
Amour, Where Are You?
Friday and Saturday, January 23-24, 8:30 pm
French actress and performance artist Nathalie Broizat’s addresses the universal subject of love and romance with this fantastically surreal dance-theater delight. Broizat does pretty good clown work and is quite funny. Something to check out tomorrow.



SANTA MONICA BAY WOMAN'S CLUB
Oni Dance performs : wasteland ( arrival)
Friday, January 23 & 24 at 8:00 pm; Sunday, January 25 at 7:00 pm
Maria Gillespie's newest work since 2007, this is likely something you should go check out to see what this well-regarded choreographer has been up to while deep in the tool shed.


USC FISCHER MUSEUM OF ART
El Mexorcist 4:America's Most Wanted Inner Demon
Wednesday, January 28 from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Guillermo Gomez Peña at USC for FREE
The legend carries on. Go check him out.
and
HOLLY HUGHES
will be at UCLA at exactly the same time, further underscoring how much this city rocks and sucks at the am time. Pick one, you can't miss.
GLORYA KAUFMAN HALL ROOM 208
The Center for Performance Studies presents: A presentation/performance by Holly Hughes
"The Post Racial Poodle? A Dog and Pony show (bring your own
pony)"
Wednesday, January 28 at 4pm
"A world-renowned lesbian feminist performance artist and playwright with a flair for telling the outrageous stories of everyday lesbian life, Holly Hughes has has won two Obie awards for excellence in off-Broadway theater for her plays Dress Suit to Hire (1988) and Clit Notes (1990) She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Drama at the University of Michigan."


BARKER HANGAR
3021 Airport Avenue, Suite 203, Santa Monica, California 90405-6101
Art-LA show
Jan 22- 25, 2009; Friday & Saturday , January 23 - 24, 11am-7pm;Sunday, January 25, 11am-6pm 1-day pass $15
Santa Monica knows how to do art, or at least they half kill themselves trying. Go out and marvel at the genius and try not to get sticker shock. MOCA had its logo on this one.



LA CONVENTION CENTER
West Hall A, 1201 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Los Angeles Art Show,
Thursday - Friday January 22- 25, 11am-8pm,;Sunday January 25, 11am- 5pm $15 at the door with on-line cupon
to be totally confused with the older one running at the Barker Hangar. They each have been touted as things to see. I guess there was a divorce and the thought splitting the audience across the 10 freeway was a good idea. Can you imagine the shuttle ride this wet weekend?! Anyway, it is almost done, hope downtown tonight for a cocktail at a trendy hotel and you are bound to trip over some of these conventioneers. LACMA had its logo on this one. Geez. Worse than having divorced and remarried grand parents on both sides.



coming up:
decaDANCE, 10th annual Grad Student Concert @ UCR, Feb 20th - 22nd
Bricklayers With A Sense of Humor @ UCLA WAC, Feb 25th
Dance As Civic Duty Lecture Series is on going. Find us on Face Book or on my academic blog, The Gesture and The Citizen (yes, maybe I do need some lithium...)


ONGOING CLASSES & WORKSHOPS
DanceBank rocked it this Saturday and will do so next week.
I will have more international trips to announce next week. Still got my Obamalerium going...



LOVELY!
So when I started writing this a few days ago, the report about the California budget had not surfaced. I also had not recognized just how much energy I had deposited in the big celebration of Black president's Day, so right now, I am having to source power literally from the air. If you are here in SO. Cal, you know that it has been not exactly the best of times to look for sustenance from our local air! So, more than ever, I need your energy, your presence. The same is true for each of you. Tonight there was an earthquake, reminding me that I need to get better prepared--I live in a tsunami evacuation area--and also instruct my children better. To get souped up and ready to make these micro/personal changes, I've been listening to Obama songs, watching videos of my peeples creating dances to celebrate the O and laughing at comedians and impersonators, all celebrating this great change. Yeah, I kinda played hookey from the newsletter this week, simply because I am finally awe struck! I worked during the inauguration, doing a soft launch of the American Ways Network with Aimee Allison. We are still building it out, but it is well on its way. I'm pretty proud of it and the potential it has to help our nation join the global effort to recreate humanity. So I really missed the enormity of the day. It is hitting me now as are other things...

With the state's economy as it is, it is incumbent upon each and everyone of us to find alternative means of income and do it in ways that help others. Cause for reals, sometimes you only gonna get paid with a meal and that will be EXACTLY what you need at that moment. So get your earthquake kit ready--cut-backs mean first responders will be fewer; get crackin on that veggie garden--don't bother to get in line for a community garden plot, make one of your own in a box; finally join that carpool cause gas went back up and the roads will not get repaired; those who can, prepare to homeschool in groups cause the schools might not have enough to get through the end of the year; gather around those who have been laid off in your community and see what they can do for you in exchange for your help--build a Community Hours Bank that trades and barters labor for labor instead of requiring cash;and listen to music and dance a lot--throw potluck parties, shut down your block and meet everyone and then ask if they are earthquake ready, if they have money for their meds, if they need help to eat, if they have space for a garden, if they are concerned about school for their kids, if they need a carpool, if they want to get the arts centered in the community; and laugh and sing and dance and eat. Yes We Can. Y'all, we've got to. Do not underestimate your importance one to the other. Stay in touch and know that like Obama said, "we are the ones that we have been waiting for." At no time in this amazing ride has this been more true.

in love,
-Anna

RESOURCES
http://www.cleanairgardening.com/pots-planters.html
http://www.urbanfarming.org/foodchain2.htm
http://www.artsforla.org/
http://www.k12.com/
http://www.ithacahours.org/
http://www.erideshare.com/?gclid=CMeE1_aCqZgCFQHHGgodkRrmnQ
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/preparedness.php