WATCH RECORDED EVENT

DESCRIPTION:
Explore the intersection of scholarship, art, and activism with museum curator, writer, and USC Annenberg civic media fellow Tyree Boyd-Pates; theatre educator and USC dramatic arts professor Anita Dashiell-Sparks; choreographer, composer, and USC Kaufman professor d. Sabela grimes; and illustrator, visual artist, and USC Annenberg civic media fellow Ashley Lukashevsky. In an urgent conversation moderated by USC cinematic arts professor Tara McPherson, they will discuss the role that cultural and educational institutions can play in advancing racial equity within and beyond their own walls. 

This event is part of Foresight Is 2020: Racial Justice and the Arts. Over four evenings of performance and discussion, USC faculty, students, alumni, and guests from Los Angeles and beyond will ask: What does a nation free of institutional racism look like, and how can the arts provide a vehicle for reaching it?

Bios:
Tyree Boyd-Pates, Associate Curator of Western History at The Autry Museum of the American West and History Curator and Public Program Manager at the California African American Museum, is a professor, writer, and speaker who expounds on Black culture from a millennial vantage and mobilizes communities of color through journalism, social media, education, and history. His groundbreaking history exhibitions have inspired thousands to visit museums and engage with history anew. A graduate of Temple University with a master’s degree in Pan-African Studies, Tyree Boyd-Pates is also an alum of California State University, Bakersfield.

Anita Dashiell-Sparks is an associate professor of theatre practice at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. She is a graduate of the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts’ graduate acting program at New York University. She is a Maryland distinguished scholar who pursued undergraduate work at the University of Maryland at College Park, earning a degree in theatre. As an actor based in New York and Los Angeles, she has graced the stage on Broadway, and has also appeared in numerous off-Broadway and regional theatre productions. 

d. Sabela grimes, a 2017 County of Los Angeles Performing Arts Fellow and a 2014 United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow, is a transmedia storyteller whose creative practice draws directly from Black movement systems. His dance-theatre works are a mix of socio-historical observation, self-examination, and speculative exploration. Sabela affirms that his primary intention is to center and amplify joy through expressive forms that play in the corrugated spaces of what he calls “Cosmic Blackness.” On faculty at USC’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, he continues to cultivate Funkamental MediKinetics, a movement system that draws on the layered dance training, community building, and spiritual practices evident in Black vernacular and Street dance forms. 

Ashley Lukashevsky is an illustrator and visual artist from Honolulu, Hawaii. Her work focuses on issues related to immigrant rights, racial justice, LGBTQIA+ equality, and gender equity. Through her art, Ashley seeks to call attention to oppressive power structures with the aim of dismantling them. She has communed and collaborated with various organizations including the ACLU, Reform LA Jails, Planned Parenthood, the California Endowment, and Al Otro Lado. 

Tara McPherson is Chair and Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Director of the Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Studies, and Chair of the Visions and Voices Faculty Committee. She is a core faculty member of the IMAP program and an affiliated faculty member in the American Studies and Ethnicity department. Her research engages the cultural dimensions of media, including the intersection of gender, race, affect, and place. She has a particular interest in digital media. 

Related Events (all times are PT):
The Intersection: Woke Black Folk
A Performance by Funmilola Fagbamila
Sunday, October 11, at 5 p.m.
Live via Zoom
For more info and to RSVP, click here. 

New Leaders Now: Artists Advancing Racial Justice
Monday, October 12, at 5 p.m.
Live via Zoom
For more info and to RSVP, click here.

Racial Radical: Generating New “Woke” Words
Wednesday, October 14, at 6:30 p.m.
Live via Zoom
For more info and to RSVP, click here. 

Presented by USC Arts in Action and USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative, in partnership with the Institute for Theatre and Social Change at the USC School of Dramatic Arts and the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab.