Vision...
We are all searching for something: understanding, love, inspiration, validation. Life is a pursuit for illumination, the truth from our experiences.
And if it can be said that art imitates life, shouldn't art reflect that deep rooted quest; that yearning for wisdom and insight?
All too often we rely on inadequate means of solving problems; ones that isolate and divide us. We are offered options that repress, pen-in, and punish instead of restoring, uniting, and informing. Recognizing this deficit, I use the arts to transform society, to bring us back to the collective path and ignite the spirit with beauty and truth.
Welcome to my quest: artivista!
Great News!
I won a NY Emmy Award for Best Writing for my T.V. series We Are New York .
Finally, a TV show by, for, and about immigrants that broadcasts dignified and heroic characters living full, fabulous lives!
Learn more and get involved !
upcoming :
Theater and Civic Engagement Training in Kabul, Afghanistan.
I will be in Kabul for two weeks in July, 2010 working in partnership with the BBC World Service Trust and the Afghan Education Project.
We are holding a training for Afghan theater artists in Theater of the Oppressed techniques and arts-based civic engagement concepts.
good news :
The wonderful book I co-edited, is two years old!
To order copies visit: Routledge Press
... read a review of it.
Telling Stories to Change the World is a powerful collection of essays about community-based and interest-based projects where storytelling is used as a strategy for speaking out for justice. Contributors from across the globe--including Uganda, Darfur, China, Afghanistan, South Africa, New Orleans, and Chicago--describe grassroots projects in which communities use storytelling as a way of exploring what a more just society might look like and what civic engagement means. Together, these projects demonstrate the contemporary power of stories to stimulate engagement, active citizenship, the pride of identity, and the humility of human connectedness.
select press:
COLORLINES Magazine profiled me Read the article.
The Associated Press featured me in an online, multi-media article about artists in America who explore issues of immigration.
The NY Daily News wrote a feature article on me and my work (pdf).