Afripop Sessions, at MoCADA museum in Brooklyn last night, put me on to an amazing soul/folk/electronic singer-guitarist, Denitia Odigie. I have a new music crush. Check out this little vid I shot of "Lay Our Burdens Down," made even more poignant by its juxtaposition to the Katrina-inspired performance video art, by Tameka Norris, playing on the back wall.
Check out her band Denitia and Sene, on a U.S. tour through December 11.  And read an interview of Denitia and Sene in Interview Magazine.

Also check out the a/wake in the water exhibit at MoCADA, curated by Erin Christovale, on display until November 30. Artists include my film colleague Danielle Lessovitz, whose short film The Earthquake deals with the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake on an immigrant family in New York City; Wanuri Kahiu's Kenyan sci-fi thriller Pumzi; and the post-global warming apocalyptic drama White. Watch a PBS interview online with White director A. Sayeeda Clarke. --AL.

stopped by the akwa ibom state council for arts & culture a couple days ago to see what's good. akwa ibom's cultural dance troupe placed second at the abuja carnival this year and have been grabbing up awards all over the country. i met council director mrs. jessey ekpo, who says they would have gotten more awards if it weren't so political--the power sits in abuja and, frankly, they don't want akwa ibom outshining them.

i asked her why traditional dance isn't seen as much as it used to be, in those days when people would go from compound to compound performing for whatever people would dash them. she said that 'people don't dance for nothing' anymore, but are looking for ways to package and sell a product for revenue, particularly in the realm of tourism. i was both heartened and disheartened by that revelation--happy that folks are stepping up their game, but sad that i'll never see those good old days again.

the cultural troupe's latest music/dance project is about good governance in anticipation of the 2011 election. i was thrilled to hear the men's choir perform/practice a beautiful song about nigeria and akwa ibom. if not for their angelic voices, i probably would have tuned out all the propaganda about good roads, an international airport etc. (eish, that stuff weirds me out, makes me think of chairman mao.) the women performers i saw were a lot less thrilling and a lot more pop without the substance.

sorry no pictures, i wasn't allowed; all i've got is the building. and why don't they have a website? all i found was this listing. --AL.

illustration by karo akpokiere
i've really been enjoying my little time in lagos. i spent way more money than i should have at the art and fashion fair at the civic centre on victoria island. the event, sponsored by the african artists foundation, showcased the best of local artists and artisans, and was all about reclaiming the african gaze and public spaces. i bought a lot of handcrafted jewelry, my all time weakness after sweets (there was a cupcake stand too, baked by cupyd patisserie, that i somehow managed to stay away from).

in many ways, lagos is like new york--or london, i suppose, except for those damned power outages--teeming with talented entrepreneurs, illustrators, fashion designers, photographers, and everything under the sun. it seemed like most folks were trained abroad in the u.s. or the u.k., and brought a worldly, cosmopolitan edge to their work. i almost felt bashful buying a pair of beaded, moroccan bracelets wearing my "ethnic" and "natural" dreadlocks. at least there were a few other patrons with locs, too, so i didn't feel quite as conspicuous as i usually do.

if i were you, i would keep my eye out for the lagos photo exhibit, also sponsored by the aaf. it's been commemmorated in a magazine with a feature story by, you guessed it, chimamanda ngozi adichie (maybe i should just start calling her "chichi" on here, since she's so ubiquitous?). i wish i bought the (very pricey) mag to quote her here, but she wrote beautifully about how photos reveal the truth, as in writing and film.

i really should take more pictures. i can be so shy about intruding on private spaces with a lens. c'est la vie. --AL.

Ayo Osinibi is curating an art exhibition of tapestries by Larry Isimah in NYC from November 4 - December 9. I won't be around, but I figured I'd get the word out. See below for more info. --AL.

Roving Arts Company :
Curating Visual Art from Africa in NY and Beyond

presents

HIEROGLYPHICS TERRAIN
Works by Larry Isimah
@ L’Orange Bleue

430 Broome Street, NYC 10013 (Corner w. Crosby St.)
Nov. 4 – Dec. 9, 2010
Opening reception Nov. 4, 6pm-9pm
with musical performances by
Kuku (Acoustic Afro Soul), Nacho Arimany (Composer Percussionist on Loop Sequencer) and Plastic Flute (African Flute and Electronica)

"Larry Isimah's introduction to the NY audience is steeped in the Yoruba spiritual vision. Folkloric and mythological symbols and motifs are explored as visual and emotional narratives. In juxtaposing singular and bold symbols he evokes dialogues and polemics, and in his assemblage of multiple and repeated icons he creates hieroglyphic tapestries and ritual fabrics, suggesting an esoteric personal language."

last night i went to an open studio show of one of my longtime friends, multimedia artist eto oro, at the school of the visual arts. he was super creative and always painting as a kid, then studied mechanical engineering at mit and design engineering at stanford. after working as a consultant for some time, he decided to go full-time creative and worked on dozens of multimedia installations before singlehandedly opening an art gallery in jersey. it closed just shy of three years later, but i still give him mad props for it.

eto was showing some work with a handful of classmates at sva (he took a sculpture class this summer just to broaden his horizons). he designed this wicked double-sided video projector that hung suspended from the air like a pendulum and, as it spun around, plastered the walls in words, colors and images (thelonious monk, psychedelic pastures, the human skeleton) that moved in and out of focus depending on how close the projector came to the walls. for me, he represents most closely what i think of as a creative mind. want to take it apart and look inside at how all the synapses connect.

*sigh* i just fucking love artists.

one of my girlfriends gave a standout performance last week for a solo show class she's been taking. i was not in a good mood that night, my creativity at a dismal low. i somewhat dragged myself there expecting to hate it and go home wishing i'd never went, but something split me wide open -- aside from her belly-busting jokes about growing up in a conscious household, her parents rousing her for school by singing get up, stand up/stand up for your rights.

i crossed my arms stiffly as a slightly nondescript, nearing-middle-aged woman started a monologue about her life as a temp worker -- bouncing from agency to agency, drifting from odd job to odd job. she wasn't the worst performer in the bunch, but close enough to it that i started to get a little fidgety and check my watch, calculating how long it would take to get back to the Bronx from 14th Street. when i finally settled down and actually listened to what she was saying, buried in her apprehension and missed cues, i found a kinship so deep it was like watching myself on stage.

the priding herself on officious titles, like publicist and marketing assistant, that carried little significance; the never really asking herself what she wanted out of life and going for it. at the end of it all, i wanted so badly to give her a hug, to shield her vulnerability in some way, to tell her that i understood exactly what she had been through and could relate. that my siblings, like hers, also parade around with their many degrees while i bumble and grasp at a little slice of fulfillment.

i feel so often like i am just bouncing along from job to job, trying to stay employed while pushing my dreams, my art to the forefront. it is a somewhat miserable task. trying to create authenticity in my creative work while going every day to a job i hate, sitting at a desk, checking emails and performing other unnatural activities that God never intended for upright, social beings.

at an interview for a new job this week, my would-be employer asked, "I notice you've had rather short stints of employment. Is this something we're gonna have to worry about?" I lied, of course. how to encapsulate the absolute waste of time 9-to-5 employment has been in my life? the atrophying of my creative brain? as much as i have labored to demonstrate mastery of this profit-driven endeavor of employment, how little i have actually cared for these jobs. i could find no better use for my resume than as toilet paper to rub my ass with. but my yellow composition book, in which i keep my meager writings, means the world to me.

i had forgotten that night, in my funk, the essential gift of art-making and sharing--until this woman had the courage to reveal herself, her life, for us onstage. though never perfect, it is something positive for the good. and i really could identify and relate with her impulse to manifest this shapeless, nameless creative spark buried deep within her. there is nothing quite like reaching someone on the other end of that impulse, moving them, causing them to reflect on their own experience and process.

i think embracing that impulse is what it means to be an artist. and it makes everything else you do an absolute waste of time. perhaps i am saying this more for myself than for you, wise reader.

missed last night's opening reception for a new multimedia exhibit at the caribbean cultural center in midtown, life after death: a multi-media analysis of the persona that was/is fela anikulapo kuti. several friends of mine are showing works, including my homie aaqil ka (second to last photo below). i totally spaced on the invite, went to a dance class and then a rather disappointing african party/world cup mixer where everybody in the spot was watching the nba finals. boo.











the exhibit's running through august 10.

New York Governor David Paterson is trying to balance the state's budget by cutting arts funding by 40%. The UK Department of Culture is also facing similar cuts. Boo.

I used to like Paterson (the whole underdog thing, his being blind and all), but he's put so many artists and organizations that I love at risk, among them Imani House where I take a women (of color) writers' workshop. Their afterschool program serves 154 low-income students year-round, and has essentially been cut.

I am very upset by this, although I'm not surprised. It's such an old story--politicians trying to clean up their bad economies by cutting (presumably frivolous) art funding. A part of me has begun seeing it as some kind of ritual sacrifice to appease the financial gods.

I'm a firm believer that art allows us all to rise above our tedious lives and connect with our shared humanity/divine creation. I think that more artists should be activists so that things like this don't happen.

I am secretly obsessed with Grace Jones. And openly obsessed with London. Which makes this new show, opening at the Vinyl Factory, the perfect fix.

I dig everything about Ms. Jones. She's stylish. Avant garde. Timeless. Autonomous. Androgynous. And I'm not just talking about her haircut and broad shoulders--she embodies a cultural androgyny that speaks volumes about the times in which we live.

Born in Jamaica. Moved to US at age 12. Became a model, actor, singer. Moved to London. In an interview from 1986, she speaks with an American accent. In an interview from last year, a British one with a slight Latin drawl. Physically, she is a shape-shifting chameleon, a different look and style for every season. And even Lady Gaga's copying her.

Admittedly, I would not want to be Grace Jones. (Well, let me think about that for a minute.) People who push against the grain, stay consistently out of step with the mainstream, are the trailblazers who yank the rest of us forward. In some ways, I've always fancied myself as that kind of person, but I'm far more skittish about the kind of fishbowl isolation that lifestyle brings. It's really easy to call oneself an artist or progressive or avant garde than to actually live that life. I don't follow Lady Gaga or pop culture much, but from what I can tell, she's more of an image than a reality. For goodness sake, she makes pop music.

But I certainly wouldn't mind channeling my inner Ms. Jones from time to time. When I want to be bold and fierce and fabulous and free from social constrictions. She might be a little cooky, a little crazy, but I'll take what she's having.

Things are really crazy at work. We're scrambling to write a proposal for potential funders to complete the UN documentary--now moving beyond a story about peacekeeping missions in Haiti, among others, to also include footage of the post-earthquake recovery/rebuilding process. It wouldn't be so hectic if my boss weren't leaving for Sundance on Saturday and wanting something in hand to give to folks.

I brought a designer in today who seems really on point, the kind of high-level concept woman I've always wanted to be from a communications standpoint. Wait a minute, scratch that. The kind of woman I would want to be if I weren't already committed to my life as a writer/filmmaker. (That sounds a lot better.)

I started off in global communications outside of college, then started freelancing as a writer and editor, then worked with private clients in my own communications consultancy, before becoming gainfully employed as a Communications Director. It sounds really linear now, but was nothing of the sort--in fact, it was only by sheer tenacity that I made anything of myself at all. I was a biology major in college, a pre-med, and I learned firsthand that the worst thing you can ever do in college is earn a degree you don't want to use.

I think the fact that I'm a storyteller is the only reason I made it. It was my ability to relanguage myself--in resumes, interviews, and grad school--that allowed me to imagine and create something different for my life. The whole marketing/design thing? Pure invention. I started off doing odds and ends for an indie magazine in Brooklyn, for free of course, took a few useful courses in a year of film school, and here I am.

But most days, I'd rather be writing than dealing with the business of art.

I think to myself, what is it really gonna take to reinvent myself as a full-time writer? And I wish I could wave a wand and it would be done. But it's about sitting down every day and confronting my real self, not the one I have imagined and created for public consumption. Damned if I haven't tried to cut corners, to sell the book without writing it (can't tell you how many proposals I've written), but it's the only thing I can't imagine, can't fake.

In every way, I believe that books, films, and plays are real things--durable goods that are essential to the functioning of society. They must be made, and each is an act of love and generosity. Each one, regardless of aesthetic value, is a repository of culture, language, and history.

I think that this makes art and artists vitally important. I thought it was really interesting that, in a speech capping a yearly wrap-up of the economic successes and failures in Akwa Ibom, a political leader praised Chimamanda Adichie for her many awards, saying that more Nigerians should be writing. At first I thought, Wait a minute, she's not even from Akwa Ibom! Then I marveled at how quickly the leader wrapped himself in her success, how central writers in fact are to the history of the world, when so many continue to see art as merely derivative or tangential.

Funny how more and more those of us living in developed nations are coming to realize that these economies are based on derivatives of virtual goods with no real value whatsoever. (I don't know if that made sense, but it sounded good.) All we want at the end of the day is something to hold on to -- maybe even a good book.

I'm tired and I'm not going anywhere with this, so I'll stop here. I also realize I have been jumping around from topic to topic. I will definitely write more about my trip. Later.

As children, we are conditioned to seek permission from our parents, if we are lucky to have one or both of them. In grade school, we ask the teacher when to go to the bathroom; and as adults, ask our bosses if we can leave early from work or take a vacation. We seem to always be asking someone permission for something, like they're God standing with a giant thumb poised over our heads, ready to squash our joy.

It takes a long time to outgrow that conditioning, and maybe even a lifetime to realize that it is only your fear hanging overhead -- a frightful ghost that disappears when you look it square in the face (my yoga instructor actually repeats her fears to herself in the morning mirror, watching them scuttle away).

I recognize this often in fellow writers, always asking whether they are "real" writers, when they will become "real" writers, why they are writing, and whether they should be doing something else. We can be vulnerable people, using writing as a form of self validation.

Nevertheless, it dawned on me today that I have finally stopped asking myself those questions. I'm not sure when, exactly, but it likely had something to do with Hedgebrook.

In reality, nobody can give you permission to live your life except you. Nobody has the right or authority to tell you that you aren't a writer (or actor, or dancer, or singer) or that you should not write (or act, or dance, or sing) if that's what brings you joy.

As an artist you are not anybody's child, you are an embodiment of divine energy imprinting your unique vision on the world. And nobody can give or take that from you. The energy is already flowing through you; you have only to give yourself permission to experience it.

So write (or act, or dance, or sing) because it is your right. Open up the book of your life, write your name on the first page and fill it up with all of your dreams. Then close the book, get up, and go after them. If you get lost along the way, there is a wonderful book that I am reading that is helping, called Wild Mind, by Natalie Goldberg. I carry it with me in case I forget.

And if you still need permission from someone, I give you permission to be who you are in all your divine brilliance. You may go to the bathroom, take a break, eat chocolate cake and spoil your dinner, but you may also officially stop asking if it's okay.

Today at work was so blessed to meet Ellen Schneider of Active Voice, formerly of PBS's POV, one of a handful of activists invited to a private White House briefing on the impact of grassroots arts, environmental, and social justice activism on US economic recovery.

First off, I don't know why there has been such paltry coverage of this meeting.

Secondly, I don't know why arts activists don't get out the vote better on their issues. If I were Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (also in attendance), of Urban Bush Women, I would have issued a press release around this briefing and some kind of "recommendation" to the Obama administration.

Lastly, I sincerely hope something substantive comes of this -- beyond a poetry jam @ Chez Obama, Michelle's recent meeting with arts leaders at the American Ballet, and the administration's 4% increase to the National Endowment of the Arts' budget, still a paltry sum.

Artists will continue to labor in poverty and obscurity, but I certainly hope the powers that be finally give them their due. I think artists can change the world.