Artists & Projects Directory

• Africa Consortium
• David Zambrano
• Dean Moss
• Faustin Linyekula
• Gregory Maqoma
• Lars Jan
• Leila Buck
• Marc Bamuthi Joseph
• Nora Chipaumire
• Ralph Lemon
• The America Project
• Voices of Strength

Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project

Michael John Garcés (Director) is the artistic director of Cornerstone Theater Company, a community-engaged ensemble in Los Angeles where he most recently directed the musical Making Paradise by Tom Jacobson, Shishir Kurup and Deborah Wicks La Puma, and 3 Truths by Naomi Iizuka. He is very pleased to be continuing the collaboration with Bamuthi which began with the break/s. Other recent directing credits include, Oedipus El Rey by Luis Alfaro at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, where he is a company member, and Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy at CalArts. Other theatres at which he has directed include Hartford Stage, The Guthrie Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, The Children's Theatre Company, Second Stage, Huntington Theatre Company, INTAR, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Cherry Lane, The Atlantic Theater Company and Repertorio Español. Garcés is on the executive board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. For Cornerstone he wrote Los Illegals, created in collaboration with communities of day laborers and domestic workers, also produced in Phoenix, Arizona by Teatro Bravo, and which will be published in this summer's Theatre Magazine (Yale School of Drama/Duke University Press). Other plays he has written include THE WEB (needtheatre), points of departure and customs (INTAR), and Acts of Mercy (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater). Short plays include hymn in three parts (Chalk Rep), inhabited (Red Fern Theatre Co.), tostitos (EST Marathon of One-Act Plays), on edge and the ride (Humana Festival), audiovideo (Drama League/Directors Project), and catch and sandlot ball (Mile Square). He wrote the text for composer Alexandra Vrebalo's oratorio Stations, recently performed at the NOMUS Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia. Garcés is a recipient of the Princess Grace Statue, the Alan Schneider Director Award, and a TCG/New Generations Grant. He is a proud alum of New Dramatists.

Theaster Gates (Set/Installation Designer & Performer) is a Chicago-based artist whose practice covers performance and installation, urban planning and design, and the traditional fine arts. His work in performance, installation art and public intervention offers a platform that opens up challenging issues by presenting them, not as acute encounters, but as invitations to engage hard information creatively. His exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Temple Exercises, built of wooden boards recycled from a factory in Chicago's post-industrial heart, encouraged people to see these discarded materials not only in the light of Modernist Art, but to reflect on cultural traditions that depend on scrap for survival. The installation housed performances by the Black Monks of Mississippi, a music ensemble which Gates founded.  Other performances, installations, and exhibits include Black Monks & the Gospel of Black, (Van Abbemusuem, Netherlands); Black Monks of Mississippi-If You See Jesus Tell Him Where I Am (Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago); Branded Alongside the Cabinet of Curiosities (Milwaukee Art Museum); Tea Shacks, Collard Greens & the Preservation of Soul (Center for Proliferation of Afro-Asian Artifacts, Chicago); Plate Convergence (Yamaguchi Institute, Chicago); Mississippi Houses (Inax Ceramic Museum, Japan); and The American Negro: Too good to be true (St. George Cathedral, South Africa). Gates received an interdisciplinary Master's in Urban Planning and Public Sculpture from Iowa State University in 2005. He is currently Director of Arts and Public Life and Artist in Residence at the University of Chicago.

David Szlasa (Media Design) is a media artist, curator and producer. He is the recipient of the Gerbode Award, Future Aesthetics Artist Award, and Lighting Artists in Dance Award for innovative use of video in performance. The San Francisco Chronicle called Szlasa's ongoing work with interactive technology "so timely as to feel timeless". His work has been presented in a range of venues from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to the Sydney Opera House and the Harare International Festival of the Arts, Zimbabwe. Szlasa has collaborated with artists including Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Sara Shelton Mann, Rennie Harris, Deb Margolin, Hope Mohr, Synaesthetic Theater, and Bill Shannon. In addition, Szlasa produces and curates programming at Z Space in San Francisco and has worked on staff at The Culture Project, Playwrights Horizons Theater School, The Drama League, and Dance Theater Workshop in New York. Szlasa is currently engaged in a commission awarded by the National Science Foundation and the Geissler Group in Theoretical Chemistry at UC Berkeley. www.davidszlasa.com

James Clotfelter (Lighting Designer) is committed to the creation of collaborative and socially conscious work for theatre and dance. He is an Artistic Associate with Pig Iron Theatre Company (Chekhov Lizardbrain, Welcome to Yuba City), Resident Lighting Designer and Production Manager for Miro Dance Theatre (Punch, Spooky Action), and a Company Member of johannes wieland (newyou, Progressive Coma). In 2005 he co-founded Mlab, a laboratory for innovations and design technologies in the live arts which has realized numerous scenic, light, and video designs specifically tailored for efficient and sustainable touring. Recent collaborations include work with Rennie Harris, John Jasperse, Bill Shannon, Thaddeus Phillips, Sara Shelton Mann, Rainpan 43, Southern Repertory Theatre, and Lubelski Teatr Tanca. www.jcld.net

Stacey Printz (Choreographer) is artistic director of the Printz Dance Project (PDP). Founded in 1998, PDP has performed extensively in California with home seasons at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco, and has toured all over the U.S., being presented in such places as New York, Los Angeles, Memphis, Arizona, Colorado, and internationally in Lithuania, Russia and Ireland. Printz has been commissioned to choreograph for many companies in California and has received awards the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the W&F Hewlett Foundation and Fort Mason Foundation. She is also a recent recipient of the New Work Fellowship from the Marin Arts Council. Printz received sociology and dance degrees from UC Irvine. In addition to teaching at San Francisco Dance Center, she has been on faculty at St. Mary's College, Sonoma State University and RoCo Dance Studio. She has taught master classes and workshops across the United States, as well as internationally in Switzerland, Italy, Amsterdam, Belgium, Russia, Lithuania and Ireland. Highly interested in collaborative experiences, Printz had the pleasure of working with Marc Bamuthi Joseph on Scourge and the break/s.  www.printzdance.org

Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi (Documentary Films) has traveled the world capturing the voice of international hip hop and documenting the art of storytelling around the globe. After graduating UC Berkeley, while still enrolled in the MA program at NYU Tisch School for the Arts, he completed his first acclaimed international documentary Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano in 2005, winning the prestigious Student Filmmaker Award at the Pan-African Film Festival. Jacobs-Fantauzzi then created Homegrown: Hip Life in Ghana, the story of Hip Life (a combination of Hip Hop and Ghana's native High Life music style), that documents the band VIP's ten years journey from the ghetto in Accra to their first international tour. Jacobs-Fantauzzi launched Fistup.tv, an online channel dedicated to documenting the global hip hop movement. Episodes have featured Los Rakas (Panama), Las Krudas (Cuba), Ana Tijoux (Chile), and Blitz the Ambassador (Ghana) and also covered the 2011 South By Southwest music/film conference in Austin, Texas. Jacobs-Fantauzzi works as an educator and activist, teaching in the Ethnic Studies Department at UC Berkeley and working as a documentarian for The Center for African Peace and Conflict Resolution in Ghana. Jacobs-Fantauzzi has worked with Sacramento Youth Speaks, Sol Collective Arts and Cultural Center, and the National Institute of Culture and History in Belize. Jacobs-Fantauzzi was recently awarded a grant from The National Endowment for the Arts for "Breaking the Paradigm: The Reciprocal Relationship Between Traditional Cultural Artforms and Contemporary Hip Hop." He is currently curating the Second Annual Fist Up Film Festival and working on a new film in Medellin, Colombia entitled Revolucion Sin Muertos (Revolution Without Death).

Bethanie Hines (Photographer) moves through the world with her whole heart. She loves deeply and those on the other side of her lens feel the reverence she holds for life. Hines is committed to a mindfulness practice which connects her to moments that could easily be missed. Vulnerability, emotion, intimacy, and connection to her subjects are evident. For Hines, less is more. Her work documents the perfection of who we are, reminding us of our wholeness, replacing stories with truth. www.bethaniehines.com

Mai-Lei Pecorari (Costume Designer) is an independent costume designer and wardrobe stylist based in San Francisco and New York. She began her career as a designer while attending college at the University of Florida, where she completed her Bachelor's degree in Costume Design. From there, with Atlanta as homebase, she designed shows with Jomandi Productions and worked with neighboring theaters such as Virginia's Mill Mountain Theater. These projects granted her the opportunity to work with a range of talented artists, such as choreographer Moustapha Bangoura of Les Ballets Africains, Chuck Davis, artistic director of DanceAfrica, and Marc Bamuthi Joseph on the production of Scourge. Since her move to the west coast, she has been wardrobe stylist, costume supervisor and key costumer on film and video sets. Currently, her focus is on commercial and advertising productions. With clients ranging from the Gap and Levi Strauss & Co. to Microsoft and Apple, Inc. to Adidas and New Balance. Pecorari's love for good design and creative expression is her motivation for working hard to create beautiful art. She is happy to be on board for a second time with the Living Word Project for the premiere of red, black & GREEN: a blues.www.mai-lei.com