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

Theaster Gates 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.

Tommy Shepherd aka Emcee Soulati, is an actor, playwright, composer, educator, b-boy, rapper, drummer, and beatboxer. Tommy is a co-founder of the live hip hop collective, Felonious: onelovehiphop, who play music throughout the world and create original theatrical productions from their base as a resident company at Intersection for the Arts. Felonious' last project was Angry Black White Boy, adapted from the Adam Mansbach book by Dan Wolf, for which Shepherd created the original music and performed. Shepherd has also been a long time Hybrid Resident Artist at Intersection, a member of Campo Santo, and a performer with Erika Chong Shuch's ESP project. He acted in and created the score for Nobody Move; and Hamlet: Blood in the Brain, by Naomi Iizuka; and created the sound design and score with Howard Wiley for A Place To Stand. He also acted, beatboxed, and composed a live score with Scheherazade Stone for Domino by Campo Santo with Sean San José, which premiered at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. In 2007 he created and performed his first one act solo The MF in ME, premiering at Intersection for the Arts' GROUNDED? festival of new works. Other credits include: co-composer/collaborator/performer with the Jazz Mafia Symphony, performing the world premiere of The Joshua Norton Suite; creating the score for Donald Lacy's Color Struck, which was performed at the National Black Theatre Festival and for the National Black Congress leading up to President Obama's election. Shepherd was a commissioned artist, co-creator and performer of Raw Dios for headrush crew, which toured Berkeley, Denver and at the famed El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista. He also recreated the previously unfinished Duke Ellington musical Queenie Pie, which premiered at the Oakland Opera in 2008. Shepherd has performed and toured internationally with Marc Bamuthi Joseph, collaborating on Scourge and the break/s.

Traci Tolmaire is an actor, dancer, singer from Chicago. Her training in theatre arts and dance include a BA in Theatre from Spelman College, theatrical studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and dance training at Sammy Dyer School of Theatre in Chicago, Joel Hall Dance Center, and classes with master teachers Katherine Dunham and Savion Glover. Her theatrical credits include IPH...a translation of Iphigeneia at Aulis by Euripides (Brava Theater/African-American Shakespeare Company); Mirrors In Every Corner (directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph for Intersection for the Arts/Campo Santo); Susan Lori Parks' 365 Days/365 Plays series (Hartford Stage Company); Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Fulton Opera House); The Darker Face of the Earth (Take Wing and Soar Productions); Trouble in Mind (Actor's Express), and Breath, Boom (Synchronicity Theatre Group). She was an understudy for Lisa Kron's play In the Wake at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and appeared twice in the New York International Fringe Festival as a leading actress in original productions Fantasy, Girl (choreographer) and Eggs and the Rebound Guy. Tolmaire also worked as choreographer for Hartford Stage Company's production of Gee's Bend, Connecticut Critics Circle award winner for best ensemble. Tolmaire currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. www.tracitolmaire.com.