Revised December 11, 2017 – Schedule subject to change. 

All activities take place at the Parc 55 Hotel, locations TBA

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14

Pre-Conferences

9:00 am–5:00 pm
LANE Cohort Meeting (NPN/VAN cohort members only)

2:00–6:00 pm
Registration

5:00–6:00 pm
#ACSANFRANCISCO Newbie Orientation
Learn what to expect at the conference, while jumpstarting your networking with fellow attendees
Mission, 4th Fl, Hotel

5:00–6:30 pm
NPN/VAN Partner Mingle (NPN/VAN Partners only)
Jumpstart your networking with fellow Partners, staff and board
The Hall (1028 Market St.)

6:00–8:00 pm
Dinner on Own

8:00–10:00 pm
Opening Reception
Brava Theater Center (2781 24th St.) AND Galeria de le Raza (2857 24th St.)

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15

8:00 am–5:00 pm
Registration

9:00–10:30 am
Opening Session

10:45 am–12:45 pm
In the Works / More


    Back by popular demand, “In the Works!” provides a lively forum where Artists, NPN/VAN Partners and Colleagues may present brief (1 minute) descriptions of new projects, at whatever stage of development. These projects could be new commissions or creative works that are currently being worked on and in need of collaborators, producers, and artistic guidance.

    GUIDELINES FOR PARTICIPATION:

    • First come first served! We can only provide “air” time for the first 50 presenters
    • Interested attendees will be chosen at random from submitted forms, which must be dropped off at Registration by 10am on Friday December 15 | DOWNLOAD THE FORM (PDF)
    • Presenters have 1 minute to provide information about their projects—they will be timed!

    12:45–2:30 pm
    Lunch on Own

    12:45 pm – 2:30 pm
    VAN Lunch (VAN Partners and artists only)
    Chaat Corner (138 Cyril Magnin St)

    2:30–4:00 pm
    Idea Forums / More


    How We Tell Our Stories
    Lombard, 4th Fl

    Moderator: Stephanie McKee, Executive Artistic Director, Junebug Productions
    Participants: Rosy Simas, choreographer; Ill Invincible, performer, cultural worker, and community organizer; Dahlak Brathwaite, writer, performer, and educator

    Through its two-year Knowledge Building Initiative, NPN/VAN has been reflecting on, documenting, assessing and archiving its 32 years of work. This session asks how artists, Partners and colleagues can be a regular part of the archiving and documentation process to their own benefit, to the benefit of the NPN/VAN, and the greater field. What specific strategies, methodologies and platforms are we using for telling our story? On what terms do we designate our storytellers? Who controls those stories? How do these practices contribute to archiving and documentation? This session highlights specific methods of documentation and archiving, including digital storytelling, story circles, and other practices, and introduces participants to the specific platforms.

     

    The Show Must Go On! Performing Arts Readiness and Emergency Preparedness
    Powell 1, 3rd Fl

    Moderator: Stephanie Atkins, Director of Local Programs in New Orleans, NPN/VAN
    Participants: Tom Clareson, Performing Arts Readiness (PAR) Project Director, LYRASIS’ Senior Consultant for Digital & Preservation Services; Kristen Kern, Former Fine and Performing Arts Librarian, Portland State University, Western States and Territories Preservation Assistance Service representative, California Preservation Program representative; F. John Herbert, Executive Director, Legions Arts, Cedar Rapids

    Performing Arts organizations can be especially vulnerable to disasters and emergencies of all kinds, resulting in destabilizing or catastrophic loss of income and assets. The new Performing Arts Readiness Project helps organizations nationwide learn how to protect their assets, sustain operations, and be prepared for emergencies through a grant program, educational opportunities, network-building, and tools. This session will provide background on resources available to help all types of performing arts organizations and artists to plan for disasters and emergencies. Panelists will focus on services to small and rural organizations, including some case studies, and two presenters will bring a California/Western-U.S. perspective to the panel.

     

    #QTPOC and #TRANS Voices in Dance & Theater: From Margin to Center
    Mission 2+3, 4th Fl

    Participants: Sean Dorsey, Artistic Director, Fresh Meat Productions; Devi Peacock, Executive and Artistic Director, Peacock Rebellion; Leesha Zieber, Dancer; Breanna Sinclairé, Opera Singer

    This idea forum will bring together dancemakers, dancers, theater artists and cultural workers from TPOC, transgender & gender nonconforming communities to lead a conversation about transforming Dance and Theater Arts. What radical change is needed to transform the Arts and to center TPOC (trans people of color), trans, and gender nonconforming artists and leadership? Are you currently centering TPOC, GNC and transpeople in your presenting season / theater / venue / workplace / studio / artistic ensemble / nonprofit / funding docket? YES? Join us! NO? Join us! Everyone is welcome: especially if you’re nervous, especially if this is new to you, and especially if you’re passionate about racial & trans & gender justice.

     

    Funding Arts & Social Change in the Bay Area
    Cyril Magnin Ballroom 2+3, 4th Fl

    Moderator: Ted Russell, Associate Director of Arts Strategy and Ventures; Kenneth Rainin Foundation
    Participants: Tom DeCaigny, San Francisco Arts Commission; Vanessa Camarena-Arrendondo, Akonadi Foundation; Margot Melcon, Zellerbach Family Foundation; Pia Infante, Co-Executive Director, The Whitman Institute

    Funders from the Bay Area come together to talk about supporting arts and social change. What are the critical social needs their funding addresses? Where are there gaps in the local funding landscape? How are Bay Area arts funders thinking critically about being responsive and responsible to local communities in times of rapid change?

     

    Building Bridges in Resistance Art
    Cyril Magnin Ballroom 1, 4th Fl

    Participants: Paul S. Flores, Playwright, Performer, Producer, 1972 Productions, San Francisco; Armando Castellano, music artist, San Jose; Natalie Aceves, dance artist, San Francisco; Delina Patrice Brooks, dance artist, actress, San Francisco

    Demographic and political changes in the US have made a priority of creating and presenting art that challenges racial and social hierarchies. Even with presenters with little connection to racial justice or resistance movements, the interest is growing. How do performing artists reach non-conventional audiences to support movement building and solidarity? How is our art providing solutions to social problems? How do artists build relationships with presenters who may not represent our communities, but who value racial and social justice? This panel will feature three artists of color in music, theater and dance who integrate social justice, ethnic identity and gender themes into their projects. We will discuss how identity creates expectations around our art and how we work with or against that. We will share experiences and strategies based on Creation Fund projects developed with non-conventional audiences, and our work with presenters who are different from our community alliances.

     

    LANE: Learning, Leveraging and Leadership
    Market Street, 3rd Fl (moved from Fillmore)

    Participants: Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas (Seattle, WA), MACLA Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana MACLA (San Jose CA), The Myrna Loy Center (Helena MT), Su Teatro (Denver CO), Carpetbag Theatre (Knoxville TN), Junebug Productions (New Orleans LA).

    The LANE Alpha Cohort began its four-year journey in MAY 2016. This year and a half has been filled with organizational support through consultancy, new tools, learning through experimentation and knowledge building. Each organization will share information and ongoing questions based on their experience. The Cohort is excited to share their individual and collective learnings. Cohort members are Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas (Seattle, WA), Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana–MACLA (San Jose CA), The Myrna Loy Center (Helena MT), Su Teatro (Denver CO), Carpetbag Theatre (Knoxville TN) and Junebug Productions (New Orleans LA).

     

    Artists & Displacement: Addressing the Complex Identities of Place
    Fillmore, 4th Fl (moved from Market St)

    Moderator: Rebeka Rodriguez, Civic Engagement Manager, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
    Participants: Hanmin Liu, President, Wildflowers Institute; Betty Marin, Artist, Los Angeles; Laura Zabel, Executive Director, Springboard for the Arts

    As communities across the United States face displacement of various kinds – physical, economic, and cultural – expectations are high for artists and arts organizations to be responsive and responsible to the communities in which they reside. Most communities have multiple identities that were originally shaped by their indigenous populations and have been since added to by generations of immigration and migration. Understanding these complex identities of place is critical to effectively navigating the tension between preservation and growth that comes with honoring a community’s cultural heritages, investing in its present residents, and welcoming future opportunities. Three advocates discuss their cultural strategies for combatting displacement.

     

    National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation: The Next Generation
    Mission 1, 4th Fl

    Co-Facilitators: Meena Natarajan, Executive/Literary Director, Pangea World Theater; Andrea Assaf, Artistic/Executive Director, Art2Action Inc.
    Participants: Dipankar Mukherjee, Artistic Director, Pangea World Theater; Dora Arreola, Artistic Director, Mujeres en Ritual Danza-Teatro / Associate Professor, University of South Florida (USF); Linda Parris-Bailey, Executive and Artistic Director, The Carpetbag Theatre Inc. Other artists at NPN who have attended the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation are invited to join!

    In Summer 2017, Art2Action and Pangea World Theater launched the first iteration of the “Next Generation Institute,” a component of the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation. This practice-based session will engage our bodies, minds and creative spirits in an experiential report-out, exploring the challenges of teaching cultural and gender equity, and the confluence of practices emerging from artists of color, women directors and LGBTQ2 artists working in contemporary theater. We’ll take a fun, participatory approach to articulating aesthetic differences, and discuss approaches to supporting emerging directors, including mentorship and training. We’ll share learnings from the 2017 Institute series, and explore new directions together.

    4:30–5:30 pm
    10-Minute Art Talks / More


    We thought it would be interesting to ask Bay Area artists to tell us about themselves, their art, and how their lives and work intersect with activism—and to do it in 10 minutes. So we did! Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Chief of Program and Pedagogy at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, will emcee the session and begin it by modeling with his own art talk.

    • Marc Bamuthi Joseph
    • Melonie and Melorra Greene
    • Ana Teresa Fernandez

    Parc 55: Rm 2620
    We provide the space for spontaneous hanging out. You provide the conversation.

      SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16

      8:00 am–11:00 am
      NPN/VAN Partner Meeting

      9:00 am–2:00 pm
      Registration

      10:00 am–Noon
      Peer-2-Peer Artist Workshops / More


        This year, we have 4 amazing Peer-2-Peer sessions, developed by and for attending artists.

        Career Hacks and Self Care for Working Artists
        Fillmore, 4th Fl
        Facilitator: Scott Turner Schofield, performing artist, Los Angeles

        Go deep with your peers, find out you’re not the only one who doesn’t know how to budget, share your hacks, and learn new skills. Together we’ll create a tool kit – from social media best practices, to writing that intro email to the Programming Coordinator, to how to practice meditation on tour, and get some perspective when the grants aren’t coming through. The point is to fuel you so you can move forward with more power. You have a powerful influence, and the way you do things may be valuable to others. Bring your experience and co-create this one.

         

        Juggling Jobs and Being Resourceful
        Mission 2+3, 4th Fl
        Facilitators: Visual artists Aisha Bell, NYC and Rondell Crier, Chattanooga, TN

        Visual artists Aisha Bell and Rondell Crier will share personal stories of how they juggle multiple jobs while practicing their art, followed by an open discussion about the inherent strengths and challenges associated with undertaking multiple roles. Discussion will address creative and innovative approaches to managing these realities, while trying to answer the question “How can we employ our creativity to discover resourceful ways of reducing our workloads?”

         

        What I learned from Teaching in Communities of Color
        Hearst, 4th Fl
        Facilitator: Raissa Simpson, Artistic Director, PUSH Dance Company, San Francisco

        This participatory workshop will share tactics in building relationships beyond the classroom and forming a peacemaking environment for students to learn and grow. Through a collective discussion, participants can expect to find support for teaching the Arts in schools, best practices for conducting active participation, and community building. This workshop will also touch upon mitigating chronic stress and silent trauma found in Communities of Color through artistic practice and materials. This session is limited to the first 20 participants.

         

        Thinking Outside the Box: Teaching & Performing in Non-Traditional Spaces
        Lombard, 4th Fl
        Facilitators: Performing artists Jennifer Newman, Brooklyn and Lida Winfield, Shelburne, VT

        How do artists and arts educators respond to places and people? Lida and Jennifer invite you to bring your experiences and questions concerning performing and teaching in nontraditional spaces. We will discuss and share with hands on application, best practices with regards to adapting, responding to, and learning from environment and varying populations.

        11:30 am–1:00 pm
        NPN/VAN Board Meeting

        Noon–1:30 pm
        Lunch on Own

        1:30–3:00 pm
        Idea Forums / More


        Trump, the Arts, and Where Do We Go From Here?
        Cyril Magnin Ballroom 1, 4th Fl

        Participants: Ted Russell, Associate Director of Arts Strategy and Ventures; Kenneth Rainin Foundation; Marc Vogl, Principal, Vogl Consulting, LLC, former Program Officer, Performing Arts Program, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; Marcelle Hinand, Principal, M. Hinand Consulting. former Arts Program Director, James Irvine Foundation

        Description: What are artists, arts administrators, educators and advocates most concerned about when it comes to the Trump administration? How are artists responding to a sea-change in national politics through their work? When it comes to the direct and indirect effects on cultural expression flowing from Washington, which arts organizations and communities are likely to be most vulnerable, and which are better positioned to adapt? In early 2017 a group of Bay Area arts-consultants (and former foundation program officers) polled over 1,000 artists and culture workers from 45 states and interviewed two-dozen culture sector leaders on these questions. In a moderated discussion, consultants, panelists will share their findings and engage attendees on these topics. The conversation will be informed by conference participants providing personal testimony to the impact of the Trump administration on their art-making and strategies of response and resilience.

         

        Aesthetics of Impact / Impact of Aesthetics
        Embarcadero, 3rd Fl

        Facilitator: Pam Korza, Co-director, Animating Democracy

        Participants: Sage Crump, Complex Movements Producer; 
ill weaver, Complex Movements, artist; Andrea Assaf, Artistic/Executive Director, Art2Action Inc.; Mark Valdez, Independent Artist/Consultant

        What makes Arts for Change work excellent? Arts for Change, including projects at the intersection of artistic creation and civic engagement, community development, and justice, often challenge the conventional terms by which the arts are described and assessed. The new framework Aesthetic Perspectives, developed by artists and allies in Animating Democracy’s Evaluation Learning Lab, describes 11 attributes of excellence that contribute to artistic potency and social and civic effectiveness. This interactive session will introduce the framework and bring the attributes to life, exploring their potential value and application for presenters and artists. The artist collective, Complex Movements, shares how artists used the framework to critically look at creative choices and outcomes of Beware of the Dandelions, an organizing project and multimedia installation/workshop exploring connections between complex science and justice movements. We’ll discuss the framework’s potential for interrogating implicit biases and inequities in the field, foregrounding aesthetic dimensions of the work.

         

        Intersectional Data: Are We Asking the Right Questions?
        Mission 2+3, 4th Fl

        Facilitator: Kevin Seaman – Director, Bring Your Own Queer (BYOQ); 2017 Americans for the Arts Emerging Leader; lead consultant of the 5-year National Queer Arts Festival audience survey report

        Participants: Anh Thang Dao-Shah, Senior Policy Analyst, San Francisco Arts Commission; Mona Webb – Queer Cultural Center; TBD

        Data has proven to be an asset to drive artistic decision-making and reveal trends amongst our constituents and in the larger arts field. But is there information we miss out on because we aren’t asking the right questions? How can we frame questions that best document the complexity of intersectional identity? And can the applications of this data reach beyond our individual organizations to affect positive change within our communities?

        Join artist and arts consultant Kevin Seaman as he unpacks six years of data collected from the Bay Area’s National Queer Arts Festival and facilitates a discussion among data experts working on the front lines of cultural equity.

         

        Oral Tradition, Music, Dance, and Song in African Diasporic Liberation and Civil Rights Struggle Past And Present
        Lombard, 4th Fl

        Participants: Don Harrell and Tutu Harrell, Artists/Producers, Orisirisi African Folklore; Sunny Eselekhomhen, Musician, Osirisi African Folklore

        This session is a facilitated discussion of oral tradition, music, and dance as agents of change in the liberation and civil rights struggle in the African diaspora, past and present. We’ll be featuring both traditional and contemporary creative expressions, and well-researched scholarly data.

         

        Staging the Anti-Immigrant Hysteria in the United States of Amnesia
        Powell 1, 3rd Fl

        Moderator: Alec DeLeon, Program Specialist, NPN/VAN

        Participants: Anu Yadav, Performing Artist; Abel Lopez, Associate Director, GALA Hispanic Theater; Tony Garcia, Director, Su Teatro; Jose Torres-Tama, Artistic Director, Jose Torres-Tama & Arte Futuro Productions; Andrea Assaf, Artistic/Executive Director, Art2Action Inc.

        The current administration offers a clear and present danger with a Republican presidential candidate who rose to power by blatantly pimping fear of immigrants to “Make America Hate Again!” The human expulsion machine run by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents is in full operation, and deportations have risen an estimated 40%, breaking up thousands of families. Who are the theater practitioners, organizations, and artists in the NPN family staging projects that confront the anti-immigrant hysteria gripping the country? How can we be engaged in humanizing immigrants whether Muslim, Mexican or “others” outside of the Euro-centric plantation paradigm vilified as “illegal aliens”? The United States of Amnesia seduces it’s citizens to embrace forgetting, and artists, organizers, and presenters need to remember that this is nothing new in a long disturbing legacy of vilifying people of color. Ironically, it’s the Europeans who are the first illegal aliens in the Americas, and like Columbus and his three ships, the Pilgrims arrived without papers and began exacting genocide and transforming the land into property. Let’s be radical and dare to remember—calling out the lies passing for truth.

         

        Indigenous Estate
        Powell 2, 3rd Fl

        Participants: Thomas LaBlanc-Dakota, Director, Oyate Hotanin; Meena Natarajan, Executive/Literary Director, Pangea World Theater; Dipankar Mukherjee, Artistic Director, Pangea World Theater

        There is mass fake American Indian Art, in the Southwest and world markets. A huge business that’s organized by non-natives, it comes with high penalties that aren’t enough to put a stop to it, and it’s putting native craft artisans and families out of business. Despite a law regulated by the Department of the Interior, there is continued abuse, in spite of years of protests and resistance. It continues to be a source of institutional racism in the face of the native people. Oyate Hotanin is receiving McKnight funding to begin community meeting in the Indigenous Community, mainly artists, art organization, funders, and major art institutions to come up with ideas and thoughts on this subject.

        Art is healing to us and art should not be terrorizing us. This workshop will address: Who owns this property? Who has the rights and who can censor or affect art?

         

        7 The Real I.C.E.: International Cultural Equity – Multiple Perspectives on Global Justice and Culture
        Cyril Magnin Ballroom 3, 4th Fl

        Participants: Lorena Moran, Teatro Jornalero Sin Fronteras, Los Angeles, CA; Anthony Brown, Jazz Artist/Scholar, Berkeley, CA; Torange Yeghiazarian, Golden Thread Productions, San Francisco, CA; and Alicia Laguna, Teatro Linea de Sombra, Mexico City, Mexico, among others from the Bay area and abroad.

        Description: In the United States, the terms justice and equity are specifically nuanced to the complex national cultural realities and politics, and carry particular meaning. What happens when we approach issues of racial and social justice internationally with artistic collaborators and partners? What does cultural equity mean in communities outside of the United States who are confronting social justice inequities in radically different economic, social and political circumstances? What are the transnational similar and varied strategies among culture workers engaging in social justice through the arts? Through a facilitated group discussion among local, national and international artists and culture workers, this forum aims to surface and discuss a spectrum of definitions and examples of how justice manifests globally.

         

        Starting Collective Spaces
        Mission 1, 4th Fl

        Participants: Lisa Evans, Outgoing Artistic Director,Peacock Rebellion, Co-Founder of #BreakingtheBinary, San Francisco; Jeff Becker, Co-Founder Catapult, New Orleans; Keith Hennessy, Artist, San Francisco; Alyah Baker Qulture Collective, Oakland; Nick Slie, Co-Founder Catapult/Mondo Bizarro, New Orleans

        Wouldn’t it be wonderful if performers, visual artists, activists and collaborators with similar values and practices working in the same city could pool their resources to create collective spaces for dreaming, developing and sharing new creative projects? Imagine a large warehouse with offices, storage, kitchen, a sprung rehearsal and training floor, a design and fabrication studio with professional sound and lighting equipment, and a retail shop, a space that could present work, host residencies, workshops, classes and community events, a space that not just supports and nurtures its members but becomes a vital asset to the community.

        Join theater artists Jeff Becker and Nick Slie from Catapult a collective performance laboratory in New Orleans along with Lisa Evans from San Francisco’s Peacock Rebellion, a collective of Bay Area -based, queer + trans people of color, and crew of artist-activist and healers, San Francisco artist, Keith Hennessy, co-founder of 848 Community Space, a do-it-yourself space available to artists, activists, and community-makers for rehearsals, meetings, performances, public discussions, rituals, art exhibits, and educational events that has evolved into Counter PULSE, and Alyah Baker from Qulture Collective, a multi-use space and queer community platform in downtown Oakland featuring a retail shop, cafe, and gallery for queer folks to network, cultivate creativity, and develop and accomplish entrepreneurial goals, in an open discussion on how these collectives began and continue to thrive. We will focus on how having a space has affected the practice and work of its members and the community it serves.

         

        Decolonizing Aesthetics and Curatorial Practices in Dance: A guided discussion to identify collective first steps in making a difference.
        Fillmore, 4th Fl

        Participants: Michèle Steinwald, Independent Curator and Writer; Dr. Ananya Chatterjea, Artistic Director, Ananya Dance Theatre

        This workshop will begin with an acknowledgement that all contemporary aesthetics emerge from specific locations. We will examine invisible cultural biases. We will identify the issues around historically centered whiteness in order to decolonize our inherited curatorial practices. Based in Bryan Brayboy’s motto of the Four Rs, together we will discuss how to build “Relationships based on Respect and Reciprocity, and taking seriously our Responsibility” when supporting artists and their work.

        Join us in the Sweet Suite for Rosie’s famous Rum Punch! Grab a glass and go for just $10 (cash only; all proceeds go to NPN/VAN).

        7:30–9:30 pm
        Dine•Arounds; Dinner on Own

        9:30 pm-Midnight
        Late Night Cabaret 
        Piano Fight (144 Taylor St.) / More

        Please navigate this area with intention, and in groups—especially at night.

        Directions (10-minute walk): Exit the hotel and turn left onto Cyril Magnin St for the rest of the block; turn left onto Ellis St for 2 blocks; turn left onto Taylor St for 1½ blocks)

        Powered by the mighty Youth Speaks www.youthspeaks.org and hosted at the eclectic PianoFight just around the corner from the hotel, the Bay welcomes you to a late evening of good food, good spirits and an array of astonishing performances from local artists. From sultry club singers, indie folk – contemporary dance to hip hop, poetry and music, the night is hosted by MC Dahlak Brathwaite, accompanied by the skillful sounds of DJ Wonway Possibul spinning on the ones and twos. PianoFight is a community-driven indy arts venue that takes pride in partnering with local artists to make great shows, mouth watering eats and delicious cocktails adding up to a uniquely San Francisco experience.

        Featured Performances Include:

        Wonway Posibul (Juan Amador) is an emcee, deejay, actor, and culture cultivator. www.facebook.com/wonway-posibul-95856663178/

        BOOKING: wonwayposibul@gmail.com

         

        Ghostlines is a Bay Area collective of poets, artists, and educators comprised of Ariana Weckstein, Gabriel Cortez, Isabella Borgeson, Jade Cho, and Natasha Huey.

        BOOKING: http://ghostlinescollective.tumblr.com/contact

         

        STEAMROLLER Dance Company began in 1993, when a loosely knit group of artists came together to create guerrilla performances to address the spread of HIV/AIDS to other communities (women, people of color). The company is currently under the direction of founding member Jesselito Bie.

        www.facebook.com/STEAMROLLER-Dance-Company-263568340385198/

        BOOKING: steamroller69@icloud.com

         

        Jenay “ShinobiJaxx” Anolin is an artist, educator, trainer and performer born and raised in the awesome city of Oakland, California.  She is founder of Mix’d Ingrdnts, a multi-ethnic and diverse collective of female artists working together through urban performance, dance education and connection.
        www.mixdingrdnts.com/
        BOOKING: shinobijaxx@gmail.com

         

        Alphabet Rockers make music that makes change. Known as the preeminent children’s hip hop artists to focus on social change and racial justice, they are consciousness in motion.

        www.alphabetrockers.com

        BOOKING: booking@alphabetrockers.com

         

        Shawna Virago is a transgender trickster celebrated for her striking lyric-based songs.

        www.shawnavirago.com

        BOOKING: shawnavirago@gmail.com

         

        Dahlak Brathwaite is a multi-faceted hip-hop artist that maximizes his abilities as musician, actor, poet, and educator within the transformational space of the theater.

        BOOKING: Joan Osato, josato@youthspeaks.org and http://www.thisisdahlak.com

         

        Baruch Porras-Hernandez is a Pushcart Prize nominated writer, performer and standup comedian, named one of the 13 Top Bay Area Writers to Watch in 2016.

        baruchporrashernandez.wordpress.com/

        BOOKING: baruchporras@gmail.com

         

        Josh Healey is an award-winning writer, performer, and creative activist who fuses his distinct storytelling style with a subversive humor and fiery love for justice.

        BOOKING: joshhealey.org

        11:00pm–2:00 am
        The Sweet Suite  More
        Parc 55: Rm 2620
        We provide the space for spontaneous hanging out. You provide the conversation.

          SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17

          10:00 am–1:00 pm
          Registration

          10:00 am–11:50 am
          Art Slam!

          11:50 am–1:00 pm
          10-Minute Art Talks, Closing Remarks / More


            We thought it would be interesting to ask Bay Area artists to tell us about themselves, their art, and how their lives and work intersect with activism–and to do it in 10 minutes. So we did!

            2:30–6:00 pm
            Bay Area Culture Tours / More


            Meet your tour groups in the designated area of the hotel—please be ON TIME!

            Now’s your chance to get out of the hotel and explore San Francisco and beyond. We have provided several organized tours—check at Registration for availability and to sign up. And if you prefer your adventures to be self-guided, see below for some cool apps to download that can advise you.

            2:30 pm
            East Bay Art Tour
            Closed to pre-registrants!

            Meet in the street level lobby at the hotel; this group will leave at 2:45pm and take the BART!!

            Hop the BART with your fellow attendees to check out some of the amazing East Bay artist/activists who are doing important work in the East Bay. Join us to visit the studios of Bay Area artists Brett Cook <brett-cook.com> and Dignidad Rebelde <dignidadrebelde.com>, winding up at longtime NPN Partner La Peña Cultural Center.

            2:45 pm
            SFMOMA Guided Tour
            Meet in the Cyril Magnin Foyer on the 4th floor at the hotel; This group will leave at 3:00pm!!

            “Robert Rauschenberg: Erasing the Rules @ SFMOMA”

            Join Frank Smigiel, Associate Curator of Performance & Film at SFMOMA, and Olive Bieringa, principal at BodyCartography Project, for an introduction to the Museum’s exhibition Robert Rasuchenberg: Erasing the Rules & its related programming. Bieringa will discuss BodyCartography Project pieces presented in conjunction with the show, and will guide participants in the “how to” of action movie, a movement for one performer and one audience member. Space is limited: sign up at Registration!

            2:45 pm

            24th Street Mural Walk
            Closed to pre-registrants!

            Meet in the Cyril Magnin Foyer on the 4th floor at the hotel; this group will leave by bus at 3pm!!

            Guided by Rio Yanez, 2nd generation San Francisco artist, this cultural and historic walking tour will explore the vibrant stretch of 24th Street in the heart of SF’s Mission District, home to hundreds of colorful artworks featuring themes from cultural heritage to social political statements. Get an inside perspective of the history, process, politics, and drama behind the amazing murals and street art of the 24th street corridor. Stops will include prominent neighborhood murals, galleries, and shops.

            3:00 pm
            “Embodied Awareness: Re-Viewing Diversity and Inclusion; What our Facilities are Really Saying About Us”

            Meet in the Cyril Magnin Foyer on the 4th floor at the hotel; This group will leave at 3:15pm!!

            Let Madison Cario–Director, Office of the Arts at Georgia Institute of Technology, artist, alchemist, guide & interrupter creating in the spaces “in between”—guide you on a walking tour starting at the Parc 55 Hotel, traveling through the surrounding Union Square area and ending up at SFMOMA and YBCA Gardens to explore how to identify and mitigate the psychological, emotional, and physical reactions that occur in response to physical space. We will talk and travel; we will laugh and play. Sign up at Registration!

            6:00–8:00 pm
            Dinner on Own

            8:30–Midnight
            Closing Dance Party
            African American Art & Culture Complex (762 Fulton St)

          MONDAY, DECEMBER 18

          Departures