ARTISTS IN
THE CLASSROOM
ARTISTS IN
THE CLASSROOM
ARTISTS IN THE CLASSROOM ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM
Critical Acts collaborating faculty invite Guest Artists to their classes to perform, participate in conversations, and teach workshops. In-class artist visits are open to the wider campus at the professor’s discretion and may be documented and archived for future student engagement. Artist visits support students to connect to a global contemporary performance landscape of local, national and internationally acclaimed performers, spanning theater, dance, storytelling, visual art, music, spoken word poetry, queer and transgressive performance.
Funding for the Artists in the Classroom Program is through the Teaching Research Interest Group: Critical Acts: Socially Engaged Performance.
Miho Tsujii
BIS 341 Topics in the study of Culture
Japanese Cinema, Theater, Novel and Manga (JPop)
May 16, 2022
Miho Tsujii conceives, directs and performs solo and collaborative performance art. Her performance intersects poetic images, movement, language, sound/vocalization, video and audience interactions. Miho holds M.A. in Arts Politics from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, and is trained in figurative arts at Bigakko experimental art dojo in Tokyo. Miho is extensively trained in her family tradition of lkebana flower art, Noh dance and vocals, tea ceremony, and the underlying conceptual systems. Her works manifest Western backgrounds in education, experimental arts and classical music. At the same time, the ancient arts and sacred practices of Japan feed her artistic backbones. Her works have been presented internationally at arts, theater, educational, and public space, as well as within and with communities surviving catastrophic events. Miho has found that her performance triggers the audience to share their otherwise untold life stories, thereby becoming a vessel for healing. Miho’s work is primarily concerned with regenerating life at the foot of destruction, creating a seamless line between her art and social intervention. Featured themes include water, radiation, cross-generational impacts of war, and gendered, dislocated, disrupted and hybrid lives. Miho has worked decade-long with the survivors of war and conflict from around the world.
Ọmọlará Williams McCallister
Prof. Naomi Macalalad Bragin
BISIA 383 Interdisciplinary Arts Workshop: Doing Performance Research
May 13, 2021
Ọmọlará Williams McCallister (pronouns: o, love, beloved) is a dynamic creator who shows up in many forms. O’s work is a call and response blend of sculpture, performance, installation, ritual, space holding, community building, surface design, adornment, word, sound, song, movement, moving images and photography. The roles that Ọmọlará steps into include: artist, educator, organizer, cultural strategist, conjurer. In all forms O’s work is immersive and interactive, it is co-authored by the people who inspire and encounter it.
Jaamil Olawole Kosoko
Prof. Naomi Macalalad Bragin
BIS 322 Topics in Performance Study
February 9, 2021
jaamil olawale kosoko is a multi-spirited Nigerian American author, performance artist, and curator of Yoruba and Natchez descent originally from Detroit, MI. Their book Black Body Amnesia: Poems and Other Speech Acts was released in Spring of 2022. Kosoko is also a 2022 MacDowell Fellow, 2020 Pew Fellow in the Arts, 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography, 2017-19 Princeton Arts Fellow, 2019 Red Bull Writing Fellow, 2018 NEFA NDP Production Grant recipient, 2017 MAP Fund recipient, and 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Fellow. Their creative practice draws from Black study and queer theories of the body, weaving together visual performance, lecture, ritual, and spiritual practice.
Their live art works Chameleon (The Living Installments) premiered virtually in April 2020, Séancers (2017) and the Bessie nominated #negrophobia (2015) have toured internationally, appearing in major festivals including: Tanz im August (Berlin), Moving in November (Finland), Within Practice (Sweden), TakeMeSomewhere (UK), Brighton Festival (UK), Oslo Teaterfestival (Norway), and Zürich MOVES! (Switzerland), among others. Additionally, Kosoko lectures regularly at Princeton University, Stockholm University of the Arts, and Master Exerce ICI-CCN in Montpellier, France. In Fall 2020, they were appointed the 3rd annual Alma Hawkins Visiting Chair in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at UCLA. Connect with jaamil on IG at jaamil_means_beauty
Super Futures Haunt Collective
Prof. Thea Quiray Tagle
BISAES 305 Power, Dissent and US Culture
May 20, 2020
Topics: Indigenous survivance, collective and collaborative art practice, Asian + Indigenous solidarity
Super Futures Haunt Qollective (SFHQ) is an art and research based collaboration between three avatars: SFAOW (Specularity: Fugitive-Alterity Or Whatever), Agent O, and Lady HOW (Haunting or Whatever). They are also sometimes known as the science fiction pop stars F. Sam Jung, C. Ree, and Angie Morrill. In their terrestrial forms, F. Sam Jung (MCP, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is a sky person and urban planner in New York, and C. Ree (MFA University of California, Irvine) is an artist and film programmer based in California, and Associate Faculty in Art at MiraCosta College. Angie Morrill (Klamath Tribes) holds a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from University of California, San Diego and is the director of the Indian Education Program for the Portland School District. SFHQ shares a theoretical and visceral relationship to haunting as a decolonial and inevitable response to the violence of colonialism. SFHQ also shares an affective, life-generating bond rooted in love that affirms our own existence and those of all people that impels us to look for, create, and demand (with critical hope) more ethical futures not-yet-here.
YaliniDream
Prof. Anida Yoeu Ali
BISIA 330 Arts-in-Practice: Engaging Contemporary Performance
May 18, 2020
Illankai Tamil Blood, Manchester-Born, Texas-Bred and Brooklyn-Brewed, YaliniDream is an international touring performing and theater artist who conjures spirit through her unique blend of poetry, theater, song, and dance– reshaping reality and seeking peace through justice in the lands of earth, psyche, soul, and dream. Her work has been performed in Africa, Asia, Europe, and esteemed venues in the US such as NYC’s Lincoln Center, New York Live Arts, Chicago’s Vittum Theater, and numerous universities. YaliniDream was Artistic Director of APIA feminist performance company, Mango Tribe, Artist-in-Residence at the University of Michigan’s Center for World Performance Studies and a recipient of the Jerome Foundation’s Fellowship in Literature. YaliniDream also has almost twenty years of experience using artistic tools for healing, organizing, and dignity with communities contending with violence and trauma. She is a consultant with Vision Change Win, a specialist with EM Arts, and teaches “Social Justice Pedagogy and the Arts” at University of San Francisco’s graduate program in Human Rights and International Multicultural Education.
Sylvie Mae Baldwin
Pro. Deborah Hathaway
BISIA 230 A and BCORE 120 A
May 18, 2020
Sylvie is an actress, musician, and instructor of record at Northern Illinois University’s School of Theatre and Dance. As a performer she has worked at South Coast Rep, Antaeus Theatre Company, Seattle Public Theater, Book It Rep, Lexington Children’s Theatre, and many others. Sylvie is a member of Actor’s Equity and represented by 10 MGMT in Chicago, IL.
Katherine Agyemaa Agard
Prof. Ching-In Chen
MFA for Creative Writing & Poetics Cultural Change seminar
May 14, 2020
Katherine Agyemaa Agard is the eldest daughter of a zoologist and a botanist. At 18, she won, and declined, an Open National Scholarship in the Natural Sciences from the government of Trinidad & Tobago. Her interdisciplinary work is rooted in painting, performance, and writing. She holds an AB in Visual and Environmental Studies and Social Anthropology from Harvard College and an MFA in Writing from UC-San Diego. KAA has received fellowships from Kimbilio, Lambda Literary, VONA/Voices, and Callaloo. She is Winner of the Essay Press/UWB MFA Book Contest for ‘of colour’. She lives in San Francisco and is a dual citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and Ghana.
Briq House
Prof. Naomi Macalalad Bragin
MA in Cultural Studies, Topics In Cultural & Arts Practice seminar
May 14, 2020
Professional Dominant, Intuitive, and Burlesque Goddess Ms. Briq House is the founder and owner of Briq House Entertainment. Under this umbrella, she produces All People of Color Burlesque Revues, Sexual Healing through Movement and Body Love workshops, spiritual gatherings, Kink-based anti-racism trainings, and Kink events exclusively for BIPOC throughout the US and abroad. Her Sunday Night Shuga Shaq, co-produced with Sin de la Rosa, is the longest running monthly all BIPOC Burlesque Revue in the Pacific Northwest. As a proud Black Woman with a background in education, sacred intimate arts, entertainment, and LGBTQIA and Sex Workers rights advocacy, her Royal Thickness holds a deep understanding of intersectional identities and struggles. Briq’s mission is to harness the power of her bright light to stimulate, educate (and on occasion Dominate) the masses to work towards a mutual goal of freedom and compassion for all.
msbriqhouse.com // @Ms.briqhouse
Milvia Pacheco Salvatierra // Movimiento AfroLatino Seattle
Prof. Naomi Macalalad Bragin
MA in Cultural Studies, Topics In Cultural & Arts Practice seminar
April 30, 2020
Milvia Berenice Pacheco Salvatierra is an Afrolatina artist, born in Caracas, Venezuela. She devotes her life to reaching liberation through art and movement, as a contemporary dancer-choreographer, bodyworker, mother and community organizer. As Director of MÁS (Movimiento Afrolatino Seattle) she serves as a conduit for empowerment and beyond empowerment for herself and others.
Saqib Keval
Prof. Thea Quiray Tagle
BIS/EDUC 255: Critical Diversity Studies
April 27, 2020
Topics/themes: food justice, mutual aid, socially engaged art, multiracial coalition, POC solidarity with Black liberation movements; approximately 50 people in attendance.
Born in the U.S. of Indian farmers from East Africa, Saqib Keval’s food is an act of love, grounded in history, and conveyed through flavor and craft. His work as a chef, researcher and activist are reflected in his diverse menus and rich flavors. In his recipes you find traces of his people’s migration stories and flavors that make you reflect on your own. His food is a testament of the endless potential for joy and community found around the table. Saqib trained in kitchens in the South of France and, more significantly, in his grandmothers’ kitchen. He started The People’s Kitchen Collective, a food, art and social justice chef’s collective to create good food spaces accessible to marginalized people.
Timothy White Eagle
Prof. Ching-In Chen
MFA for Creative Writing and Poetics Cultural Change seminar
April 23, 2020
Timothy White Eagle’s mother was Apache from White Mountain. He was given up for adoption at birth and raised by a working class white family in Washington state. Due to the circumstances of his adoption, White Eagle is not a registered member of the White Mountain Apache tribe. He spent his twenties exploring performance based art. He has worked extensively the past two decades exploring Native American, Pagan and other earth-based Spiritual practices. He began a mentor/protegé relationship with Shoshone Elder Clyde Hall in 1995. Around that same time he began helping to craft personal and community rituals within his Spiritual circles. In 2006 he began collaborating with photographer Adrain Chesser. Their work together has been displayed and published nationally and internationally. In 2014 he and Adrain released their book, “the Return”. Timothy continues to foster relationships with artists seeking to create objects and performances which contain the convenience of Spirit. He dances at a unique crossroads between art and ritual.
Bochan Huy
Prof. Anida Yoeu Ali
BISIA 330 Arts-in-Practice: Engaging Contemporary Performance
April 20, 2020
Bochan Huy has dedicated her life to spearheading and continuing to sow the seeds of the Neo-Cambodian musical breakout movement. By collaborating with adept pianist and producer, Arlen Hart, Bochan effortlessly bridges the East West gap with an inimitable, soulful yet sweet indie-pop vibe. She authentically draws on her dual country upbringing; combining influences from the ultra-urban Oakland scene, coupled with her deep rooted Cambodian inspiration and fellowship, to create her infectious new sound. Bochan grew up singing in her father’s Cambodian American bands. The evolution that Bochan witnessed (and took an active part in) is audible today in the ardent Cambodian music circuit, which has moved from Rock Roots to its current inception. Honoring, yet stepping bravely away from traditional style, she attempts to usher in a new musical age. Her single “Chnam Oun 16” (or, “I am 16”), featuring Raashan Ahmad from Crown City Rockers, shakes up convention, by remaking the classic Cambodian rock anthem about women coming of age. Her solo debut album, “Full Monday Moon” was officially released in January 2012. Her latest EP “Hello Hi” is available for download on iTunes, Amazon, and all other major digital music retailers.