LiveArts in Resistance (LAIR) Virtual
**Ancestral Knowledge, Art and Resistance**
Featuring Alleluia Panis
In this time of COVID and amidst powerful calls for racial justice, EastSide Arts Alliance and NAKA Dance Theater have launched a series of 5 presentations in collaboration with World Arts West.
On October 20, 2020, join us for a conversation between Anne Huang, Executive Director of World Arts West and Alleluia Panis.
Alleluia Panis is an American Pilipino director, choreographer, and non-profit arts leader. She has created over twenty full-length dance theater works that have been presented on stages in the United States, Europe, and Asia. She has received numerous awards, including the inaugural Artistic Legacy Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission in 2017 and the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Commission for Choreographers for her 2019-2021 dance and film project, ‘In the Belly of the Eagle’. Alleluia is a recipient of the 2021-23 Hewlett 50 Art Commission for Choreography.
She is the Artistic and Executive Director of Kularts, the nation’s premiere presenter of contemporary and tribal Pilipino arts. Her dance film, ‘She, Who Can See’ was officially selected and screened at the 2018 CAAMFest formerly known as the SF Asian American International Film Festival. She served as a member of National Performance Network’s Artists Committee, and as a board member of Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, Brava! For Women in the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and Dance Bay Area. She’s an active member of San Francisco’s SOMA Pilipinas, Filipino Cultural Heritage District.
This event will be streamed live on Facebook.
Sign Language interpretation by Christine Nakahara and MJ Jones.
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LIVE ARTS IN RESISTANCE is a dynamic series of performances, artist residencies, and community town halls to address racial inequity and white supremacy in popular culture. Collectively, we contribute to a new cultural consciousness of self-determination and indigenous knowledge as integral to our resistance to systemic oppression and imperialism.
LIVE ARTS IN RESISTANCE includes dance, theater, poetry and interdisciplinary performances, curated by socially-conscious artists. Together we push the boundaries of our practices and contemplate our role and responsibility in connecting the many struggles of our respective communities both locally and globally.
LIVE ARTS IN RESISTANCE fosters risk-taking, rigor, and a radical critique on the role of political activism, cultural work and art in society. This role is historically rooted in a culture fighting for justice, equity and self-determination —the political empowerment of our people.
We seek to create a place where artists and audience members can engage in a meaningful dialogue about innovative ideas and experimental work; where artists can reflect on the process of creating progressive art and revolutionary movements; redefining aesthetics and ethics that will decolonize minds. There is a profound need to construct a culture of resistance outside of “market forces”; a culture that will defend our communities from the current reactionary political climate. With the absurdity of backward national elections, xenophobia, fascist policing and militarism that has been shaping our lives, all the inflamed racism, sexism and classism is being rekindled on the world stage.
We reiterate Malcolm X’s words that “Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle”. And once again, we must SEIZE THE TIME! — to magnify our struggle, giving wings to our imagination and finding new ways to speak our truth.