January 28, 6 – 8 p.m., Saengerrunde Hall, 1607 San Jacinto, next door to Scholz Garten.
After two Last Sunday events that looked at a broad array of issues, the January 28 gathering is going to focus on a specific social-political-economic problem in the United States: Race and racism/white supremacy and white privilege, with guest artist/analysts Sharon Bridgforth and Omi Osun Olomo.
The event also will feature more great music by Austin singer/songwriter Slaid Cleaves, along with some of the regular features of Last Sunday (Robert Jensen and Jim Rigby).
Sharon Bridgforth, the author of the bull-jean stories and love conjure/blues, writes jazz-blues prayer/poems/performance stories. Her work, which has been widely anthologized and produced, has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Performance Network, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Bridgforth, who is the Anchor Artist for The Austin Project, has developed an innovative style of teaching creative writing that she calls “Finding Voice,” using the personal to articulate and examine the socio-political realities of their lives. In Bridgforth’s own words: “My work assumes that art and life are not separate, that making art is a communal process. My work speaks to a Black experience but is about building, nurturing, and celebrating humanity, liberation and dignity of all people globally.”
Omi Osun Olomo is one of the rare academics who excels at teaching, research, and administration — all the while engaged in the life of the community. Her performances, including the captivating “sista docta” one-woman show, have made her a sought-after speaker and performer. That piece comes out of her experiences as an African American woman at predominantly white universities. She was a Fulbright Fellow in Nigeria, where she taught at Obafemi Awolowo University and led “Theatre for Social Change” workshops for the Forum on Governance and Democracy. At the University of Texas, Olomo is a theatre professor and associate director of the Center for African and African American Studies, which sponsors the Austin Project, a collaborative venture among women-of-color artists, scholars and activists, and their allies.
Robert Jensen, author of The Heart of Whiteness, will throw a few words into the mix, and Jim Rigby will explore the often-ignored radical roots of Martin Luther King, Jr. Because we don’t want to look at race in isolation, the three discussion groups that emerged after the December event (empire and war, economic justice, ecological crises) will reconvene, with encouragement to explore the racial aspects to these issues.
Musical guest Slaid Cleaves will bring his soulful songwriting and singing to Last Sunday for the first time. Cleaves’ music reflects the eccentric mix of his Yankee upbringing and long residence in Texas. First registering on the national folk scene by winning the Kerrville Folk Festival’s New Folk competition in 1992, Cleaves broke out with his 2000 release “Broke Down,” followed by 2004′s “Wishbones,” an exploration of life’s darker corners where still a ray of hope somehow shines. His most recent CD is “Unsung.”
More information about Last Sunday is at http://thirdcoastactivist.org/lastsunday.html