Brava! for Women in the Arts & Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience presents Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe in a brand new solo performance
Adventures of A Black Girl: Traveling While black
Direction and Design by Jose Maria Francos
March 15-17, 2013
Fri & Sat 8pm, Sun 3pm
Traveling While Black is an exploration of the impact of African migration, in all of its many manifestations, on the Black Diaspora and on the continents that have become our adopted and adapted homes. It explores the histories that have created our presence outside of Africa and the current attitudes toward African peoples that are revealed through transcontinental crossings.
Based on travels through Europe, the Americas and Africa, Traveling While Black is part travelogue and part history lesson and seeks to exploit the tensions between tourism and colonialism as it interrogates boundaries and reveals cultural connects and disconnects. Inspired by Langston Hughes’ I Wonder As I Wander, TWB examines the post-slavery condition of Black travel, both fanciful and forced. The script is fueled by Edris' experiences as a global Black American traveler/tourist.
With support from Zellerbach Family Foundation.
Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe (Actor/Writer) is an award-winning director, actor and writer. She has directed at Trinity Rep, Magic Theatre, TheatreWorks, WaterTower Theatre/Dallas, Mark Taper Forum, Southern Rep in New Orleans and Alabama Shakespeare, among others. A onetime performer with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Edris has performed at many regional and independent theaters and for more than a decade was a lead artist for Rhodessa Jones’ The Medea Project; Theatre for Incarcerated Women. Edris’ original solo performances have been seen at Northwestern University, the University of Illinois and the University of Florida in Gainesville; and in San Francisco at AfroSolo Festival, Intersection For the Arts and other small independent venues, including her own former Sugar Shack Performance Gallery and Cultural Center in the Lower Haight. Internationally, Edris has performed in Ibadan, Nigeria and Berlin, Germany and presented scholarship on performance in Mexico, the UK and the Netherlands. Her 2010 performance of Adventures Of A Black Girl In Search of Academic Clarity and Inclusion was presented as part of the solo/black/women festival at Northwestern University, is being created as a video game and will be published in an anthology by Northwestern University Press later this year.