BACCE ensemble performing in Bootycandy. Photo by Kolmel W Love
Brava responded to the events of 2017 with dynamic programming that resisted the encroaching divisiveness that characterized the moment nationally and locally.
In January, resident company Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience (BACCE) opened the year with a staged reading of An American Ma(u)l, Robert O'Hara's wicked satire about an inappropriate and mad president who jumps starts the economy by returning black people to a temporary slavery. In February, BACCE returned with a production of Bootycandy, Robert O'Hara's edgy look at growing up black and gay in America. Brava's community partner Radar Productions presented Missing You, which investigated memory and place in the Mission. In March, political resistance was on the stage as legendary feminist Gloria Steinem shared a stage in conversation with Lateefah Simon; theatre artists responded to the crisis in Syria in Golden Thread's Syria Mon Amour; Baratunde Thurston brought his brand of resistant humor and commentary to Brava's maninstage; and a memorial concert was held for Alex Nieto. In April, we celebrated youthful resistance with a screening of the movie Selena and MAPA's production of Javier Hurtado’s Hope and the Mission, a local story that explored displacement, identity and sexuality. Summer brought explorations of American's role in Argentina’s period of State terrorism with the Bay Area premiere of Observando y Observador, a film chronicling local activist Olga Talamante's time in an Argentian prison in the 1970s and the production of Ghost Limb, Marisela Treviño Orta's play on the subject. In the fall, the Brava stage saw numerous events which engaged the important and growing women’s resistance movement with conversations with Joan Baez, Lila Downs, Zoe Quinn of Gamergate, and a screening of Dolores, film about the life and activism of Dolores Huerta.
2018 will see Brava resistant and resilient as ever as we push the boundaries of engagement in the power of the political and cultural art and expression. We hit a high level of resistance early in the year with our Not My F*#cking President’s Day Evening of Comedic Resistance on Feb 17, featuring women comics of color, and an all-female lineup for our 6th Annual San Francisco Son Jarocho Festival, Jan 30 - Feb 4. Artistic resistance continues throughout the year with the production of Untold (Feb 15, 16 & 18), a new play about women and reproductive rights; Masters of the Currents, a community based story of Hawaiian resistance; Between Dirt & Sky, a musical about the life of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and the monthly series So Soul San Francisco: Black Art Salons which will bring radical artists of color together monthly to resist through art and technology. We are armed with wit, irony, beauty, rage, outrage, theatricality, song and drag and ready for the new year!