Recent Mentions: Jet and Theater Bay Area

As I’m still coming off the glow and gearing up for the madness that is ensuing from my acceptance into the NYC International Fringe Festival, I’m happy to say I’ve gotten a couple mentions in mags lately that I wanted to share. I was mentioned in this months edition of THEATER BAY AREA MAGAZINE, in an article by the lovely and talented solo master, Sara Felder. The article “Juggling the Truth” explores solo performance, truth telling and autobiographical writing for the stage. Here is a LINK to the whole interview online.

I was also just recently mention in Jet Magazine. I’m totally excited about this because Jet Magazine is one of the oldest Black magazines still in circulation. Its a brief mention, but yay!!

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NYC Premiere! Yay! I got IN!!

I’m thrilled to announce that my play “Ungrateful Daughter: One Black Girls story of being adopted into a white family…that aren’t celebrities” will have its NYC Premiere at the 2012 NYC International Fringe Festival in August!! I got in!!! YEEEEEEE! NYC here I come!


I will be posting fundraising, production updates, and the specific show dates as soon as I get all that information!

HUGE HUGE thank you again to ALL of my donors, both individual, organizational and foundations! Huge thank you to the adoptee community who has has my back from the beginning. I could NEVER have gotten this far without your support. Lets DO this!!

Jackie Kay new autobiography “Red Dust Road”

I’m already a fan of Jackie Kay’s book of poems, “Adoption Papers” so I was very excited to hear about a new autobiography from her about her search and reunion with her birth family.

from: The Guardian
Red Dust Road opens in the Nicon Hilton Hotel in Abuja. Jackie Kay is confronted by the man who is her natural father. He is a born-again Christian and self-styled faith healer who prays over her for two hours. He is disappointed by her failure to give herself to Christ, the condition required by him to acknowledge her publicly as his daughter. “I am sitting here,” writes Kay, “evidence of his sinful past, but I am the sinner, the living embodiment of his sin.” Kay resists. They do not meet again.

For the previous 40 years Kay’s existence had been kept secret from the families of both her natural father and her birth mother. Kay was born in 1961 in Edinburgh to a Scottish nurse and a Nigerian student. Soon afterwards she was adopted. Red Dust Road is Kay’s 20-year search for her birth parents and for her existence to be recognised.

From Abuja, Kay returns us to a 1960s Glaswegian childhood with her parents John and Helen, delightful people, communists who spend their summer holidays singing in the car, who cross Russia by train, and raise her surrounded by caring comrades. Her mother tells her the little she knows about Jackie’s birth parents and imagines what she does not know: they were madly in love, but he was already betrothed to another, they were heartbroken to give her away. These moments are offered as shared reminiscences, and are interspersed with other memories taken from different times, mainly of Kay tracing and eventually meeting the real people behind her mother’s fairytales.

READ THE REST HERE

Also, check this audio clip where she reads an excerpt from the book about meeting her birth mother for the first time.

Disney’s first Black Princess

Its about freakin time!

Disney has finally stopped representing black people as animals (i.e The Lion King) and has stepped up to create a  new animated feature with its first black princess!

I’m not sure if she starts off as a frog or what the frog has to do with the story… (sigh), but I’m still looking forward to gathering up a gaggle of little girls to go and check it out. I hope they dont mess it up. She’s from New Orleans – so fingers crossed.

Speaking of black bodies and animation – (and the next blog Im writing for you!) I went to WonderCon in San Francisco and met a whole bunch of up and coming and old school black comic and cartoon artists. I’m really excited about their work in relationship to my dissertation work.

I also got to check out Nalo Hopkinson who did a reading at Revolution Books in Berkeley, author of one of the books I’m writing on for my dissertation, Midnight Robber.  She spoke about many things, but interestingly enough responded to a white mother, who asked a question about hybridity and identity and science fiction and referred to her mixed race daughter as an example of the future of race in the US. (READ: “race doesnt matter”)… I know you are waiting on the edge of your seats to hear what my gurl had to say.

Black/ Mixed Girl Hair Report

Ahhh black girl hair. I’m experimenting with my hair products.

Again.

I’ve been really happy with and loyal to Aveda’s Be Curly for the past three or four years since I cut my dreadlocks, but I happened on a product called Mixed Chicks, that I decided  to try. I’m trying it mostly to support the company, but to see how it may work for me. Be Curly is gonna be hard to beat tho.

As we’ve discussed before, Black women/ black girls hair is a big deal. So if you are ignoring the biological difference here in hair – its time for corrective action. My suggestions here will work for hair that is fine, but with medium tight curls. Many times this hair texture comes from having a mixed race background. These suggestions will probably not be useful for coarse hair with very tight curls. (Although I can make some suggestions here too cause I twist my friends dreadlocks and my men friends short twists).

I have LOTS of hair, very thick and it gets tangled and starts forming Locks after about a week of not combing/brushing. I dont wash my hair everyday – only once a week or every few days if I HAVE to because of kickboxing. It is important to not over wash black hair because the natural oils keep it healthy, no matter what the texture. I dont even get my hair wet everyday – only if my curls are getting frizzy. I only comb my hair about once a week, when I am in the shower, with conditioner on.

After I get out the shower, I usually squeeze my hair out and then just “scrunch” it with a towel and then wrap my hair in the towel to get out excess water. There are two processes I usually do after that. First, if I have just combed my hair, my curls are usually not ‘defined’ and so sometimes I wear braids/twists/ or pony tail buns for a day. If I choose to do the braids/twists/ buns I usually just douse my hair in almond oil or this amazing Organics Olive Oil stuffs. Then after a day or two, I wash my hair – dont comb it!! – and then just ‘scrunch’ in about two big globs of Be Curly, and let my hair air dry and voila!

Ive also just discovered the Organics Hair Mayo.  Damn that stuff works good. But its like a deep conditioner. Only do that once every few weeks or so.

So I’m gonna try Mixed Chicks. I’ll let you know how it goes!

UPDATE:  

TRA camp Photos

Some of the best (& 1 worst) things about TRA camp!

Meeting an entire posse of fab women TRAs!! (LtoR – Amy G, the Ungrateful Daughter herself, Susan Ito, Ji-in, Robin R.)

Me thinking *really* really hard at the Adult Adoptee panel! Ummm..  yes you SHOULD move out of your all -white community, yes you SHOULD come out of your comfort zone and address your own racism. duh!

Me and Amy G., newest soul sister TRA! This woman is freakin amazing. Im so glad i met her, and that she was put on this earth.

Me and some of the amazing teen TRA’s at the poetry reading of their work!

One of the mothers I actually thought was CAH! (cool as hell)

Amy G and I in a candid with one of the amazing counselors, Kiki. One of the cool things that the counselors did was have a “hair clinic” for AP’s. None of the AP’s came. So the 3 of us tried to assist one of our young sistas. Her mother said, “You know, I always have black women coming up to me to tell me ways to do my child’s hair”. Ummm , then do you think that possibly your child’s hair is messed up, and before she gets a complex when kids start baggin on her you might want to find her a salon, a hairdresser and start her on a regimin? ..tha hell?  Ummm. Did i mention the other woman who tried to tell the three of us that she knew more about black hair than we did? I’ve been black all my life lady. Jezuz. How much more do i need to say? Attention AP’s. Black women’s hair is a VERY big deal. It is cultural and spiritual. I can explain if you like.

Film: Black, Bold and Beautiful: Black Women’s Hair

Book: Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America

 

Meeting and comiserating and being able to thank Ji-In *superstar!* This woman is a serious blessing.

On the way home, trying to catch my breath/heart at Half moon Bay.