Thrilled I’m joining all of these amazing artists Friday evening June 5th to perform an excerpt of “Ungrateful Daughter” for the “Soul Wounds: Trauma and Healing Across Generations” conference at Stanford University. I will be there for the whole conference, I hope you will come, and say hello at the reception after the performance.
Come check out a 30 minute excerpt of my newest solo show in progress on Feb 19th at The Bside Barn in Oakland, CA. This new show continues some of the themes begun in “Ungrateful Daughter” around adoption, loss, longing, grief and finding your worth as a woman. I’ll be performing along side two other amazing solo performers for a full night of theater. Description of the show:
Side Chick: This ain’t no Harlequin Romance – written & performed by Lisa Marie Rollins
Lisa Marie didn’t plan on being a mistress, but somehow here she is, in a hotel in Tahoe with a married man while his wife is in a casino on mushrooms with friends. After 5 years of being single, a few attempts at internet dating, a stalker, the last 3 men she dates suddenly springing the news they are married on her, and some good old fashioned evangelical Christian familial shame, what’s a sex positive, Black Filipina feminist supposed to do?
me 
I’ve been getting the usual onslaught of emails from folks who are in need of support or who are starting to come to grips with the commitment they have made adopting a child of color. Are you a potential or parenting adoptive parent and need some support developing strategies for creating your community to reflect your family? Have you been thinking about moving your family to a more diverse city? a different school? Are you concerned with your TRA’s life being an isolated one?
I want to remind folks that I offer individual family skype or in person consultations. 1-3 sessions, with homework and strategies. Please inbox me for more information if you would like to reserve a space. I want to encourage you to stretch, to make mistakes, to grow your heart and support your child.
“If you’re going to adopt kids, it’s the white parents’ obligation to shepherd them in same-race maturation,” he said. “When you have a transracial family, mixed-race family, you’re going outside the normal. Somebody has to be uncomfortable and it shouldn’t be the child. … Your child should not be your first black friend. That’s the bottom line. If you don’t know no black people, why are you trying to bring one to your home?” – Chad Goller-Sojourner.
Remember that one time I was on HuffPostLive? (check out the full segment by clicking!)
Check me out on Marc Lamont Hill’s show discussing strategies for white families who are parenting children of color.
My new manuscript and new Adoptee Artist Collaborations ahead!!
I’m honored to have been invited to attend the CALLALOO Literary Journal’s 2014 Writing Workshop hosted by the Black Cultural Archives, in collaboration with The Equiano Centre at University College London, England. I have a chance to work with esteemed poet Gregory Pardlo and be in residence with fiction writers Maaza Mengiste and Jackson Brown as well as 20 other multi-genre writers selected from across the global African Diaspora.
CALLALOO is a journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters based at Texas A&M University, and ranked one of the top 15 literary magazines in the United States by Every Writer’s Resource. Ranked among such periodicals as The New Yorker Magazine, Paris Review, The Atlantic, Ploughshares, and Kenyon Review, Callaloo is edited by Dr. Charles Henry Rowell, a professor of English, and published quarterly by the Johns Hopkins University Press in Baltimore, MD.
Unfortunately, CALLALOO is unable to provide funding support for the writers who are attending, so we are asked to pay our own transportation, room and board. Your individual support ensures my ability to attend this workshop, to further my artistic development and to collaborate with other artists from across the globe.
1) While in residence at the week long workshop, I will be continuing the development of my current poetry manuscript, “Anchoring the Compass”. This manuscript furthers the artistic exploration I began in my solo performance play, “Ungrateful Daughter: One Black Girls Story of being Adopted into a White Family . . . that aren’t Celebrities.” (awarded Zellerbach Foundation, James Irvine Foundation grants). This play examined my relationship to my Black and Filipino ancestry and the many historical secrets as a result of being adopted by white parents. “Anchoring the Compass” manuscript extends many of the themes I began to explore in my play, including the complexity of a hybrid, diasporic identity when one does not know one’s birth family history nor has any visible, mirrored link to a particular ancestral homeland. Many of the pieces in “Anchoring” explore how searching, speculation, story-making, mythology and invention all play a part in the development of the constantly moving, changing identities of adopted bodies. Reproductive justice, family preservation and the resistance to human trafficking are strong threads in this work.
Post workshop – I play to extend my trip for one week:
2) to continue my research on diasporic black adoptee communities. This research is a major part of the work that is informing my new play in development, “Side Effects”. “Side Effects” is a theater/ dance / visual art project that explores the personal and geopolitical impacts of inter-country and domestic transracial adoption on Black, Asian and multi-racial bodies of color. This multidisciplinary theater project speaks to the phenomenon of global adoption, and adds to conversations around concepts of multiple diasporas and the dispersal of bodies of color for white consumption, under the guise of multiculturalism and philanthropy.
3) to make connections to other adoptee artists working, writing and performing in London for potential transnational artistic collaboration.
Please check out my INDIEGOGO Campaign Here – share it with your folks who you know support writers, who support adoptee artists and who are interested in getting on at the beginning to support the development of my next multi-disciplinary play.
Your contribution goes directly to assist with airfare, room and board for the duration of the workshop and for the week of collaborative artistic meetings post workshop. Your donations also go to the percentages that Indigogo and PayPal take for fees.
Thank you in advance for your support!
Clearly *ahem *, its been a looooong time since I’ve updated you all here at “A Birth Project”.
As you know, I’ve been writing “A Birth Project” since 2005!! The blog has opened up worlds of deep personal connections, as well as opportunities for me and I’m so thankful for this space. I’m most thankful for you, readers, who continue to subscribe, share my performance work and writing with your people, and supporting me.
I’m still here and still doing my artist, advocate and academic work focusing on adoption and race, and still putting it down for my adoptees and foster care alumni worldwide. There is so much going on, its hard to keep up with regular updates. I do plan to begin regular blogging again, but shifting just a bit.
In the next few months there will be a few changes here at ABP. I’m transitioning over to my new website, lisamarierollins.com and also have taken on a guest blogging position at a new site. (More info on that later.) I will be keeping ABP up, so that people can have access to the archives and the extensive writing work that has been done here and I’ll be posting here for a few more months as well. As the transition goes, I’ll keep you updated!
Two of the best ways to keep up with my work right now are joining me on my Facebook page and sign up for my NEWSLETTER. It comes out once every two months or so. Here is the most RECENT ONE – FEBRURARY 2013 UPDATE. It has information about my upcoming readings, events and performances.
Look out for the upcoming 2013 “Ungrateful Daughter” Tour, we’re shooting to head to NYC, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and a few other places. If you want me in your town – email me!
For now, check out my most recent publication, “A Short History of Kissing” in Issue 7 of “Eye to the Telescope”, edited by Bryan Thao Worra.
A Birth Project 