[#BlackIssuesISSUES\Kanene Holder]
The show – centered around the character of the character of ReBLACKa, whom is equal parts Anna Wintour and Ali G – satirizes the magazine industry’s push to stay woke and relevant and the push towards diversity while consistently missing the mark.
Photo: Facebook
Artist and award-winning educator Kanene Holder is performing her satirical comedy show, #BlackIssuesISSUES, at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater on Saturday, February 29, 2020, the “leap year, extra day to be EXTRA BLACK-BLEXTRAVAGANZA”.
The show is directed by Karen Ann Daniels, Director of The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit, and will feature interviews with experts in mass incarceration and gentrification, including Majora Carter, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and Peabody Award winner, and Cassady Fendlay, a core organizer of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington.
Highly humorous, interactive, and provocative, #BlackIssuesISSUES blends farce and socio-political truth with campy, oxymoronic characters to highlight the absurdity of inequality. The show uses sketch comedy elements, live polling through integrative software, and audience interaction to explore the often uncomfortable topics surrounding race.
The show – centers around the character of ReBLACKa, who is equal parts Anna Wintour and Ali G – satirizes the magazine industry’s push to stay woke and relevant and the push towards diversity while consistently missing the mark. The evening will also feature interviews with experts in mass incarceration and gentrification, including Majora Carter, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and Peabody Award winner; Cassady Fendlay, a core organizer of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington; and DJ playing hip hop, afrobeat, soca and Cyndi Lauper.
BlackIssuesISSUES will also be featured at SXSW EDU where twelve students, ages 10-15 years old, from The Schomburg Center’s Junior Scholars program will perform original content. Holder, an award-winning educator who leads the theater program, believes in positioning students at an early age for leadership and is currently fundraising to subsidize the students’ travel to SXSW.
Kanene Holder
Kanene Ayo Holder is an educator, writer, activist and performer working at the intersection of the arts, media literacy, social criticism, and policy. She partners or consults with institutions including The New York Times School, The Public Theater, Apollo Theater, Studio Museum of Harlem, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Prospect Hill Foundation to create curriculum and facilitate workshops about race and inequality. Holder has been featured in The New York Times for her social justice satire $earching for American Justice: The Pursuit of Happiness, and her political commentary has aired on media outlets including BBC, CNN, as well as a U.S. News and World Reports feature on her innovative curriculum. Holder’s lectures on diversity, education policy, and income inequality have been featured at Columbia University, NYU, and for Brooklyn Historical Society’s gala and her research published in the Colin Powell Policy Journal, Teaching Matters: Stories from Inside City Schools, Huffington Post, and Medium. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships from the Puffin Foundation for Activist Art, The National Endowment for the Humanities, Bard College’s Artistic Fellow for the Institute for Media, Culture and Difference, Columbia University Community Scholars, THREAD at Yale Fellowship for Non-Fiction Storytelling, and others.
Joe’s Pub
A program of The Public Theater and named for its founder Joseph Papp, Joe’s Pub opened in 1998 and plays a vital role in The Public’s mission of supporting young artists while providing established artists with an intimate space to perform and develop new work. The organization also offers opportunities like New York Voices, an artist commissioning program that helps musicians develop original theater works; Joe’s Pub Working Group, an artist development initiative; The Vanguard Award & Residency, a yearlong series that celebrates the career of a prolific and influential artist; and nationwide programming partnerships. With its intimate atmosphere and superior acoustics, Joe’s Pub presents talent from all over the world as part of The Public’s programming downtown at its Astor Place home, hosting approximately 800 shows and serving over 100,000 audience members annually. Read more on the website https://publictheater.org/programs/joes-pub
The Schomburg Center Junior Scholars Program
Each year, 100 youth ages 11–18 participate in the Schomburg Center’s Junior Scholars program. This tuition-free program promotes historical literacy through college-style lectures and presentations, group discussions and activities, and project-based learning. Students generate individual research, original writing, art portfolios, and collaborative multimedia arts projects from their intensive study of the Schomburg Center’s archives, exhibitions, and educational resources. The Schomburg’s Junior Scholars increase their historical literacy and embrace their legacy as African-American citizens and learn about the cultures of their prolific and trailblazing ancestors. Read more on the website.
SXSW EDU
Now in its 10th year, the SXSW EDU® Conference & Festival cultivates and empowers a community of engaged stakeholders to advance teaching and learning. The annual four-day event affords registrants open access to engaging sessions, immersive workshops, interactive learning experiences, film screenings, early-stage startups, business opportunities, and networking. For more information, please visit sxswedu.com.
