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Book Bridgforth’s Shows

Touring Party: 3 People (Includes Bridgforth)
Bridgforth will cast additional performers from the community that the work is being presented in. Auditions and rehearsals will happen during residency programming. Musicians, dancers actors, singers, performance artists, spoken word artists, hip hop artists of all backgrounds and experience levels are welcomed. Rehearsals will be set as part of the Touring Company’s residency activities.

Bridgforth will Conduct performers. Performers are asked to embody vs. perform “characters.” Thus performers are required to: feel everything they experience do and say; to listen deeply; to be present in each moment as it unfolds; bring all of themselves-their experiences-what they know-their Vision to the Work. There is fluidly in the discovery of what wants to happen/based on who is in the room. This way of working invites newness to each performance and keeps the work grounded in the jazz of itself.

“Calling myself Conductor vs. Director is Inspired by Helga Davis’ work during productions of my performance/novel love conjure/blues (RedBone Press). Helga composed music and vocal soundscaping that she conducted live during performances. I conduct cast members/assigning lines/layering the telling. In this way my work is more like Helga’s way of working than traditional “directing..” Sharon Bridgforth

Photo Credit: Bret Brookshire. This photo was taken during dress rehearsal for the world premiere of delta dandi, produced by Women & Their Work at the Long Center in Austin, TX. Pictured are: Sonja Perryman, Leigh Gaymon-Jones, Azure D. Osborne-Lee and Helga Davis. For more about the premiere CLICK HERE

delta dandi was commissioned by Women & Their Work through a Creation Fund Award granted by the National Performance Network. MORE ABOUT delta dandi CLICK HERE

For more:  CONTACT ME

STAGED READING

Like Jazz
a staged reading of
jazz/blues/prayer poems & performance stories
written and presented by Sharon Bridgforth

Running Time: 45 Min reading plus Audience Talk Back.
Maximum number of participants: OPEN
Type of space: Open
Equipment Needs: Music Stand. Standing Mic. (depending on how big the space is). If possible, it would be great to project images (from Bridgforth’s MacBook or from your system)

Her reading was powerful and moving. She is an honest artist with a charismatic stage presence. She is also generous… Carol Guess Assistant Professor, English; Western Washington University

DIALOGUE: TRANSGRESSING FORM

Bridgforth will engage in an open dialogue with community members. Poets/dancers/spoken word artists/hip hop artists/performance artists/visual artists/musicians of all experience levels….people that do not easily fit in box, artists that do not flow in mainstream culture, people that are not hooked into systems of privilege and support. This conversation will focus on making art, breaking form, making a living as an artist, using art as a tool for change, the tradition of the personal as political.

Running Time: 2 hours.
Maximum number of participants: OPEN
Type of space: Open

“While this aesthetic leans heavily on elements of jazz including improvisation, George Lewis’s notion of the Afrological, and “the break,” it also reveals the modern dance idioms, the blues sensibilities, the performance art antecedents, and the ancestral calling that situates a theatrical jazz aesthetic as a distinctive performance genre”.…From Dr. Joni Jones/Omi Osun’s forth coming book, JAZZ, ASE, AND THE POWER OF THE PRESENT MOMENT: THE JAZZ AESTHETIC IN THE CREATION OF THEATRICAL WORK

FINDING VOICE WORKSHOP

A Writing Workshop Facilitated by Sharon Bridgforth
For Emerging Artists
Queers, women, spoken word artists, activists, hip hoppers, people of color, people from a wide range of geographic, spiritual and ethnic groups – artists that are interested in using art as vehicle for social justice. This is a perfect opportunity to bring together a diverse group of emerging artists from your community that might not otherwise be in a room together. Through the power the personal/participants will be encouraged to create long-term on-going relationships.

Bridgforth’s Finding Voice Manual will be published in 2010 in a University Texas Press book titled, The Austin Project Archive: Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic, edited by Omi Osun Olomo/Joni L. Jones, Ph.D., Lisa L. Moore, Ph.D. and Bridgforth. For more about Finding Voice CLICK HERE

Suggested Workshop length: The more time I have the better.
I.E. Weekend retreats, Master Classes etc.
Maximum number of participants: 10 but can vary (must be over 18 years of age).
Workshop space: Should be private, quiet, comfortable.
Water, coffee, fruit and juice for participants recommended .

“I am just a simple Colombian woman, with a heart bigger than the moon, who loves peace but has emotions are more powerful than a volcano exploding and whose passion can paint the world. The word is my life and my writing was reborn with the unique wisdom and guidance of my Maestra Sharon Bridgforth. My language is Spanish but she could understood my need to put out in poetry, short stories and now the book I’m writing all those vivencias. She knew that it wasn’t about the language. It was about my bones and womb. And through her workshops I could finally start writing from that place. I gave birth to “Hoy Corte Mi Esperanza” after my last workshop, “Writing from the Bones”, with my Maestra Sharon Bridgforth in 2005. This story is in eight parts. This is two of the eight. So.. my place, the one where my words live and that only I know has Colombian flavor. And believe me it’s sooo tasty”….Raquel Ruiz

For booking and additional information go to the Contact page on this site.

Bridgforth with allgo’s ROOTED: Queer Artists Group with Our Beloved Elder raulrsalinas at Resistencia Bookstore.