Dancer-Choreographer Tonya Marie Amos: Dance for the Revolution

Tonya Amos is the founder of Grown Women Dance Collective, a company made up of internationally renowned dancers in their forties and fifties who have retired from full-time positions in the nation’s finest professional dance ensembles. Tonya combines her exuberant spirit, her passion for arts and community-building, and her expertise in dance, health, and wellness to celebrate Black history; build cross-cultural, cross-racial, and cross-class bridges; and bring arts and wellness services to economically disenfranchised communities all over the San Francisco Bay Area. In this podcast, she talks with host Tanya Shaffer about her extraordinary journey as a dancer, which took her from the racially discriminatory Bay Area dance scene of the 70’s and 80’s to New York and the Alvin Ailey Company. They also discuss Tonya’s work with Grown Women Dance Collective; how she became a choreographer by default; her passion for breaking down barriers between people of all classes, races, and generations; and her plans to train a new generation of health and wellness experts to bring Pilates, dance, and physical therapy into communities that have previously had little to no access.

Singer-Songwriter Noe Venable: Pilgrim at Creativity’s Spring

Singer-songwriter Noe Venable has been called “a homegrown, full-blown musical visionary” (Puremusic.com). Her gorgeously layered songs, rich in myth and poetry, speak to the wilderness in each of our souls. Although she’s still young, she’s already had a rich and varied career, releasing the first of her eight albums when she was just twenty years old. In this conversation, intercut with excerpts from Noe’s diverse musical catalog, host Tanya Shaffer talks with Noe about the mysterious give and take of the creative process, the ways the stages of her life have impacted the evolution of her musical style, why she left a thriving musical career to attend divinity school, and what brought her back to the creative life.f her musical style, why she left music and attended divinity school, and what brought her back to the creative life.

Music, SongwritingTanya ShafferJuly 9, 2020music, musician, Singer-Songwriter, Songwriting, creativity, arts, performing arts, spiritualityComment

Playwright-Performer-Visual Artist Herbert Sigüenza: White Jesus Was the Original Fake News

Herbert Sigüenza is a founding member of the brilliant, hilarious, and politically incisive group Culture Clash, the most produced Latino performance troupe in the country. He’s also the playwright-in-residence at the San Diego Repertory Theatre and has appeared as an actor in theatre, tv and film. He served as a cultural consultant and the voice of the lead character’s two deceased uncles in the Academy-Award-winning film Coco. In today’s episode, he chats with host Tanya Shaffer about a range of topics, including Culture Clash’s beginnings in San Francisco in the ‘80’s, how they create hit shows, his ongoing commitment to progressive politics, and how he remains engaged and excited about his art 35-plus years into a long career. He also shares a delightful monologue from his solo show A Weekend With Pablo Picasso and a thought-provoking soliloquy based on an interview with a Black preacher in Washington, DC.

Off-Leash Writing