April 2nd MAPP: “My Heart, Your Sleeve” and the Porch Performance Festival

For the April 2nd MAPP, the Red Poppy Art House has invited theater artist/playwright Mia Paschal to curate an evening of 7 solo theater performances titled My Heart, Your Sleeve. While this program is happening inside the Poppy, we will simultaneously be launching the the second test run of the Porch Performance Festival, done in partnership with independent artists and community members. PORCH is an in-progress initiative centered around transforming the stoops of local residences into sites of story sharing (oral histories) and performance.

April 2nd MAPP Schedule:
6:00–6:20pm: Ben Baker (solo performer, poetry)
Love poems and other work: This evening’s selected poems are loosely tied together by the rhetorical question: Isn’t all poetry about love?

7:00–7:02pm: Introduction to My Heart, Your Sleeve
In her theatrical work, Mia Paschal explores different ways to connect with a theatrical audience, expanding and upending expectations and assumptions about identity and social conventions through text, the use of the theatrical space, and the relationship between performer and spectator. For this evening at the Red Poppy for the MAPP, Mia also wanted to present different facets of emotionally-charged communication, and to that end, she invited five artists who, by doing this in very personal and original ways, have expanded the way she approaches her art.

7:02–7:12pm: Aideed Medina (spoken word poet)

7:15–7:25pm: Dulce Maria Peña (spoken word poet)

7:35–7:47pm: Stan Stone (solo performer, theater)
Johnny and Scrap: Bowling becomes a poignant lover’s lane for two southerners in a league of their own.

7:50–8:07pm: Eliza Gibson (solo performer, theater)
Bravo 25: Tension is escalating in the group, no one is using “I” statements. Amber, the AI avatar therapist intervenes: “I think it’s time to return to our breath. Is everyone ready?” Jeremy thinks some breathing would be pretty great right about now. Marsha will do whatever Amber says because Amber never asks her to talk about her mother. Tony doesn’t want to breathe…EVER. Amber, the AI avatar therapist, won’t be returning to her breath. She’s a robot, on a t.v. screen. And robots, well, they can’t breathe.

8:15–8:52pm: Abby Schachner (solo performer, theater)
Abby loves letters. And she loves U! For 37 minutes (give or take), watch Abby share her heArt and her passions with reckless abandon. Come awaken your inner child, even if it’s orphaned and malnourished! If you like words and worlds, 37 minutes (give or take) with Abby will go down like porridge, but it’s a whole lot tastier and more artful. Note: Abby’s work is not scientifically proven to be good for your heArt, but there’s a 72% chance your head might spin for awhile.

9:05–9:20pm: Aideed Medina (spoken word poet)

9:30–10:00pm: Mia Paschal (solo performer, theater)
Heartbreak Velocity: Does the language with which you say “I love you” change the way you love? Can heartbreak really kill you? Is that death, or is it Marvin Gaye? And the only question that really matters: Cake, or more cake? Heartbreak Velocity is a darkly sweet and sweetly sexy show about diving into the downfalls of love, armed with a Finnish dictionary and a dessert fork.

More on the MAPP:
Launched in 2003, the Mission Arts & Performance Project (MAPP) is a homegrown bi-monthly, multidisciplinary, intercultural happening that takes place in the Mission District of San Francisco. On the first Saturday of every even month of the year, the MAPP transforms ordinary spaces, such as private garages, gardens, living rooms, studios, street corners, and small businesses, into pop-up performance and exhibition sites for a day/night of intimate-scale artistic and cultural exchange among a kaleidoscope of individuals and communities.

Learn more about the MAPP program here and here.

About the Artists:

Mia Paschal moved to SF from Milan, Italy to study with Ed Hooks. She also studied acting with David Wheeler while an undergraduate at Harvard and with Bill Hickey at HB Studios in NYC. Along with her ensemble theater and film work, she has written and performed three award-winning solo shows: some life, This Lily Was (Fontana), and Along the Path of Larks and Swallows. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Oakland Museum of California have also commissioned her to write site-specific works (My Jim Dine Valentine and Trevlig). Her latest solo performance project, Heartbreak Velocity, is an extension of work commissioned by The Marsh. (PC: Rita Cigolini)

Ben Baker holds an MA in Drama from San Francisco State and an MFA in Contemporary Performance from Naropa University. He is a Performance Artist that assumes many roles in theatre as a writer, director, actor, dancer and choreographer. He presently teaches improvisation, movement meditation, and ecstatic voice workshops in SF.

Aideed Medina describes her writing as illustrations of singular moments and calls her work “momentary poetry.” She creates in English and Spanish, as dictated by the inspiration of each individual poem. Aideed writes about the sacredness of the human experience in relation to nature, love and family, as well as social justice issues that are close to her heart. She is currently working on a yearlong collaboration between the Inner Ear Poets and The Fresno Grand Opera. You can catch her live spoken word performances throughout the year at Arte Americas, The Inner Ear Poetry Slam, The Loud Mouth Poetry Slam, and cultural events sponsored by the Dulce Up Front Collaborative, AMX Productions and The Fresno Grand Opera.

Stan Stone is an actor, writer and director based in San Francisco. He is a member of Barewitness Films, a group which strives to challenge the conventional and hierarchical nature of motion picture production with spontaneous, improv-based films. Stan recently wrote and directed The City, a film about a friendship at odds with gentrification, and is also featured in Christopher De Santis’s indie film, The Ides of Man. (PC: William Salit)

Trained as a drummer and classical pianist, Eliza Gibson wrote and performed her first solo show, Dialogues with Madwomen, in 1995 after returning to the US from the former Yugoslavia, where she had been a humanitarian aid worker. She also wrote the narrative for Memories Do Not Burn, a documentary about war orphans and refugees featuring the voice of Sarah Jessica Parker. And Now, No Flip Flops?!, directed by David Ford, premiered in Fresno, California at the Rogue Festival in February 2015 and in San Francisco at the LGBT Center in July 2015. Eliza is currently developing her next solo show, Bravo 25, starring an A.I. avatar therapist.

Abby Schachner loves hearts, but she’s not so into sleeves. She has created and performed in nearly a dozen solo shows, most recently being awarded Best Solo Show at the 2015 San Francisco Fringe. She toured the country with Second City, has taught hundreds of kids yoga, and now she makes adorable, cool dolls.

Initiated by the Red Poppy Art House, PORCH is a new project in-the-making that looks specifically to the stoops (“porches”) of Mission resident homes as intimate sites of encounter for artists and community members to trade stories, cultural/artistic experiences and performance. Two summer’s ago we did it at the Pigeon Palace on Folsom St. This time around, our esteemed friend, colleague, and community member, Roberto Hernandez, has offered up his ‘porch’ for the event.

April 2nd PORCH Program @ 1333 Florida Street
Curated by Adrian Arias, Roberto Hernandez, Marguerite Muñoz, and Todd Thomas Brown

5:30-5:40pm: Todd Thomas Brown (Welcome)
5:43-5:53pm: Roberto Hernandez (Neighborhood Stories)
5:56-6:01pm: Adrian Arias (Abuela’s Sopa)
6:04-6:14pm: Amelia Uzategui (El Mito de la Manta)
6:17-6:22pm: Vecino (neighborhood stories)
6:25-6:40pm: La Cura Trio (acoustic music)
6:43-6:48pm: Vecino (Neighborhood Stories)
6:51-7:06pm: La Tania with Ryan Garcia, guitar & Maria Sanchez, dancer (Storytelling/Flamenco Dance & Music)
7:09-7:19pm: Ariel Vargas (Poetry)
7:22-7:27pm: Astu (Afro-Electric Soul)
7:30-7:35pm: Vecino (Neighborhood Stories)
7:38-7:48pm: Byb Chanel Bibene (Contemporary Dance)
7:51-8:01pm: Erika Oba/Marcus Shelby/Aaron Keirbel (Flute, Bass, Percussion)
8:04-8:16pm: Stephanie Sherman (Poetry)
8:19-8:29pm: Amalia Alvarez (Poetry)
8:32-8:42pm: Daniel Riera/Camille Mai/Marcus Shelby (Jazz/Soul Music Trio)
8:45-8:50pm: Vero Majano (Poetry)
8:53-8:58pm: Vecino (Neighborhood Stories)
9:01-9:11pm: Norman Zelaya (Neighborhood Stories)
9:14-9:24pm: Aideed Medina (Spoken Word Poetry)
9:27-9:37pm: Lake Stovall, Guitarist/Vocalist & Justin Hawkins, Lead Guitar (Acoustic Soul)
9:40-9:50pm: Susana Aragon (Neighborhood Stories)
9:50-10:00pm: Closing Poems by Marguerite Muñoz

More on PORCH:
PORCH is a community arts experiment that situates itself within the bi-monthly MAPP platform to create a neighborhood festival that transpires on the front stoops of local residences, where traditional and contemporary artists perform and local residents share their stories/histories. The front stoop represents a literal threshold between the public and private spheres, and is a historic site of spontaneous community interaction and exchange. We use the word ‘porch’ to underscore history and continuity that is central to the festival. Before arriving to urban centers, it was traditionally the porches of smaller communities where neighbor interaction took place. This unique space now becomes increasingly significant and symbolic in neighborhoods undergoing rapid processes of gentrification that result in the breakdown of social fabric and the loss of communal/neighborhood memory.

Admission: Free. All ages welcome.

Join the conversation at the Poppy – volunteer with us! Click here.