RPAH Speaker Series: Community-Engaged Arts Presenting ft. Regina Y. Evans

Anti-trafficking activist Regina Y. Evans headlines the Poppy’s November professional development session with a performance and discussion on fighting sex trafficking in the Bay Area. The second-generation Oakland native will perform excerpts of her 52 Letters, a theater piece that looks at the fight against trafficking through the lens of slavery. The play, which won a Best of the San Francisco Fringe Festival Award in 2013, serves as a community call to action against trafficking. Her performance will be followed by a discussion/talk-back.

Regina Y. Evans is a social justice playwright/actor/poet and a modern-day abolitionist in the fight against sex trafficking. She is the owner of Regina’s Door, a vintage boutique, artistic performance space, and sanctuary for at-risk youth and young Oakland artists.

Learn more: Website
Photo by: Sian Taylor Gowan
 

 
About the Professional Development Track Program:
On the third Monday of every month, the Red Poppy Art House invites guest artists, arts leaders, community organizers, and other creative thinkers to share their experience and ideas on the work they are doing and the questions that we are exploring at the Red Poppy Art House. We like to open these presentation-discussions to artists, arts professionals, and others seeking to develop their skills and understanding of the arts ecosystem in relation to socially-engaged arts presenting.

The Poppy’s Professional Development program centers around inquiry in:

• How can we best facilitate a space of encounter, an environment that connects both artists and people from different communities?
• What is the relationship/tension between art as a force for social transformation and art as a form of cultural entertainment that follows a consumer relationship (i.e. you buy a ticket and consume a show)?
• What are the different practical needs in different disciplines (i.e. dance as opposed to a music production), and how can we familiarize ourselves with them to better anticipate the needs of a particular collaboration? In other words, how do we become cross-disciplinary in our thinking?
• Seeing that social/professional relationships in the arts tend to fall along the dividing lines between artistic disciplines and genres, what are some strategies that can help intersect and cross-pollinate respective communities?
• How do we find new and creative ways of addressing issues around equity and access, particularly as we see them play out in our immediate community?

Click here to learn more about the program.
 

 
Time: Session 7:30PM
Admission: Free
All ages are welcome.