Billy Porter, KST Playlist
Broadway theater performer, singer, actor, and Pittsburgh Native Billy Porter is the focus of this week’s playlist.
Broadway theater performer, singer, actor, and Pittsburgh Native Billy Porter is the focus of this week’s playlist.
Every Tuesday at 12:30pm, KST Executive Director Joseph Hall takes to Instagram Live for conversations with arts leaders in Pittsburgh, across the USA, and internationally. Tune in, get to know Joseph, and find out how he and fellow arts leaders around the world are adapting to the challenges brought on by COVID-19.
19 Minutes with Joseph Hall is a part of KST Global Stream, KST’s COVID-19 responsive online programming initiative.
On Tuesday, June 30. Hall was joined by writer and art critic Jessica Lynne.
Jessica Lynne (Guest – Tuesday, June 30) is a writer and art critic. She is a founding editor of ARTS.BLACK, an online journal of art criticism from Black perspectives. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Art in America, The Believer, BOMB Magazine, The Nation and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a collection of essays about love, faith, and the American South. Jessica lives and works in coastal Virginia. Find her online at @lynne_bias.
Actor, dancer, stage, and television, singer, choreographer, and KST Namesake Gene Kelly is the focus of this week’s playlist.
KST Namesake and Pittsburgh jazz icon Billy Strayhorn is the focus of This week’s playlist.
Every Thursday at 2:00pm, KST Senior Producer Ben Pryor takes to Instagram Live for conversations with artists in Pittsburgh, throughout the US and around the world. They will connect on the impact of COVID-19 and adapting to working in the arts through a pandemic.
On Thursday, June 18, Pryor was joined by choreographer and performer Jumatatu Poe.
“I am a choreographer and performer based between Philadelphia and New York City who grew up dancing around the living room and at parties with my siblings and cousins. My early exposure to concert dance was through African dance and capoeira performances on California college campuses where my Pan-Africanist parents studied and worked, but I did not start “formal” dance training until college with Umfundalai, Kariamu Welsh’s contemporary African dance technique. My work continues to be influenced by various sources, including my foundations in those living rooms and parties, my early technical training in contemporary African dance, my continued study of contemporary dance and performance, my movement trainings with dancer and anatomist Irene Dowd around anatomy and proprioception, my sociological research of and technical training in J-sette performance with Donte Beacham. Through my artistic work, I strive to engage in and further dialogues with Black queer folks, create lovingly agitating performance work that recognizes History as only one option for the contextualization of the present, and continue to imagine options for artists’ economic and emotional sustainability.
I produce dance and performance work independently, as well as in collaboration with idiosynCrazy productions, a company I founded in 2008 and now co-direct with Shannon Murphy. Most recently, the company serves as a resource to produce public dialogues around the integrations of art into society, and the social responsibility of the artist. Collaboration is often essential for my work, and for the past several years I have worked collaboratively with J-Sette artist Jermone Donte Beacham on a series of visual and performance works called Let ‘im Move You. Previously, I have danced with Marianela Boán, Silvana Cardell, devynn emory, Emmanuelle Hunyh, Tania Isaac, Kun- Yang Lin, C. Kemal Nance, Marissa Perel, Leah Stein, Keith Thompson, Kate Watson-Wallace, Reggie Wilson, Jesse Zaritt, and Kariamu Welsh (as a member of Kariamu & Company). As a performer, I also collaborate with Merián Soto. From 2009-2018, I was an Assistant Professor of Dance at Swarthmore College.
I have performed my work in various cities around the US and in Europe, and I have received various awards including: a 2010-2011 Live Arts Brewery Fellowship (Philadelphia), 2010-2012 and 2017 annual Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Performance Grants, a 2011-2013 Community Education Center Residency Fellowship (Philadelphia), a 2012 Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Fellowship (Philadelphia), a 2013 NRW Tanzrecherche Fellowship (Germany), a 2013 New York Live Arts Studio Series residency with Jesse Zaritt (NYC), a 2016 Independence Fellowship (Philadelphia), a 2016 18th Street Arts Center creative residency (Santa Monica), a 2017 Rocky Dance Award (Philadelphia), a 2017 Sacatar Residency Fellowship(Bahia, Brazil), a 2017 MAP Fund award with Jermone Donte Beacham, a 2017 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant with Jermone Donte Beacham, a 2018 MANCC residency, three Swarthmore College Cooper Foundation grants for presenting other artists (Swarthmore, PA).” –Jumatatu Poe (Guest Thursday, June 18)
Jazz vocalist and Pittsburgh icon, Mary Lou Williams is the focus of this week’s playlist.
KST Deputy Director Orlana Darkins Drewery takes to Instagram Live for conversations with the KST community members. On Wednesday June 10, KST Deputy Director Orlana Darkins Drewery is joined by Executive Director of The Legacy Arts Project, Erin Perry. Listen in as they talk about the organization and their participation with six local organizations to present Hotline Ring! A Virtual Fundraiser on Thursday, July 16 from 5:00pm – Midnight.
Since 2011, Erin Perry (Guest Wednesday, June 10) has been the executive director of the Legacy Arts Project. As a graduate of the Katz Graduate School of Business, she applies her academic training within a community setting, utilizing arts as a tool for transformation both individually as well as collectively. Miss Perry has been an active member of Legacy since 2005, participating as a member of the dance ensemble through present day. With an extensive background in teaching, Miss Perry has impacted children and adults from Wilkinsburg to Taiwan, teaching classes in English, Math, Photography, and Movement. As a mother of two growing boys, her focus continues to be grounded in the upliftment of humanity through knowledge of self.
A Pittsburgh Native and a Jazz Legend, George Benson is the focus of this week’s playlist.
A Pittsburgh Native, a Jazz Legend, and KST Artist, Roger Humphries is the focus of this week’s Playlist. Enjoy this curated list of toe tapping, finger snapping tunes that showcase The RH Factor and Humphries’ incredible drumming.
On Thursday, May 28, Pryor was joined by choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator, Ishmael Houston-Jones.
Ishmael Houston-Jones (Guest – Thursday, May 28) is choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator. His improvised dance and text work has been performed in New York, across the US, and in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Latin America. Drawn to collaboration as a way to move beyond boundaries and the known, Houston-Jones celebrates the political aspect of cooperation. He and Fred Holland shared a 1984 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders, which reintroduced the erased narrative of the Black cowboy back into the mythology of the American west. He was awarded his second “Bessie” Award for the 2010 revival of THEM, his 1985/86 collaboration with writer Dennis Cooper and composer Chris Cochrane. In 2017 he received a third “Bessie” for Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other Works by John Bernd. As an author Houston-Jones’ essays, fiction, interviews, and performance texts have been published in several anthologies. His work has also appeared in the magazines: PAJ, Movement Research Performance Journal, Bomb, and Contact Quarterly. His first book, Fat and Other Stories was published in 2018 by Yonkers International Press. Houston-Jones curated Platform 2012: Parallels which focused on choreographers from the African diaspora and postmodernism and co-curated with Will Rawls Platform 2016: Lost & Found, dance, New York, HIV/AIDS, then and now. He has received a 2016 Herb Alpert, a 2015 Doris Duke Impact and a 2013 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Artists Awards.