Theater video tags: 2016

Alvin Ailey on the Importance of the Arts

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In this 2016 New Yorker video, Robert Battle, former artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, reminds all artists, whether dancers, musicians, poets, or writers, that “it’s important for us to, at this time, see beyond our circumstances.” Battle continues: “I think we can do that through the arts.”

Will Alexander

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“[Los Angeles is] part of an international community. The city has allowed tremendous growth for me, in terms of its cultural outlets, from libraries, great cinema, dance, orchestra, interesting mixes of people.... I see myself as a global citizen and a global writer.” Will Alexander, winner of the 2016 Jackson Poetry Prize, talks about the influence the city of Los Angeles has had on his relationship with language and writing.

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Toni Morrison

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In this 2016 video, Michael Chabon presents Toni Morrison with the Edward MacDowell Medal for outstanding contribution to the arts and American culture. Morrison, who received a lifetime achievement award from the PEN American Center, tells a packed audience about how she became a writer and the inspiration for her first novel, The Bluest Eye.

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Lunch Poems With Safiya Sinclair

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“Have I forgotten it – / wild conch-shell dialect, / black apostrophe curled / tight on my tongue?” In this video, Safiya Sinclair reads a selection of poems from her debut collection, Cannibal (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), as well as new poems for this installment of UC Berkeley’s Lunch Poems series with an introduction by poet Noah Warren.

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Poetry.LA: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

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Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, director of the organization Women Who Submit, reads from her collection Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications, 2016) and speaks about writing family stories as a first-generation Chicana in this interview with Mariano Zaro for the Poetry.LA series.

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Chris Abani: When Strangers Meet

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“The only time I meet a stranger is when I confront myself. Any time I meet new people, they’re not strangers.” Poet, novelist, and essayist Chris Abani tells a story about meeting strangers in the airport, learning from their kindness, and how these experiences have influenced his writing for this 2016 House of SpeakEasy event at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in New York.

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