Visions and Voices Fall 2022

Resource Theme Guides to selected programs from the Fall 2022 Visions & Voices program were created in partnership with USC Libraries faculty and staff.
Look for recommended books and readings pertaining to the people, performances and topics covered by these events.
Visit the current season of: USC Visions and Voices

Image source: Dr. Melissa L. Miller "Cardinal and Gold Rose"

John Singleton: A Celebration (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

USC Libraries Contributor: Dr. Melissa L. Miller

John Singleton: A Celebration – Rosewood
Wednesday, November 9, 2022, at 7 p.m.
Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108
For more info, click HERE

John Singleton: A Celebration – Shaft
Friday, November 30, 2022, at 7 p.m.
Ray Stark Family Theatre
For more info, click HERE

John Singleton: A Celebration – Baby Boy
Friday, January 23, 2023, at 7 p.m.
Ray Stark Family Theatre
For more info, click HERE
 

August Wilson’s Radio Golf (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 12:45pm

Location: A Noise Within, Pasadena

USC Libraries Contributor: Kelsey Vukic

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
Through the Experience L.A. series of events, Visions and Voices takes USC students on trips throughout the city to experience Los Angeles’s dynamic cultural landscape firsthand.

A Noise Within’s exploration of Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson’s American Century Cycle continues with Radio Golf, the final play of the legendary playwright’s collection of one play for each decade of the 20th century. Set in the 1990s. Harmond Wilks, Pittsburgh’s first Black mayoral candidate, finds himself on the verge of the business breakthrough of a lifetime. The arrival of an unexpected visitor and surprising news leads Harmond to choose between his personal aspirations and his integrity. With humor and courage, Radio Golf challenges the steep price “progress” can exact upon the soul.

“The dialogue crackles with the poetry and fierce conscience that made Wilson one of this country’s most essential artists.”–USA Today

Dahlak Brathwaite: Try/Step/Trip (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 7 p.m.

Location: Bovard Auditorium (ADM)

USC Libraries Contributor: Javier Garibay

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
“The epitome of ‘def’ poetry.”—Mos Def

Emerging from the belief that the subjugation of Black people is an American ritual and that the criminal justice system functions as a normalized rite of passage for too many young Black males, Try/Step/Trip is a spoken word, multi-character musical performed through the language of step dance. Inspired by writer/composer Dahlak Brathwaite’s own history, and expertly layering characters, poetic verse, and dialogue over music, the theatrical piece follows the journey of an anonymous narrator as he reimagines his experience in a court-ordered drug rehabilitation program. With direction by Roberta Uno; choreography by Toran X. Moore with support from Freddy Ramsey, Jr., and Delina Patrice Brooks; compositions by Brathwaite in collaboration with Teak Underdue; and production by The Living Word Project, Try/Step/Trip powerfully blurs the lines between dramatic performance and hip hop, art and life. 

An Evening with Natasha Trethewey (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 7 p.m.

Location: Bovard Auditorium (ADM)

USC Libraries Contributor: Hugh McHarg

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
“Trethewey’s verse is as accessible as it is brilliant.”—Washington Post

“One of the most important American poets of our time.”—Paris Review 

Natasha Trethewey is the author of the award-winning New York Times best seller Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir; a far-reaching book of nonfiction, Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast; and five acclaimed collections of poetry. She has won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, served two terms as the nineteenth poet laureate of the United States, and received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry from the Library of Congress. 

Describing the powerful introspection, investigation, and urgency of Memorial Drive, Hannah Giorgis of The Atlantic writes, “A former U.S. poet laureate’s new memoir reflects on the power of storytelling to help us grieve—and offers lessons for surviving the cataclysms of the present.”

At this special event, the distinguished poet and memoirist will read from recent work. A conversation with USC professor Danzy Senna, esteemed novelist and essayist, will follow.

Uta Awase: A Modern Take on the Traditional Japanese Poetry Contest (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2022 at 7 p.m.

Location: USC Brain and Creativity Institute's Joyce J. Cammilleri Hall (BCI)

USC Dornsife History Department Contributor: Christopher Hepburn

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
Join us for a poetry contest modeled after the kind that was popular in eighth-century Japan. Two teams of USC students will be challenged to compose traditional five-line waka poems about everyday topics such as love, memory, and joy, followed by a few rounds of live, competitive reading to be judged by waka expert LeRon Harrison. The team that triumphs will be honored by original Japanese court music inspired by their poetry and performed by Kinnara, Inc. They’ll also enjoy bragging rights for all time. 

Cheering is encouraged and poetry-inclined members of the audience are invited to play along.

Lido Pimienta in Concert (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Tuesday, October 25, 2022 at 8 p.m.

Location: Bovard Auditorium (ADM)

USC Libraries Contributor: Andrew Justice

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
“On one level, Pimienta is recollecting intimate relationships; on another, she’s calling entire countries to task for their failure to protect black and brown women.”—Pitchfork

Don’t miss an inspiring live performance by Lido Pimienta, winner of the Polaris Music Prize, Canada’s highest musical honor. The Colombian-born, Toronto-based global beats trailblazer’s songs are at once defiant and delicate, exploratory and confrontational, and dig deeply into the history of Afro-Latin musics, from Palenque to Cumbia.

Pimienta’s latest album, Miss Colombia, was partly inspired by the Miss Universe gaffe in 2015, when Steve Harvey mistakenly awarded the crown to Miss Colombia instead of Miss Philippines. It caused the Afro-Indigenous, queer feminist to reflect on the anti-Blackness she has experienced, and how she was viewed as an outsider in adolescence for not adhering to the expected norms projected upon her. Other songs confront divisive politics in Colombia, Indigenous inequality, and racism.

The event will also include a conversation with Lido Pimienta moderated by Quetzal lead singer and associate professor of Chicanx Latinx Studies at Scripps/Claremont College, Martha Gonzalez.

(Un)Documents (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Thursday, October 20, 2022 at 7:15 p.m.

Location: Los Angeles Theatre Center

USC Libraries Contributor: Javier Garibay

EVENT DESCRIPTION: (Un)Documents will run at the Los Angeles Theatre Center from October 12 through November 20. To attend a performance on your own, visit latinotheaterco.org for more information.

Through the Experience L.A. series of events, Visions and Voices takes USC students on trips throughout the city to experience Los Angeles’s dynamic cultural landscape firsthand.

With a single phrase, you can give up your country. With a single signature, you can tear a family apart. With a single word, you can learn to transform.

USC students are invited to experience (Un)Documents, Jesús I. Valles’ award-winning solo show exploring life, love, education, family, and the complexities of queer, immigrant identities. 

In their first full-length solo show, award-winning actor and poet journeys across both sides of a river with two names, moving between languages to find their place as a child, a lover, a teacher, and a sibling in a nation that demands sacrifice at the altar of citizenship. In doing so, they create a new kind of documentation written with anger, fierce love, and the knowledge that what makes us human can never be captured on a government questionnaire. 

Directed by Rudy Ramirez, the show received its initial workshop at The VORTEX in 2018 as part of FuturX: A New Festival of Latinx Performance. (Un)Documents won three 2018 B. Iden Payne awards for Outstanding Original Script, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama, and Outstanding Direction of a Drama, and was nominated for Outstanding Production of a Drama. (Un)Documents was also presented as part of the 2019 OUTsider Fest artists showcase and featured at the Latinx Theatre Commons’s Sin Fronteras Festival. (Un)Documents returned to The VORTEX in May of 2019 for a two-week encore and received five nominations from the Austin Critics Table Association, including the Mark David Cohen Award for Best New Play, and was a featured performance at the 2021 ATHE conference.

Interstitial: A Book of (Musical) Stories (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at 7:30 p.m.

Location: Newman Recital Hall (AHF)

USC Libraries Contributor: Andrew Justice

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
Los Angeles is a magnet for diverse individuals who embrace, explore, and celebrate their unique and intersectional identities. For Interstitial: A Book of (Musical) Stories, noted composers and librettists are teaming up to create six original pieces inspired by and amplifying the in-between cultures of the city, which will be performed by the nationally recognized chamber ensemble Brightwork newmusic and renowned vocal sextet HEX. Topics of this extraordinary, multi-part concert will include migration, gentrification, community, and more. 

Composers:
Nicolas Lell Benavides 
Carolyn Chen 
Saunder Choi
Veronika Krausas
Molly Pease
Fahad Siadat

Librettists:
Molly Bendall
Rickerby Hinds
Sarah LaBrie
Warren Liu
Renée Reynolds
Brian Sonia-Wallace

Following the premiere of the six exciting new works, the creators, performers, and audience will form rotating breakout groups to share their personal interstitial experiences in L.A.  

Taipei Night at the USC Pacific Asia Museum (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Saturday, October 8, 2022 at 5 p.m.

Location: USC Pacific Asia Museum

USC Libraries Contributor: Tang Li

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
Join us at the USC Pacific Asia Museum for a festive evening of arts, culture, food, and fun. There will be a short film program, filmmaking workshop and screenings, and an art print giveaway, plus Taiwanese snacks, boba tea, pop music, and more!

Transportation will be provided for USC students from the University Park Campus. Please check back for details.

Schedule (subject to change):

5 p.m.: SCREENING AND PRINT GIVEAWAY
Explore culture, heritage, family, identity, and diasporic experiences through a screening and discussion of Occidental College professor Vivian Wenli Lin’s With Love from Taiwan!, a study of immigration and cross-cultural love. A celebratory art print by University of Oregon professor Charlene Liu will also be on display and given away as a special takeaway edition.  

6 p.m.: 1-MINUTE FILM WORKSHOP
Attendees will make 1-minute film shorts in a workshop led by Vivian Wenli Lin, Charlene Liu, and USC professor Jenny Lin. All levels are welcome and no experience is necessary.

6:30 p.m.: TAIWANESE NIGHT MARKET
Socialize in the USC Pacific Asia Museum’s beautiful outdoor courtyard with tasty snacks and boba tea by JOY, short-film projections from the workshop, and a curated selection of pop music curated by Jiayi Hu and Haiyang ("Kevy") Yang.

Live Artists Live: Sings of Freedom (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Friday, September 30, 2022 at 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Location: Roski Graduate Building

USC Libraries Contributor: Christina Snider

PROGRAM & ZOOM LINKS
To access the event program or watch the Joy Harjo keynote or "Liner Notes for Beyonce" sessions remotely, click here: https://bit.ly/VVProgram-LiveArtistsLive 

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
Inspired by poet, writer, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou’s verse, “The caged bird sings of freedom,” the fourth iteration of USC’s biennial performance art festival celebrates the liberating potentials of art and song. “Live Artists Live: Sings of Freedom” spotlights fusions of performance art, poetry, and music that amplify oppressed voices and resist racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia. The full-day event will bring together internationally acclaimed artists and scholars for vibrant performances, immersive environments, and engaging discussions illuminating marginalized people’s struggles and joys, while striving for social justice through performative, lyrical storytelling, and musical art experiments.

Schedule:

10:30 a.m.–12 p.m.: VIRTUAL KEYNOTE by Joy Harjo
Joy Harjo will read poems from her expansive oeuvre, including from her highly acclaimed collection, An American Sunrise, and discuss themes of “Sings of Freedom,” including Indigenous struggle, resistance, and joy. A conversation and Q&A led by USC professors Jenny Lin and Chris Finley with Master of Urban Planning/M.A. Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere Candidate Tracy Fenix will follow.

12 p.m.­–1 p.m.: HYBRID PRESENTATION of Uroborus vs. Trump’s Wall by Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Attendees will collectively listen to excerpts from Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s anthology of recordings from 1978 to 2018, including sound poems, audio art, performance, border poetry, and weird songs performed against Trump’s imaginary border wall. In the absence of Gómez-Peña, attendees will also watch a video the artist selected for this event. A conversation and Q&A led by USC professor Josh Kun (joshkun.com) will follow.

1 p.m.–2 p.m.: LUNCH by JOY
Discussion with visiting guests, USC students, and faculty.

2 p.m.–3 p.m.: MULTIMEDIA PERFORMANCE of Boney Manilli by Edgar Arceneaux  
Edgar Arceneaux will present a multimedia screening and live performance drawn from Boney Manilli, a project exploring 1990s pop duo Milli Vanilli, their public shaming for lip syncing, and how their ridicule, spectacularized through the performers’ long, braided hair and dark skin, resonates in contemporary sociocultural and political spheres. A conversation and Q&A with USC professor Sarah Kessler will follow.

3 p.m.–4 p.m.: LINER NOTES FOR BEYONCÉ by madison moore and Daphne A. Brooks
madison moore and Daphne A. Brooks will lead a critical listening session of Renaissance, Beyoncé’s 7th studio album, touching on topics ranging from Black feminist sound to Black queer aesthetics.

4:30 p.m.­–5:30 p.m.: PERFORMANCE by Xina Xurner (Young Joon Kwak, Marvin Astorga, Sarah Gail, Page Person, and Creepypasta Puttanesca)
Kwak and Astorga will combine power electronics, mutated vocals, and DIY drag to expand ideas about queer and trans bodies in an in-person performance by Xina Xurner, a collaboration aimed at fostering connections between femme and POC communities.

5:30 p.m.–6:30 p.m.: RECEPTION and DANCE PARTY
“Live Artists Live: Sings of Freedom” will culminate in a dance party featuring a playlist by madison moore and a reception for visiting guests, USC faculty, students, and all participants and guests with refreshments by Pine & Crane.

Monica Bill Barnes & Company: The Running Show (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

USC Libraries Contributor: Javier Garibay

Date: Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 7 p.m.

Location: Bovard Auditorium (ADM)

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
“Full-throttle, humor-infused dance-theater.”—Dance Magazine

Presenting the life of a dancer through movement, interviews, and stories, each production of Monica Bill Barnes & Company’s The Running Show is as exhilarating and entertaining as it is intimate and unique. Providing an unprecedented look into the life of a dancer as a new kind of sports hero who keeps moving against all odds and recruiting local dancers to join the cast and share their stories, this iteration will feature co-creator, choreographer, and dancer Monica Bill Barnes; co-creator and writer Robbie Saenz de Viteri; and the voices, views, and performances of students from the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. Over a week of rehearsals and development, they will learn their parts from Barnes and be interviewed by Saenz de Viteri to create a one-of-a-kind performance.

Following the acclaimed show, Jackie Kopcsak, Assistant Dean of Faculty at USC Kaufman, will facilitate a conversation with the artists. 

John Singleton: A Celebration (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

USC Libraries Contributor: Dr. Melissa L. Miller

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s OKLAHOMA! (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Tuesday, September 20, 2022 at 6:45 p.m.

Location: Ahmanson Theatre

USC Libraries Contributor: Christina Snider

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
Through the Experience L.A. series of events, Visions and Voices takes USC students on trips throughout the city to experience Los Angeles’s dynamic cultural landscape firsthand.

“Daniel Fish’s probing revamp is a revelation! A celebration of the American spirit!”—The Hollywood Reporter

This is Rodgers & Hammerstein’s iconic work as you’ve never seen or heard it before—reimagined for the 21st century and the Tony Award Winner for Best Revival of a Musical. Direct from its acclaimed run on Broadway comes an OKLAHOMA! that looks and sounds like America today. It’s funny and sexy, provocative and probing. The New York Times proclaims, “A smashing OKLAHOMA! is reborn. Daniel Fish’s wide-awake and altogether wonderful production is thrilling!” Without changing a word of text, this bold interpretation “lets us experience Rodgers and Hammerstein’s greatness anew,” raves The New Yorker.

Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Friday, September 9, 2022 at 11:30 a.m.

Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art

USC Libraries Contributor: Christina Snider

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
Through the Experience L.A. series of events, Visions and Voices takes USC students on trips throughout the city to experience Los Angeles’s dynamic cultural landscape firsthand.

One of the most significant contributors to fashion between 1990 and 2010, Lee Alexander McQueen (London, 1969–2010) was both a conceptual and technical virtuoso. His critically acclaimed collections synthesized the designer’s proficiency in tailoring and dressmaking with both encyclopedic and autobiographical references that spanned time, geography, media, and technology.

The first McQueen exhibition on the West Coast, Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse contextualizes the designer’s imaginative work within a canon of artmakers who drew upon analogous themes and visual references. Exploring imagination, artistic process, and innovation in fashion and art, the exhibition examines the interdisciplinary impulse that defined the designer’s career. Displaying select McQueen garments from the Collection of Regina J. Drucker alongside artworks largely from LACMA’s permanent collection, Mind, Mythos, Muse presents a case study of the designer’s methods and influences, and in doing so, provides the opportunity to better understand artistic legacy and cycles of inspiration.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Resource Theme Guide PDF)

Date: Sunday, August 21, 2022 at 6 p.m.

Location: Norris Cinema Theatre (NCT)

USC Libraries Contributor: Rachel Beattie

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
“Hilarious, heart-breaking, and has a phenomenal, timelessly cool, soundtrack.”–BBC

Bringing their signature creation from stage to screen, writer-director-star John Cameron Mitchell and composer-lyricist Stephen Trask tell the story of Hedwig, who was raised as a boy in East Berlin and undergoes a traumatic personal transformation in order to emigrate to the U.S., where she reinvents herself as a rock diva. Telling Hedwig’s story through original punk anthems and power ballads and matching them with a freewheeling cinematic mosaic of music-video fantasies, animated interludes, and moments of bracing emotional realism, Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a hard-charging song cycle, tender character study, and tribute to the transcendent power of rock and roll.

RELATED EVENT:

John Cameron Mitchell & Stephen Trask: The Origin of Love

Date: Friday, August 26, 2022 - Saturday, August 27, 2022

Location: Bovard Auditorium (ADM)

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
“A punk-rock live Behind the Music episode of sorts and a gift to Hedwig heads everywhere.”­—DC Theatre Scene

The off-Broadway musical about a genderqueer rock ’n’ roll singer that grew into a nationally touring show, which became a movie with a devoted cult following, is now a full glam rock concert experience!

Celebrating twenty years of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, double Tony Award–winning, Golden Globe–nominated co-creators John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask will share stories and songs from the groundbreaking rock musical, accompanied by celebrated vocalist Amber Martin and members of the original Tits of Clay Broadway band. The repertoire includes Hedwig favorites “The Origin of Love,” “Sugar Daddy,” and “Wig in a Box,” as well as songs from Mitchell’s musical podcast Anthem and acclaimed album New American Dream.