Jan 20, 2020
"Who Yo People Is" jingle sanga, episode editor, season 2 producer - my daughter - Sonja Perryman is Guest Host for this episode!! Sonja interviews my wife/her other Mama - Omi Osun Joni L. Jones!!!
Omi talks about growing up in Chicago's Southside suburbs - the youngest in a Black middle class family/raised by folks that migrated from the South - and their protocols. She shares about what initially moved her towards her long term/ongoing connection to Yoruba spiritual practices; she names her gratitude to the Ancestors as a source of Inspiration that she leans into when she is afraid or overwhelmed by her work and goals. And after 40 years of teaching (28 of which was at University of Texas at Austin) Omi speaks about walking with herself post retirement/discovering and activating her work now . . . and her role models for how to be an academic without being connected to (one) institution/which include: Alexis Pauline Gumbs (https://www.alexispauline.com), Celeste Henry.
Omi Osun Joni L. Jones’ work is committed to
exploring strategies for promoting healthy communities through
personal Joy. She is an artist/scholar/facilitator who employs
Black Feminist aesthetics in her performance work, her pedagogy,
and her consulting. She has performed at The New Black Fest (NYC),
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), and Links Hall
(Chicago), and has served as a workplace facilitator with Thousand
Currents (Oakland) and NoVo Foundation (NYC). Her scholarship has
appeared in The Drama Review, Obsidian, and Theatre
Journal as well as solo/black/woman and Blacktino
Queer Performance. Her most recent book is Theatrical
Jazz: Performance, Àṣẹ, and the Power for the Present
Moment (Ohio State University Press). She is Professor Emerita
from the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the
University of Texas at Austin.
https://www.theatricaljazzbookparty.com
https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/caaas/faculty/jij2555
Guest Host: Sonja Perryman is a screenwriter, producer, performer, and facilitator, with an MPH from UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health. She has a passion for telling female-driven, diverse stories that explore socially relevant issues in unexpected ways. Her work includes: Director of Research & Development at Wise Entertainment, where she also served as associate producer on Hulu’s six-time Emmy-nominated television show, East Los High; associate producer on Time 2 Surrender, an award-winning short film written, directed, and starring actor Elvis Nolasco and executive produced by Spike Lee; and season 2 staff writer for the Facebook Watch show, Five Points, executive produced by Kerry Washington. Sonja serves on the board of FYI Films, a non-profit that teaches filmmaking to incarcerated youth, and has been a guest lecturer and keynote speaker at institutions around the country. More at: https://www.whoyopeopleis.com/jingle