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	<title>RAKIA!</title>
	<link>https://www.rakiadances.com</link>
	<description>RAKIA!</description>
	<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2019 03:02:13 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title>Logo</title>
				
		<link>https://www.rakiadances.com/Logo</link>

		<pubDate>Sun, 08 Oct 2017 23:35:59 +0000</pubDate>

		<dc:creator>RAKIA!</dc:creator>

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		<title>Main</title>
				
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		<pubDate>Sun, 08 Oct 2017 23:35:54 +0000</pubDate>

		<dc:creator>RAKIA!</dc:creator>

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RAKIA!




A RUIN, May 13-15, 2022 at JACKClick here for tickets!
	︎ ︎
	

On Dancing the End of the World at the End of the World


The Ballad of the Fates

Opening, six soft baby browns
Dawn paints the whitewash pink
As Motor City oracles sing 
“Baby, baby” in sepia sounds.
Diminishing glory,
Ancient anger burns through the quivering silence 
Sonic boom, big bang violence

The moon is in the wrong place.
I’ve never seen so many stars. 
Choreographic Task #1 or Becoming Post-Lingual
First, we forgot how to speak. Exclamation points tornadoed at the bottom of our gut, bludgeoned their way up our esophagus, cut their way through closed teeth. What came out weren’t words, the days of diction passed. They were, instead, the bellows of horror, the hisses of sour, the sighs of first love- and it was fine. Memories aren’t spoken. They are bone marrow. From their crux, we build universes. For, we are the makers. We are The Fates, America resting helplessly in our palm.
The morning of our last rehearsal, the studio waxed and waned between silence and cacophony. If we spoke, when we spoke, it was only in “What ifs?” (CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE)

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		<title>A RUIN</title>
				
		<link>https://www.rakiadances.com/A-RUIN</link>

		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2019 02:14:48 +0000</pubDate>

		<dc:creator>RAKIA!</dc:creator>

		<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.rakiadances.com/A-RUIN</guid>

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A RUINA SARAH DONNELLY PRODUCTION

A 2018 Union Street Dance Mertz-Gilmore Late Stage Creative Stipend Recipient




“The moon is in the wrong place....I’ve never seen so many stars.”

Running from May 13-May 15, 2022 at JACK in Brooklyn, NY, A RUIN, chronicles the saga of the last Americans. Following a catastrophic climate disaster, three black women are tasked with rewriting America. From the moment the Earth slipped off its axis, the survivors are reborn as The Fates. The destiny of the country lies in their hands. Inspired by Giselle's madness, classical mythology &#38;amp; breakup albums, performers craft a surrealist, wasteland by inverting &#38;amp; decaying 1970’s Eastern European ballet mined from Youtube, ancient relics &#38;amp; personal travel diaries. If language is world-shaping, A RUIN asks “What’s on the other side of emojis, 280-character Tweets?” Through embodying, writing and speaking incantations for survival, what emerges is an entirely new way of speaking/feeling/dancing American. With eyes simultaneously fixed on American history, the present desolation &#38;amp; a potentially utopian future, wrapped in softness &#38;amp; safety, will this triumvirate rebuild....or nah?
 Click here to read an essay about the process of making this work!

With Stacy Lynn Smith and Pia Monique Murray Austin Guerrazzi (Composer) Sean Billy Kizy (Visual Artist)Ethan Baldwin (Art Director)Stacy Lynn Smith (Performer) is a neurodivergent, biracial/Black dancer/performance artist with specialized experience in butoh, contemporary dance and experimental theater, creating work through a unique lens of “other”. Smith enjoys collaborating as performer/improviser, director and choreographer across disciplines and genres with an array of talented artists including: rhythmanalyst, DeForrest Brown Jr., vocal/performance artist, Anna Homler, choreographer/founder of New Dance Alliance, Karen Bernard, experimental theater company, Saints of an Unnamed Country, surfer/fashion designer, Thaddeus O’Neil and director/filmmaker, Josephine Decker. Member of Jill Sigman’s artist/activist cohort, Body Politic. Recently, Smith has danced for Kathy Westwater, collaborated on “Revision Suite”, in response to the hidden “Slave Galleries” of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church and developed first iterations of solo series, “Crybaby”. Principal butoh dancer/company teacher with Vangeline Theater from 2008-2017. Main muse/collaborator of writer/director Michael Freeman from 2010-2016. Venues: MoMA PS1, 92StY, Princeton University, New York Live Arts, Danspace, Gibney, Art Basel Miami, Brooklyn Museum, Milk Studios, Dance Mission Theater (CA), Centre Culturel Bertin Poiree (FR) and more. Selected by Eva Yaa Asantewaa as part of curatorial board producing Black Womxn Summit at Gibney in Spring 2020. Pia Monique Murray (Performer) is known as a jack of all trades in the dance industry, having been a choreographer, performer, teacher, arts administrator, stage, tour and company manager, and rehearsal assistant. She hasworked with nora chipaumire, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Paloma McGregor, Dianne McIntyre, Blondell Cummings, and Pedro Ruiz in various capacities, and performed with Vado Diomande’s Kotchegna Dance Company for ten years. Pia has been a teaching artist for Urban Arts Partnership, Dreamyard Project, Brooklyn Arts Council, Dancewave, and Mark DeGarmo &#38;amp; Dancers. As a Lincoln Center Scholar she attained a master’s degree in dance education from Hunter College and graduated with high honors as a member of the National Honors Society for Dance. Pia currently teaches elementary school dance with the New York City Department of Education, performs with RAKIA! and leads Pia Monique Murray Dance Collective (PMMDC).Austin Guerrazzi (Composer) is a New York based multi-instrumentalist and composer. Receiving a Bachelor of Music from New York University, Austin began scoring dance through the Tisch School of the Arts, and has continued to collaborate on projects with film, dance, and interactive media for the past 4 years.Sean Billy Kizy (Visual Artist)&#38;nbsp;is an architect, installation artist, and toy designer. Originally from outside Detroit, MI he now resides in Brooklyn, NY. He has established Billy's Action Figures as a studio that designs and fabricates projects of all scales with the overlying ambition to create forms that engage motion and inspire action by others. He is a registered architect in New York City with LEED credentials, holds a B.S in Architecture with Distinction from the University of Michigan and an M.Arch from Rice University.&#38;nbsp;Sean Billy Kizy has taught at Rice University, has been on architectural studio juries at CUNY NY and has lectured at NJIT on the topic of 'Explosive Organism and Sustainable Regrowth'. His experience includes work at several architectural firms including OMA and SHoP Architects.Ethan Baldwin (Art Director)&#38;nbsp;is a DC-born and Brooklyn-based Art Director, Graphic Designer and Photographer. Having always been drawn to artistic movement, his work often incorporates themes from dance, athleticism, and high-energy, on stage and off. He has also danced and choreographed with Danceworks NY, and is almost always moving and shaking while pushing pixels. He is excited for another performance with RAKIA! and truly buys into the life of incorporating glitter in all we do.



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		<title>What Is The Architecture of A Party?</title>
				
		<link>https://www.rakiadances.com/What-Is-The-Architecture-of-A-Party</link>

		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2019 03:02:13 +0000</pubDate>

		<dc:creator>RAKIA!</dc:creator>

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	 What Is The Architecture of A Party?
A Methodology for Creation (In-Process)
	

&#60;img width="1800" height="1215" width_o="1800" height_o="1215" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3386d558f953a91f2651213fd1ab74623e7d51c3d20e0bbf556d1de17169fccd/IMG_2872.jpg" data-mid="41727666" border="0"  src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3386d558f953a91f2651213fd1ab74623e7d51c3d20e0bbf556d1de17169fccd/IMG_2872.jpg" /&#62;Photo: Rakia Seaborn

I recently spent seven intense months in the studio with another artist, engaged in what felt like anti-technique technique or a decolonising of my body. The body that exists on the other side of those seven months is forever changed. I am thinking deeply about easeful effort, indirect focus, improvisation, rhythm and vernacular accents. &#38;nbsp;I am obsessing over how it feels, the vibration in the chest, when I put on a song I love and just improvise to it with no focus on what it looks like. This is all in an effort to suss out how my new body operates within the established aesthetics of RAKIA!.

While in another artist’s process, it was nearly impossible to find the headspace to rehearse my own work. However, I am constantly compelled to be creating. As I’ve done in the past, I started writing. I texted Composer Austin Guerrazzi one afternoon “I think I wrote the lyrics to a pop song. What do we do?!” He responded “Send them to me! Let’s make some pop songs!” Thus began an entirely new way of working and creating where words and music become the impetus for everything else that follows.

When I began to synthesize pop songs, the feeling of a heart like a subwoofer in my chest and the super-specific physicality I observed in my videoed improvisations, I landed on this notion that what I’m doing is the most essentialized form of social dance. How do I take these songs, this feeling, that physicality and use it as a method to create work? I landed on the idea of a party as Rosetta Stone. Thus, what is “The Architecture of a Party”? 


Sequin Skirt Study from Rakia Seaborn on Vimeo.
Gold
	December is the color of wet cement.Shivers between dreams feel permanent.Run down sun down forever blue.I am dying to be consumed by you.Electric tide of lava on the north faceReady steady go sneakers lacedTie me up, melt me down, fiery grace.Am I even in the running for first place?Taste like cumulus and old cigarettes,Grayscale sky, arctic roulette,White lies crystallize into truth.I am dying to be consumed by you.Electric tide of lava on the north faceReady steady go sneakers lacedTie me up, melt me down, fiery grace.Am I even in the running for first place?The intimacy of dirty laundryUndressed in a sonnetUnrequited quandariesThe cold in the bones is unbinding.Eyes like Kilauea in the spring.Gaze ablaze gaze ablaze fiery grace.Am I even in the running for first place?
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		<title>Or, An Oral History: Utmost</title>
				
		<link>https://www.rakiadances.com/Or-An-Oral-History-Utmost</link>

		<pubDate>Sun, 14 May 2017 22:19:13 +0000</pubDate>

		<dc:creator>RAKIA!</dc:creator>

		<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.rakiadances.com/Or-An-Oral-History-Utmost</guid>

		<description>
	 OR, AN ORAL HISTORY: UTMOST
PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN
A Sarah Donnelly Production


	&#60;img width="2048" height="1365" width_o="2048" height_o="1365" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/561bc61f9b13d0ee73d09da39e6d96a45b61fffb0a154bc3fa55ce69191bd83c/seaborn_chashama1.jpg" data-mid="41725259" border="0"  src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/561bc61f9b13d0ee73d09da39e6d96a45b61fffb0a154bc3fa55ce69191bd83c/seaborn_chashama1.jpg" /&#62;
Photo: Sean Billy Kizy


In “Or, An Oral History: Utmost,” artists Rakia Seaborn, Sean Billy Kizy &#38;amp; Ethan Baldwin are glitter-wearing oracles. All seeing &#38;amp; sensuous, they hold court in a storefront window turned deconstructed disco ball. Cross the threshold and track the evolution of the work from a 2015 virtual diary into a real-world dancehall for existential booty-shaking. Audiences are invited to time travel to a place before “baskets of deplorables,” “Lemonade” and Russian interludes. Part séance, part experimental novel of the body, the trio of artists magically transforms into medium &#38;amp; soothsayer via six days of interrogative performance. Can we apprehend the present by collectively exorcising the past? How do we recapture the #blackgirlmagical optimism of recent history? Where do we carve out a path to a more just future when complexity is distilled to a series of hashtags?

“Or, An Oral History: Utmost” Schedule of Performances:
Bitches Brew: Monday - Wednesday, June 19 - 21, 2017, 8:30 - 10:00 am
Seaborn will be brewing a potion and raiding the virtual diary for choreographic material from 2015.  Please join her for coffee &#38;amp; improvisation.

High Art Happy Hour: 
The Mixtape: Wednesday, June 21, 2017, 7:30 pm
WE: Thursday, June 22, 2017, 7:30, pm
I am tired and possibly hungover and want to go home: Friday, June 23, 2017, 7:30 pmMeet in the ‘ball for happy hour cocktails &#38;amp; high art selfies! The supernatural triumvirate will conjure a triad of pieces from 2016’s “Or, An Oral History: Summer Series.”

Swan Song Soiree: Saturday, June 24, 2017, 8:00 pm, $10 Suggested Donation, RSVP Required
Three is a magic number! Don your shiniest party wear &#38;amp; grab a glass of champagne while the trio tackles the triptych in an interactive, evening-length piece-  for the first and last time.

Location: chashama, 266 West 37th Street, New York, NY, 10018

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This project was supported in part by a space grant from chashama.
&#60;img width="500" height="246" width_o="500" height_o="246" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/00758fe8188dd44fa910be089d9c64ef08ec944125c1c7456f2a9110d48f10cc/editchashama_logo_tagline_BlackwWhite.png" data-mid="4920321" border="0"  src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/500/i/00758fe8188dd44fa910be089d9c64ef08ec944125c1c7456f2a9110d48f10cc/editchashama_logo_tagline_BlackwWhite.png" /&#62;</description>
		
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		<title>myeyesdontcrynomore</title>
				
		<link>https://www.rakiadances.com/myeyesdontcrynomore</link>

		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Jan 2018 18:07:50 +0000</pubDate>

		<dc:creator>RAKIA!</dc:creator>

		<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.rakiadances.com/myeyesdontcrynomore</guid>

		<description>
	 myeyesdontcrynomoreA Sarah Donnelly Production

#iwannalive4eva

Saturday, Nov. 4, 2017 at 8 pm at JACK
	

&#60;img width="2819" height="2728" width_o="2819" height_o="2728" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f43df0b6eab2839c54f0a95a8e031398befb62220ba37ffe8b868819dbea26ad/myeyespromoshot1.jpg" data-mid="9236357" border="0"  src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f43df0b6eab2839c54f0a95a8e031398befb62220ba37ffe8b868819dbea26ad/myeyespromoshot1.jpg" /&#62;Photo: Ethan Baldwin
We are chasing infinity,Gonna run (it down) rings,A star-spangled noose, around its neck,Gaseous &#38;amp; heavy(I wanna live &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; live&#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; live &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; live &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; live
I wanna live&#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; live&#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; live &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; live&#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; live&#38;nbsp; &#38;nbsp; Forever.)
Stars gnashed between my teeth,Tearing through the universe,A celestial body all black and gold and holy.Worlds reside in the length of my lashes:I got the sight and have my kohl-lined eye set on you.
Sister tumbling from the heavens,Shooting from the earth, unrootedAnd meeting in the pauses between heartbeats,Caught breath caught,Echoing tessellations,Elastic time exteeeeeeeeeeeends:We are timeless.We are joy.We are free,Black and gold and free.When we dance, time stops. In myeyesdontrcrynomore, inverted playground routines become the language with which a trio of dancers communicates with the black women who died too soon. This highly-stylized immortality ritual hearkens back to a care-free time of middle school talent shows, Blue Magic hair grease &#38;amp; "CrazySexyCool." Part of JACK's Reparations 365 series, myeyesdontcrynomore positions reparations as freedom from a never-ending fear of another black death. What if there was something else? Endless life, endless joy.





With Kendra J Ross and Pia Monique Murray Austin Guerrazzi (Composer) Sean Billy Kizy (Visual Artist)Ethan Baldwin (Art Director)Kendra Ross (Performer) is a dancer, teaching artist, choreographer and community organizer from Detroit, MI. Kendra received a BFA from Ailey/Fordham University in Dance. Upon graduation Kendra began sharing her knowledge as a teaching artist in the New York City Public Schools which she has been doing since 2007. As a dancer in New York City, Kendra has worked with Urban Bush Women, Andrea E. Woods/ Souloworks, Genesis Dance Company, Vissi Dance Theater, and Motion Sickness with Monstah BlackM, BDance, and Moving Spirits Dance Company.&#38;nbsp; Kendra is currently a company member of Ase Dance Theater Collective.&#38;nbsp; Kendra also completed an European tour dancing with Adira Amram and DJ KId Koala in Vinyl Vaudville 2.0. Kendra is currently an artist in residence at Brooklyn Studios for Dance. Kendra’s work has been presented at the Detroit Performing Arts High School, Joffrey Summer Intensive, Halftime Performances at Florida A&#38;amp;M University, the off Broadway show 7 Sins, and Museu de Arte in Salvador, Brazil.Pia Monique Murray (Performer) is known as a jack of all trades in the dance industry, having been a choreographer, performer, teacher, arts administrator, stage, tour and company manager, and rehearsal assistant. She hasworked with nora chipaumire, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Paloma McGregor, Dianne McIntyre, Blondell Cummings, and Pedro Ruiz in various capacities, and performed with Vado Diomande’s Kotchegna Dance Company for ten years. Pia has been a teaching artist for Urban Arts Partnership, Dreamyard Project, Brooklyn Arts Council, Dancewave, and Mark DeGarmo &#38;amp; Dancers. As a Lincoln Center Scholar she attained a master’s degree in dance education from Hunter College and graduated with high honors as a member of the National Honors Society for Dance. Pia currently teaches elementary school dance with the New York City Department of Education, performs with&#38;nbsp;RAKIA! and leads Pia Monique Murray Dance Collective (PMMDC).Austin Guerrazzi (Composer) is a New York based multi-instrumentalist and composer. Receiving a Bachelor of Music from New York University, Austin began scoring dance through the Tisch School of the Arts, and has continued to collaborate on projects with film, dance, and interactive media for the past 4 years.Sean Billy Kizy (Visual Artist)&#38;nbsp;is an architect, installation artist, and toy designer. Originally from outside Detroit, MI he now resides in Brooklyn, NY. He has established Billy's Action Figures as a studio that designs and fabricates projects of all scales with the overlying ambition to create forms that engage motion and inspire action by others. He is a registered architect in New York City with LEED credentials, holds a B.S in Architecture with Distinction from the University of Michigan and an M.Arch from Rice University.&#38;nbsp;Sean&#38;nbsp;Billy Kizy has taught at Rice University, has been on architectural studio juries at CUNY NY and has lectured at NJIT on the topic of 'Explosive Organism and Sustainable Regrowth'. His experience includes work at several architectural firms including OMA and SHoP Architects.Ethan Baldwin (Art Director)&#38;nbsp;is a DC-born and Brooklyn-based Art Director, Graphic Designer and Photographer. Having always been drawn to artistic movement, his work often incorporates themes from dance, athleticism, and high-energy, on stage and off. He has also danced and choreographed with Danceworks NY, and is almost always moving and shaking while pushing pixels. He is excited for another performance with&#38;nbsp;RAKIA! and truly buys into the life of incorporating glitter in all we do.



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		<title>2016 Summer Series</title>
				
		<link>https://www.rakiadances.com/2016-Summer-Series</link>

		<pubDate>Sun, 10 Apr 2016 20:21:05 +0000</pubDate>

		<dc:creator>RAKIA!</dc:creator>

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	RAKIA! 2016 SUMMER SERIES
A Sarah Donnelly Production
	


Presented as three, themed performance parties, Or, An Oral History unfolded one chapter at a time!
Performance dates: May 14, June 19 &#38;amp; July 23, 2016





	Chapter 1: The Mixtape
	&#60;img width="360" height="239" width_o="360" height_o="239" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dcc3cddac1cb7bf817ecb3050809d779748c5757fec8b0da2017d219d7369c91/chapter1gif.gif" data-mid="4920323" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/360/i/dcc3cddac1cb7bf817ecb3050809d779748c5757fec8b0da2017d219d7369c91/chapter1gif.gif" /&#62;Photo: Ethan Baldwin





Chapter 1 kicked off on Saturday, May 14, 2016 at 3:00pm in the Bed-Stuy garden of RAKIA! Headquarters. Working in tandem with photographer-performer Ethan Baldwin, RAKIA! unleashed a years worth of movement, chopped &#38;amp; screwed in real-time. Participants tossed back gin fizzes and hit the play button for this once in a lifetime experience! We are forever grateful to everyone who came out and made the piece amazing! Click the link below for the inside scoop from start to finish!



See addtional photos &#38;amp; video from Chapter 1: The Mixtape here!


	Chapter 2: WE
	&#60;img width="360" height="239" width_o="360" height_o="239" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/00c3be1b8e03fdeef4eab4a33e3e397e640e820cce7e19e1feb1f1800225565e/chapter2gif.gif" data-mid="4920324" border="0"  src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/360/i/00c3be1b8e03fdeef4eab4a33e3e397e640e820cce7e19e1feb1f1800225565e/chapter2gif.gif" /&#62;Photo: Ethan Baldwin






On Sunday, June 19, 2016, we gathered on the roof of Wulff Haus, in the shadow of (but never overshadowed by) the Empire State building to make a piece together. Many thanks to Sarah Donnelly, Sean Billy Kizy, Ethan Baldwin &#38;amp; the best audience-collaborators in the world for making Chapter 2: WE memorable. Click the link below to check out the finished product.

See photos &#38;amp; video from Chapter 2: WE here!


	Chapter 3: I Am Tired And Possibly Hungover And Want To Go Home
	&#60;img width="240" height="360" width_o="240" height_o="360" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/468ff8242695688b0fdfcbe5168700f1f6bf87fe09327988cfbe9f3545e22204/chapter3gif.gif" data-mid="4920325" border="0"  src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/240/i/468ff8242695688b0fdfcbe5168700f1f6bf87fe09327988cfbe9f3545e22204/chapter3gif.gif" /&#62;Photo: Sean Billy Kizy 






 

We gathered in secret at The Court Hotel on Saturday, July 23, 2016, for the final chapter of Or, An Oral History, a hot-pink, champagne-flavored swan song to a magical summer. Thanks to everyone who came out to make Chapter 3: I Am Tired And Possibly Hungover And Want To Go Home special. Sean, Sarah &#38;amp; I appreciate your support!
v

See addtional photos &#38;amp; video from Chapter 3: I Am Tired And Possibly Hungover And Want To Go Home here!


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	<item>
		<title>Who?</title>
				
		<link>https://www.rakiadances.com/Who</link>

		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Apr 2015 00:55:32 +0000</pubDate>

		<dc:creator>RAKIA!</dc:creator>

		<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.rakiadances.com/Who</guid>

		<description>

	WHO IS RAKIA?
	&#60;img width="595" height="532" width_o="595" height_o="532" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bc64acfd2eedc23d2c0b73940262059762ef830389ad90f001c1127cd82a9664/Who-Photo.jpg" data-mid="4920317" border="0"  src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/595/i/bc64acfd2eedc23d2c0b73940262059762ef830389ad90f001c1127cd82a9664/Who-Photo.jpg" /&#62;

A native of Detroit, MI, Rakia Seaborn&#38;nbsp;is a writer, choreographer and performer whose work has appeared at Dixon Place, La Mama E.T.C.,&#38;nbsp;The Tank,&#38;nbsp;AUNTS, chashama, JACK and&#38;nbsp;Brooklyn Studios for Dance. Seaborn has worked with Kathy Westwater, Dianne McIntyre, Rashaun Mitchell, Jodi Melnick, &#38;nbsp;and&#38;nbsp;Meta-Phys Ed.&#38;nbsp;She graduated from Oberlin College in 2007, earning a Bachelors of Art in Dance with a concentration in Choreography, and in 2014, she gained an MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. Seaborn is a 2018 Mertz Gilmore Late Stage Creative Stipend recipient.</description>
		
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	<item>
		<title>Support #TeamRAKIA!</title>
				
		<link>https://www.rakiadances.com/Support-TeamRAKIA</link>

		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Aug 2015 23:50:47 +0000</pubDate>

		<dc:creator>RAKIA!</dc:creator>

		<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.rakiadances.com/Support-TeamRAKIA</guid>

		<description>
	DONATE TO RAKIA!
	

Donate to RAKIA!



*Rakia Seaborn is a fiscally sponsored member of Cumbe Center for African Diaspora Dance &#38;amp; Music, a non-profit tax-exempt organization. Contributions in support of Rakia Seaborn‘s work are greatly appreciated and may be made payable to Cumbe Center for African &#38;amp; Diaspora Dance &#38;amp; Music, earmarked for “the project of Rakia Seaborn” A description of the work and current project activities for which such contributions will be used are available from Rakia Seaborn or Cumbe Center for African &#38;amp; Diaspora Dance, upon request. All contributions are fully deductible to the extent allowed by law. (Note: A copy of&#38;nbsp; Cumbe’s latest annual financial report filed with the New York State Department of State may be obtained by writing to the N.Y.S. Dept. of State, Charities Registration, 162 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY, 12231, or to Cumbe Center for African Diaspora Dance, 1368 Fulton Street, Brooklyn NY 11216)




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