The Californer - Beyond Indigenous Peoples' Day SFBATCO's New Roots Theatre Festival Gives Voice to BIPOC Artists

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SAN FRANCISCO - Californer -- BEYOND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' DAY SFBATCO PRESENTS INAUGURAL
TWO-DAY "NEW ROOTS THEATRE FESTIVAL" OCTOBER 16 & 17 GIVING VOICE TO LEGACY & EMERGING BIPOC ART

A significant end to the week encompassing "Indigenous Peoples' Day" is the beginning of something new, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company's (SFBATCO) two-day BIPOC themed "New Roots Theatre Festival." Presented at Brava Theater Center in the historic Mission District, October 16-17, 2021, it will consist of eight performances for theatre audiences to enjoy in adherence to San Francisco's Coronavirus safety protocols.

With theater venues shut down world-wide for more than a year due to the deadly pandemic, SFBATCO co-founders Rodney Earl Jackson Jr. and Marcelo Javier have mounted a lively creative comeback. The New Roots Theatre Festival invites legacy theatre organizations and emerging artists to give voice to BIPOC creativity, bringing to life resilience, joy, diversity and stories with BIPOC POVs that are relatable to everyone.

"The whole world is a stage, but for more than a year the world of theater has been shuttered. It's great to work in unity with these amazing arts organizations to give voice to the stories of communities that have been hit hardest by the pandemic," said Marcelo Javier." The two-day festival serves as a multicultural performing arts incubator amplifying artists in the Bay Area that the world is invited to see and hear the voices of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)."

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The projects representing the "new" in 'New Roots Theatre Festival' is first and foremost the festival itself along with Jamie Zimmer, Joanna Haigood and Laura Elaine mounting Sign My Name to Freedom: The Unheard Songs of Betty Reid Soskin (The Oldest Living National Park Ranger turned 100 on September 22, 2021 (https://conta.cc/3kA9QJE)); SFBATCO South Asian American playwright Aidaa Peerzada's "Shining," a reimagined Afro-futurist take on the Greek myth of Phaeton, and SFBATCO's own Othello Jefferson, Jamie Yuen-Shore, and Christine Chung and the revival of "I,Too, Sing America."

The "roots" of the festival are represented by performances from the Cuicacalli Ballet Folklórico that infuses Indigenous, Folkloric, and Contemporary dance styles; The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre; AfroSolo; PUSH Dance; and the African-American Shakespeare Company. And the "roots" of the festival, also have new works such as The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre's "In the Evening by the Moonlight" written by the theatre's Artistic Director Margo Hall and Chicago-based writer Traci Tolmaire. It is about civil rights activists and artists Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and Nina Simone, who were friends.

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"It is a thrill to bring together so many talented actors and arts organizations under one roof at the Brava Theater Center in our diverse and historic Mission District of San Francisco," said Rodney Earl Jackson Jr., co-founder of SFBATCO. "The New Roots Festival is the perfect exclamation point for our company that began seven years ago in September 2014. This collaboration is kind of like our country's motto, 'E pluribus unum': out of the many, one."

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