The Californer - Water.Bodies.Land brings leading Bay Area artists together in celebration of the black female body – Live At Somarts

Trending...

Tickets to go on sale Juneteenth at eventbrite and via the project website

BAY AREA, Calif. - Californer -- Bay Area vocalist and composer, Amie Cota, is proud to announce the premiere of Water.Bodies.Land, an interdisciplinary performance piece featuring poetry, music, and dance in celebration of the black woman's body. Legendary choreographers Sarah Crowell (founder of Destiny Arts Center) and Nicole Klaymoon (Founder, Executive & Artistic Director of The Embodiment Project) join as choreographer and consultant respectively.

The piece, first conceived in 2020 during Covid lock-down, began with Cota's careful selection of previously-published poems by African American women writers including such titans as Maya Angelou, June Jordan, Lucille Clifton, and Amanda Gorman. Cota placed each poem into a musical setting and arranged the resulting "art songs" for string trio and voice. She then invited collaborators Crowell and Klaymoon to choreograph dancers for an evening-length celebratory performance.

"The poems are arranged to create a loose story arc," Cota explains. "We explore the themes of 'taking up space,' self-love, self-loathing, mothers, daughters, and lovers. Woven throughout these themes, are the images of the natural world: sea and land. The result is a meditation on the concepts of ownership, care, stewardship, responsibility, and freedom."

More on The Californer

"These poets and their poems have provided a refuge and a guide for me," Cota continues. "I've long turned to writers in an effort to reclaim clarity in a very confusing word. This work not only honors the black women of my country, it also honors the writers to whom I am so very grateful."

Water.Bodies.Land will premiere on July 14, 2023 at San Francisco's SOMArts, with a three-show run. Tickets range from $15 - $35. Available on Eventbrite beginning June 19, 2023.

July 14 – 7:30pm
July 15 – 3:00pm & 7:30pm

To learn more about Amie Cota and Water.Bodies.Land, please visit: http://www.amiecota.com
Instagram: @cotaamie

SOMArts Cultural Center, located at 934 Brannan St, San Francisco, CA 94103, leverages the power of art as a tool for social change through multi-disciplinary events and exhibitions. Learn more at: https://somarts.org/
Instagram: @somarts