Thu, Mar 10 from 7pm – 8:30pm
In conjunction with Lee Mingwei’s The Travelers, a project inspired by MOCA’s mission to document the ongoing journeys we make as Americans, MOCA hosts an open mic featuring poet Fay Chiang and hip hop artist/educator Rabbi Darkside.
Come share your call to adventure in verse, prose or song. All participants are welcome. There is a 5 minute time limit on all performances. Please sign up at education@mocanyc.org.
Featured Artists
Fay Chiang is a writer, artist and community/cultural activist living and working in Chinatown and the Lower East Side of New York City for the past four decades. Raised in the backroom of a laundry in Queens by immigrant parents from Guandong, China, she writes from her experiences as a woman of color from the working class. She believes culture is a psychological weapon to reclaim our past, define our present and to envision possibilities for our future; that the development of culture is an integral part of progressive social change and social justice movements. Her latest publication, 7 Continents 9 Lives (Bowery Books 2010) is collection of poems, prose poems, journal entries and dramatic monologues.
Rabbi Darkside is a Buffalo-born Brooklyn-based Hip Hop Artist/Educator, rocking the world from subways to school halls to stages as MC, DJ and Beatboxer. In 2008 he starred as Head Coach on MTV’s “MADE” and released his internationally acclaimed debut LP, “Building the Better Bomb,” a project about our connection to the ever-present past and the not-so-distant future, taking you from the frontlines of Iraq to the inside of the Oval Office; the symphonic chaos of New York City Public Schools to the serenity of the Sinai Desert; the warmth of a woman’s wholehearted embrace to the center of a battle cypher. In addition to his artistry, he works as a Teaching Artist for Urban Arts Partnership, developing groundbreaking rap-based test prep curriculum and teaching performance poetry. http://www.reverbnation.com/rabbidarkside