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Sharon Bridgforth
Email sharon.bridgforth@gmail.com
Website http://sharonbridgforth.com >> This web site features photos of the artist's work.This web site features video clips of the artist's work.This web site features audio clips of the artist's work.

Personal Statement: “my work has been labeled;
performance art, linked stories, poetry, experimental fiction, plays...
i call it jazz.
i write performance literature/work that is polyphonic in its design, rendering a vivified return of the art of storytelling to an African-American experience of art. the jazz of my work assumes that art and Life are not separate; that artists are responsible to community; that art is about innovation; that visual art, movement, music, dramatic interpretation, poetic voice, ritual, Prayer and the human Spirit must be presented simultaneously to make a story come alive; that working within a polyrhythmic storytelling form/as jazz-is a traditional African-American practice; that the purpose of this art is to serve the revolution of Spirit; that the reader/audience is a responsible
witness-participant in the process of the work’s coming alive”...

Current Work
Now Touring ...
Currently Artist In-Residence at Northwestern University's Performance Studies Department, Bridgforth is available to present workshops, staged readings and productions of her work. Bridgforth will cast performers from the community that the work is being presented in.

For more go to: sharonbridgforth.com
Short Bio
Bridgforth has broken ground in the creation and presentation of the performance/novel. Bridgforth’s work has fostered the study of Black lesbian performance literature in academic settings around the country including: Pitzer College; New York University, Temple University; Stanford University; Northwestern University; Tisch School For The Arts; University of California, Berkeley; University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; and University of Texas, Austin.

Bridgforth has developed a method of facilitating creative writing that she calls, Finding Voice through which she facilitates a creative process, encourages writers to: use the page as a canvas; use identity-culture-memory-family histories-dreams; articulate and examine the socio-political realities of their lives in a form that is part poetry, part oral history, part performance art; to examine their creative process; to work in community as they use art as a vehicle for social justice. Bridgforth is Anchor Artist for The Austin Project (sponsored by The Center for African and African American Studies, U. T. Austin). Her Finding Voice Facilitation Manuel will be published by University of Texas Press in a book titled--"The Austin Project Archive: Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic" edited by Dr. Joni Jones , Dr. Lisa L. Moore and Bridgforth.

Honors
New Dramatists Member. 2 time Alpert Award Nominee in Theatre - Lambda Literary Award winner - YWCA Woman Of The Year/Arts Austin, Texas

Union Affiliations/Professional Organizations
New Dramatists

View Resume
View Review Excerpts
Contact
PO Box 817 Austin, TX 78767
Artist Location
On The Road

Art forms
Theater

Type of artist
Writer, Performer, Arts Educator, Director, Other

General Themes
Activism/Social Justice, Feminism/Gender Issues, Sexuality, Race/Ethnicity/Cultural Identity, Religion/Spirituality
Keywords
Black Lesbian Cultural Jazz Spiritual lesbian queer women Juke Joint Blues Spoken Word Poetry
Last updated on June 1st, 2009

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