Festival brings rich Black stories to S.D.
Q: A:A:How were you introduced to the SDBAC?
Funny enough, I knew of our current president, Joy Jones, back in Houston where we’re both from. Joy is an incredible artist and performer; I never got a chance to work with her there, but when my husband’s job brought us to San Diego, I remembered she was here and reached out for guidance about how to break into the theater scene here. Q:
Why did you want to work with the organization? I was looking for community. Houston is significantly more diverse than San Diego, but the experiences the SDBAC was looking to address and remedy were universal. The pandemic gave me time to reflect on my artmaking, and I decided I wanted to be much more intentional about where I was spending my time, money, and energy. The organization’s vision for a more just visual and performing arts community across greater San Diego was easy to get behind.
Q:
Talk about the Black Arts Festival. What is the goal of the festival?
The Black Arts Festival is both a first-of-its-kind, as well as a continuation of last year’s residency at The Old Globe. In 2022, the “Black Lady Showcase” played for a few days at The Old Globe to very enthusiastic crowds; this year, we wanted to expand and keep accessibility in mind, so we’re piloting a format of multiple rotating shows, each with their own casts and directors occurring at different times throughout the run of our residency. We want to showcase the plethora of talent and stories that exist in our community. This will mark SDBAC’s first time staging a full script (“Barbecue” by Robert O’Hara) and that is one of many goals we have as a collective: to stage the full spectrum of Black stories as we are far from a monolith.
A:Q:
What can people expect if they attend?
It’s so cliché, but in all earnestness, expect it all. Each show in the production contains a multitude of themes too vast to name this festival as only a comedy or a drama. I think the producing team members have done an excellent job of choosing pieces that speak to all aspects of humanity, including but not limited to the Black experience. You’ll smile, you’ll think, and we hope you’ll learn.
I hope audiences take from this festival how much not just the SDBAC, but all the Black San Diego community has to offer. These stories are just as rich and relevant as the local talent bringing these works to life.
A:Q:
How do these programs in this year’s festival reflect the “unapologetic, authentic, and healing” artist work to the Black diasporic experience?
A:
Each show in the festival speaks to deeply personal and very human experiences. “Barbecue” sees an intervention of two families by the same name
Very early in 2020, The Old Globe invited local Black artists to an event with cast members of August Wilson’s play “Jitney,” which was being performed at the theater at that time. When those artists met again a few months later, the world was very different, calling them to action in creating the San Diego Black Artist Collective.
The organization “is a group of passionate, working (primarily) performance artists who seek to see better representation on San Diego’s major stages, backstages, and audiences,” says Danielle Bunch an artist, educator, and communications director for SDBAC. They were formed as a collective response to the messages of racial equity, unity, and inclusion that theater companies “rushed to post from pressures to demonstrate solidarity” during the Black Lives Matter protests that were growing that year, positioned next to their experiences as Black performance artists in predominantly White spaces. “The collective reflects the Black theater community demanding more from our peers and colleagues. We’re a rotating group of volunteers and a newly established nonprofit.”
As a resource for connecting local Black artists to paid opportunities and connection with an arts community that helps each other hone their respective crafts, they’ve helped dozens of artists and raised thousands of dollars in support of their mission. Their Black Arts Festival at The Old Globe is a four-day festival celebrating Black playwrights, actors, musicians, visual artists and more from May 25 to 28.
Bunch, 32, also works in social media, marketing, and communications for the Coronado Playhouse and Create CA, which advocates for arts education in California schools with a focus on racial equity in that advocacy. Originally from Houston, she and her husband live in Spring Valley and have been in San Diego for the past four years. She took some time to talk about her work with the San Diego Black Artist Collective, their upcoming festival at The Old Globe, and how San Diego inspires her creativity. and different race, “Black Voices, Black Writers” is a series of monologues and poems from the pillars of Black literature, “A Black Man’s Song” and “Black Lady Showcase” features all of the nuances of navigating being Black in America. There’s something for everyone in the diaspora and then some.
Q: Can you talk about how you first fell in love with the
arts?
A:
I have to thank my parents for that. My father is a landscape architect who still designs and sketches by hand. My mother is an avid reader, lover of old Hollywood, and playwright greats like Tennessee Williams. I grew up exposed to a variety of artistic media for as long as I can remember; the arts were always integral to our lives and have always brought me a sense of comfort.
Q:
How did you know you wanted to spend your life working in the arts professionally? A:
First, I think I was raised to see the arts more expansively than most; maybe because of my dad’s profession since I’d consider him, in many ways, an artist. To me, I knew in order to be fulfilled, I wanted to be in a creative environment or industry, even if it was arts adjacent, such as becoming a landscape architect myself (which I kicked around as a possibility for a while). I eventually found where arts, education, and systemic change intersected, which tapped into all of my interests; it has made my transition from the classroom teaching theater and more to communications and marketing, very seamless.
Q:
From your perspective, what are some of the differences between Houston’s Black arts scene and San Diego’s Black arts scene?
A:
The biggest difference between Houston’s and San Diego’s Black art scenes is size — Houston is a massive city that is incredibly diverse, so there are literally more Black arts, artists, and organizations to be found. The beauty of San Diego’s scene is that I think there are more opportunities for collaboration simply because artists here are in closer proximity to each other; there’s a lot of potential for shared visioning for long-term goals here. Everywhere in Houston is a trek and it takes a greater effort to convene.
Q:
What are some ways that being in San Diego inspires you in your creativity?
A:
I’d say San Diego’s natural beauty inspires my creativity. I started painting again when I moved out here, both because it has been an easy pastime away from screens (especially at the peak of quarantine), but mostly because it’s just so beautiful here. I love the proximity to the beach, the mountains, and the desert.
Q:
When I read that one of the performances is the “Black Lady Showcase,” I was reminded of HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show.” If you watch the HBO show, do you have a favorite sketch from the show?
A:
I’ve only seen Season 1, but the “Rome and Julissa” [a play on Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” featuring the central characters as members of rival fandoms for Cardi B and Nicki Minaj] made this theater kid and Shakespeare lover laugh out loud!
Q:
What has this work taught you about yourself?
A:
This work has taught me that I’m an expert multitasker. In all seriousness, I’m always learning, whether it’s from my peers, from the playwrights of the stories we’re telling, or from the audiences.
Q:
What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A:
The best advice I’ve ever received is appropriately aligned with my work: “F--- what they think, and give ‘em a show, ‘cause they’ll keep watching.”
Q:
What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A:
I’m not sure there’s much someone would be surprised to learn about me as a loud-mouth, oversharing Gemini, ha! Despite what my acting resume looks like, I get more nervous before stepping on stage than I let on.
Q:
Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.
A:
An ideal San Diego weekend would be French press coffee in the backyard with my husband after sleeping in, hitting the Little Italy farmers’ market for food and browsing, a trip to City Farmers Nursery, followed by an afternoon back home gardening, and lastly, ending the day with a beach picnic with friends.