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Karen Carraway
2002
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Denise Perrier
2002+
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Soyinka Rahim
2003
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Mia Paschal
2005
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Kevin Ware
1997
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Rodney Ewing
2003
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Idris Ackamoor
1999+
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On behalf of the City and County of San Francisco, I am pleased to honor the AfroSolo Theatre Company for its vision to provide an arena for some of the most talented performers and artists in the Bay Area.
I encourage you to support AfroSolo and help with its vital role in making San Francisco and the Bay Area a Mecca for multicultural performance and art.
Willie L. Brown, Jr.
Former Mayor, San Francisco
AfroSolo has enabled a wonderful discourse on black culture and black identity to occur between its spectators and its performers. As a result, audiences have been exposed to performance styles and artists that they may not have otherwise been able to see.
In addition, AfroSolo has hosted a series of symposiums that have brought scholars, artists and members of the community together to talk about important issues of black cultural production. AfroSolo has filled a void by bringing theory and practice, scholarship and performance together.
Harry Elam, Jr., Associate Professor of Theatre
Director of the Committee on Black Performing Arts Stanford University
AfroSolo is a wonderfully unique theatrical institution in the Bay Area and provides artists an opportunity to 'showcase their work' as well as provides information essential for artist's survival. AfroSolo has worked with limited resources to give audiences a variety of production experiences. Creativity, imagination, commitment, and craftsmanship often lead performers from a "workshop" production into a fully developed show.
Dr. Ethel Pitts Walker, Professor
Television, Radio, Film & Theatre
San Jose State University and
Executive Director of the African American Drama Company
The Afro Solo Festival is always an amazing feast for the ears, for the eyes, for the soul. Thank you, Thomas Simpson, for programming this annual showcase of some of the finest contemporary artists creating theater, spoken word, music, photography and visual art.
Linda Lucero
Executive/Artistic Director
Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
AfroSolo helped establish me as a serious visual artist. They provided me the first opportunity to showcase my photography in a major exhibit. Since then, my work has appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and internationally.
Duane Cramer
Photographer
AfroSolo is the primary space where solo artists of African descent can, with financial compensation and full production support, showcase diverse histories, art forms and discourses. AfroSolo's merging of scholarship, activism, practitioner's workshops, and performances hones a distinctive venue and opportunity for the entire San Francisco Bay Area.
Venus Opal Reese, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Arts and Humanities
University of Texas at Dallas
AfroSolo was an honest, moving and above all thought provoking experience. As an immigrant, I realized that forms and words that the artists had chosen were truly voices of a larger experience. An experience of struggle, putting up a fight and ultimately a submission to a diviner will. They spoke of history and the fight for recognition; they spoke of violations in silence and compassion in words. The formidable presence of the very talented solo artists took you through unique experiences seen from lenses not much different than ours, but said in voices that burn strictly in our bellies and never make it to our lips or bodies. In all it was a mesmerizing experience that touched all who entered to the core.
Kashif Maqsood
Audience Member
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