Ep.4: Collective Wisdom
Episode 4: COLLECTIVE WISDOM
Artists Cherise Morris and Holly Bass discuss the restorative, transformative journey of creating contemporary work that draws from the past and reaches all generations.
SHOW NOTES
Root Work by Holly Bass
Visions of the Evolution by Cherise Morris
ABOUT THE GUESTS
CHERISE MORRIS is a poet, multidisciplinary artist, ritualist and spiritual worker born and raised in rural Virginia and based in Detroit, MI. Her work merges experimental writing, poetry and prayer with performance, movement, sound and ritual practices to open loving, audacious and transformative spaces that invite us to explore, imagine and continue the infinite work of our individual and collective healing journeys and new-world building. Her writing has previously appeared in The Iowa Review, Longreads, Black Warrior Review and elsewhere. Her essays have twice been recognized as notable works of literary nonfiction in The Best American Essays Series 2018 and 2019 and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Morris is currently at work on her ongoing project, "Visions of the Evolution: The Ritual-Performance Series," and her debut manuscript.
HOLLY BASS is a multidisciplinary performance and visual artist, writer and director. Her visual art work spans photography, installation, video and performance. A Cave Canem fellow, she has published poems in numerous journals and anthologies. She studied modern dance (under Viola Farber) and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College before earning her Master’s from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. As an arts journalist early in her career, she was the first to put the term “hip hop theater” into print in American Theatre magazine. She has received numerous grants from the DC Arts Commission and was a 2019 Red Bull Detroit artist-in-residence, a 2019 Dance/USA Artist Fellow and currently is a 2020-2021 New York Live Arts resident artist. A gifted and dedicated teaching artist, for four years she directed a year-round creative writing and performance program for adjudicated youth in DC’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services as well as facilitating workshops nationally and internationally. She is currently the national director for Turnaround Arts at the Kennedy Center, a program which uses the arts strategically to transform schools facing severe inequities.