Pippa Fleming on butch, griot identity, and "living in the mainstream"

KPFA interview with writer/director/choreographer/DJ (etc., etc,) Pippa Fleming, and producer and Endangered Species Project activist Grace Dueñas [sic?] , and cellist Naboko Mizaguchi [sic?], on Fleming's performance project "The Ms. K.I.A Chronicles" a "multimedia exploration of African American butch, griot identity in America" taken from her longer work Living In the Mainstream.

Fleming looks at various aspects of identity taking into account the inter-generational questions of identity in relationship to gender, race, national identity, culture and memory.

A little sample of Fleming's stage presence with her performance of "Bitter Pill," from "The Ms. K.I.A. Chronicles" production at the Museum of the African Diaspora in 2007.

JsTheater has the October Hook-Up...November in Cali...MOAD claims us all...

I won't even try to encapsulate all the upcoming events Jstheater has listed. I'll just link to his weighty post, "Lessing the Nobelist + Events in Profusion!" on the literature, art exhibition, and music performances coming up in NYC, Brooklyn, NJ, and Chicago (and Doris Lessing being named a Nobel Laureate). As per usual, Jstheater is a wealth of information!

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One of my favorite Cali DJs and party people, Ms. Pippa Fleming is going seriously theatrical in this new show, The Ms. K.I.A. Chronicles--OK, I admit, I have no idea what K.I.A. stands for, so I'll have to ask at some point. The show is being staged at MOAD, the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, which has been doing some innovative new media exhibits online, but this is the first I've heard of them doing anything with explicitly queer content. But, I haven't been in Cali in quite a while. In fact the last time I was there MOAD was still being constructed as part of an initiative of culturally specific exhibition centers located in the arts district in downtown San Francisco. I'm glad they're embracing the black diaspora in its complex diversity. Gotta give respect to artist/musician Hanifah Walidah kicking down that door in the Bay Area with her one woman Black Folks...show which she originated in Oakland when she lived there.

I had the pleasure of seeing Pippa last in the ATL where she was doing her innovative thing just by insisting on getting around solely by public transportation and on foot. She's always had great energy, a real light and vibration that brought people together. I'm wondering what this new chapter she's beginning is going to become.