One way to have a Good Friday

This is the final show that we're doing for the Jon Sims stint. There's a possibility we do it again in June. Perhaps in NYC later this year. And I'll let you know now that we changed the show since the last time, so it's a whole new experience. That's probably one of the best things out of this experience of one show a month, it's given us a chance to tweak and experiment, which for most shows you don't get the chance to do.

before their words

Come experience Maiana’s beautiful poetry, Michelle’s & Rona’s dazzling martial arts & Neddy’s soothing guitar melodies!

After 3 months of hard work, this is the last show at Jon Sims - Friday, April 9 @ 8p!  $sliding scale, call for reservations at 415.554.0402

Jon Sims Center For The Arts, 1519 Mission Street (between 11th Street and South Van Ness), South of Market (check website for directions) Maiana’s chapbooks will also be available for sale at the show.

As part of the Jon Sims Center’s Artist In Residence program, the work-in-progress will be followed by a post-performance discussion and feedback with the audience, and reception with the artists.

‘before their words’ (a work in progress), by Maiana Minahal, is a collaborative, interdisciplinary, multimedia poetry performance that combines subversive, poetic narrative with pre-colonial Philippine cultural traditions and art forms. Utilizing indigenous Philippine dance (Singkil), martial arts (Kali), and music, the larger poetic narrative unfolds as the (queer) re-telling of the Philippine folktale of Sondayo, the village woman who battles the wind goddess to re-claim her stolen husband. Featuring Michelle Bautista, Nedjula Baguio, and Rona Fernandez.
 
Maiana Minahal is a queer Filipina American poet and teacher, born in Manila, raised in Los Angeles, and currently living in San Francisco. She studied with June Jordan's Poetry for the People program, is a recipient of an Artist Award Grant from the Serpent Source Foundation, and is one of the founding members of the Queer Pin@y Kreatibo collective. She has most recently been published in the anthologies ‘Going Home to a Landscape’ and ‘Screaming Monkeys.’  Maiana's first chapbook, ‘closer,’ and her first book, ‘Sitting Inside Wonder,’ both came out last year.

Michelle Bautista is a SF Bay Area native and an instructor in the Filipino martial art of Kali as well as a published poet.  Her work can be found in "Babaylan", "Eros Pinoy", and most recently "Going Home to a Landscape" (Calyx, 2003).

Nedjula Baguio graduated with a BA in music from San Francisco State in 2002. She currently volunteers for the prison advocacy group TIP, Transgender In Prison. She lives and works in San Francisco and spends her free time causing trouble for "the man".

Rona Fernandez can recently be found doing yoga poses and Pilates at the Richmond district Y, crafting fiction in random cafes, taking long walks in Golden Gate Park and generally living it up in San Francisco and Oakland (and a few other places here and there). She is also a student of the Kamatuuran School of Kali under Gura Michelle Bautista and Tuhan Joseph T. Arriola.