While her work is often rooted in choreography and movement, amara tabor-smith calls herself a performance maker. She’s the founder of Deep Waters Dance Theater and an educator at Stanford University, where she teaches not just dance, but a very sought-after class called Conjure Art 101: Performances of Ritual, Spirituality and Decolonial Black Feminist Magic.

Amara challenged us to reframe our entire thinking about art and protest, by moving from resistance to insistence. “Protest… still centers what you’re protesting against,” she points out. “How do we recenter our awareness on what it is that we are wanting to affirm and insist upon?” She also shared her belief in art as a spiritual practice that can shift vibrations around real-world issues, and we talked about cultivating joy, even while we grieve.

Learn more about amara tabor-smith at deepwatersdance.com.

This season of Race Unwrapped is supported by the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, and by our listeners. Click here to help make this work possible (and we'll send you a sticker)!

There's something so human about live theatre. Real people are telling a story in a shared space, while you share space with other people watching. It’s intimate. For playwright Gabriel Diego Hernández, it’s also a way to tell truths about, and poke fun at, race in the United States.

His play “Quarter Rican” explores his worldview as a mixed-race Puerto Rican man and father. In this episode, we talk about the power of the stage to be its own brand of protest, which includes talking about representation. And since our host is a playwright too, they had a lot to say about how we tell stories on stage to make bigger points about the world we live in.

Learn more about New Jersey hip hop artist, actor, poet, educator, and playwright Gabriel Diego Hernández on Instagram: @gabriel_diego_hernandez

This season of Race Unwrapped is supported by the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, and by our listeners. Click here to help make this work possible!

There’s nothing like the right combination of music and lyrics to crystalize a moment... or a movement. It’s why we’re asking every guest this season their favorite protest songs: everyone has an answer to that question, because we all instinctively understand music’s power. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Chelsey Green, musician, educator, and the first Black woman to chair the Board of Trustees for The Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammy Awards. She helps us unwrap why music, and representation in music, is such a big part of the quest for justice.

Learn more about Dr. Chelsey Green’s work at chelseygreen.com.

And if our conversation inspires you, let us know what your favorite protest song is at raceunwrapped@lpm.org. We’re making a playlist, and it’s already gooood, y’all.

This season of Race Unwrapped is supported by the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, and by our listeners. Click here to help make this work possible!