Based on the Act Like a GRRRL model, Big GRRRL is for female-identifying adults over 18. Participants write autobiographical narratives in response to prompts from Vali and Cynthia, then share their writing at our weekly meetings, giving and receiving supportive feedback along the way. The program concludes with public performances of 2 selections from the many pieces created during this 6-week program. You choose which writings you are ready to share in front of a live audience.
This is a 6-week intensive that meets 3 hours per week plus 2 rehearsals and 2 performances. All sessions take place at the Actors Bridge Studio.
A failed journalist hired by the Federal Writers Project in 1932, catches hold of a highly sought meeting with a former slave who mysteriously acquired his former master’s fortune, including over 100 acres of land. Inspired by Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and the Slave Narratives gathered by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930’s, Narrative of the Life of Cedric Bartholomew, tells an epic story of legacy, love, and tragedy.
We need a mayor who supports an increase in funding the arts from 0.17% to at least 1% of the overall budget.
Cynthia C. Harris, Guest Columnist | June 13, 2023
Cynthia C. Harris of Actors Bridge Ensemble is co-chair of the Arts Equity Mayoral Candidate Forum.
Growing up in Nashville, my first experience with the arts was through ballet with Dancearts Centre directed by Ms. Peggy Williams. She exposed hundreds of African American girls from a range of economic experiences to ballet for over 30 years. I first learned with Ms. Williams in a house, and later in a building on Buchanan that still stands today.
I’ve been thinking about those classes and Ms. Williams a lot lately. North Nashville has always been filled with professionals dedicated to sharing their creative gifts with future generations. These have often been labors of love, often maintained with personal finances and the small fees collected from families. They offered arts programs and education through their connections to local schools, churches, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). They were fixtures in our community and generations of young people benefited.
I recently found a program from our recital in 1982. I see names of then girls, now women whom I admire and respect. I see accomplished women representing a number of professions, parents, clergy, and leaders. I am reminded of the deep necessity of resources, spaces, and infrastructure when it comes to making art in community.
The arts create the fabric of our community
This summer I’ll co-lead Actors Bridge Ensemble’s Act Like a Grrrl program where we serve about 12 female identifying students ages 12-18, like we have each summer for the past 19 years. We are sometimes overlooked for grant funding because our numbers are small. We keep our program small because we want each young person to have all the attention and support needed to come to voice during our time together.
After working primarily in the public health field for 20 years while writing and performing on the side, I moved my passion for theater front and center this year. I’ll continue consulting with local arts organizations, performing, building community, and creating plays. Still I worry about how plausible it is to sustain myself long term as a theater artist.
The future of the arts in Nashville matters deeply to me. I am clear that we need a mayor who supports an increase in funding the arts from 0.17% to at least 1% of the overall budget. Dallas, Austin, Cleveland, and Phoenix (cities growing at the same rate as Nashville) all have higher arts budgets with greater per capita funding for the arts.
These cities recognize that artists create the fabric of our communities and they all invest substantially more in the arts. They understand something we as Music City and Athens of the South must reflect in our policies. The arts enrich our lives through more than the bottom line, uplifting every aspect of life.
We need representation for the creative class
We need a dedicated funding source for the arts. We need to make sure the funds are distributed equitably so that independent artists, artists of color, and small arts organizations have an opportunity to innovate and thrive.
We also need an infrastructure in place for artists that nurtures and sustains us. We need representation for the creative class in all its vibrant facets, and we need to reinvest in the arts and artists who bring so much real value to Nashville.
Arts and culture are part of our civic rights and are integral to our identity.
Engaging in the arts is essential to the overall well being of a community. Practitioners and scholars have long connected the dots between art and health, typically in the form of art therapy. That exploration has now expanded to art and public health. One way to understand the distinction is that art and health/medicine focus on the well being of the individual, while art and public health focus on the well being of a collective or community.
I believe in the power of the arts as a form of health intervention. The infographics below share recent evidence of arts on public health issues like trauma, racism, isolation, mental health, and chronic disease.
Mayoral Candidates: Natisha Brooks, Fran Bush, Heidi Campbell, Jim Gingrich, Sharon Hurt, Stephanie Johnson, Freddie O’Connell, Vivian Wilhoite, Matt Wiltshire, and Jeff Yarbro
June 14, 2023 at Nashville Children’s Theatre 6:30 PM reception 8 PM forum start 10-11 PM after-party Reception and after-party DJ is Jason Eskridge
Local artists and organizations join in asking our next mayor to equitably fund the arts.
We are Music City and the Athens of the South!
Cosponsors (this list is growing daily):
abrasiveMedia, Actors Bridge Ensemble, April Gloaming Publishing, Art & Soul Nashville, Arts Bellevue, COOP Gallery, Dewey Comedy Productions, Elmahaba Center, FALL, Found Movement Group, Free Nashville Poetry Library, Global Education Center, International Black Film Festival, Kindling Arts, Liberated Grounds, Music for Seniors, Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Nashville Arts Coalition, Nashville Creative Group, Nashville Dance Collective, Nashville Filmmakers Guild, Nashville Musicians for Change, Nashville Women in Jazz, Nashville in Harmony, North Nashville Action, North Nashville Arts Coalition, One Drop Ink Tattoo, Poboys & Poets, Queen Bee Ink LLC, Southern Word, Sylvan Heights Neighborhood Association, TMProductions, The 37208, The African American Cultural Alliance, The Museum of Presence, The Native American Indian Association of Tennessee, The Porch, The Nashville Children’s Theatre, The Radicle, The Upcoming Artist Organization, We Keep The Faith Corp, Noel Marie Alexander, Audra Almond-Harvey, Alayna Renae Anderson, Rebekah Hampton Barger, Gina Carrillo, Telisha Cobb, Jo Collins, Chris Crofton, Jasmine Dominique, Susannah J. Felts, Collier Goodlett, Christine Hall, Cynthia C. Harris, Vali Forrister, Michelle Harris, Shayna Hobbs, Amy Hoskins, Beth Inglish, Courtney Adair Johnson, Perris (Spoke) Johnson, Megan Jordan, Hazel Joyner-Smith, Leslie LaChance, Candace-Omnira LaFayette, Matthew Ezell “Honest” Lewis, Leah Light, Dana Malone, Barton Mangrum, Tosha Marie, Elisheba Mrozik, Matthew Robinson, Andee Rudloff, Landrew Sevel, Abby Whisenant, Rev. Dr. Donna Krupkin Whitney, Caroline Randall Williams, Robin Wolfenden, and Alex Wong
There is no cost associated—we only ask you sign onto the call for arts equity. We will share mayoral candidates’ statements with our cosponsors for the opportunity to prepare questions ahead of the forum.
Are you a theater maker looking for new tools? Are you a theater student? Do you work in community engagement? Do you create programs for young people?
Come explore choreopoems with playwright, Cynthia C Harris, MPH. Learn about her unique method of community-engaged theater making. Use a personal narrative approach to build performances that combine poetry, monologues, call and response, choral refrains, movement, and music. This workshop is for all levels. Ages 12+. Come ready to play!
WHAT WILL YOU TAKE AWAY?
-Crafting the “good invitation to play.” Laying the foundation for collaborative work among diverse groups.
-Use individual writing prompts to build choreopoems in small groups.
-Find points of connection in individual writing.
-Use individual writing to introduce to build movement and create tableaus.
Nashville, TENN. (TN Tribune) – Actors Bridge Ensemble (ABE) is pleased to present the World Premiere production of THE CALLING IS IN THE BODY by Cynthia C. Harris. Ms. Harris, who also directs the play, is a graduate of Hume Fogg High School, Florida A&M University (B.S.) and Tennessee State University (MPH).
STORY: THE CALLING IS IN THE BODY is a choreopoem telling the story of Deidre Williams, a Nashville hero and early HIV advocate in the 1990s as the pandemic was growing internationally and changing culture and language around sex, safety, and intimacy. It is the story of her memory and legend as told by a young high school student who searched for closure after losing contact, a nurse practitioner and HIV/AIDS care trailblazer who befriended her, and a woman in recovery who commits to her cause and champions her work.
Deidre was studying pre-med when she contracted HIV from her fiancé. She became one of the first Black women in Nashville to publicly tell her story in an effort to save the lives of countless others.
“One of the things that is really interesting to me about the piece is how differently we respond as a culture and community to HIV now as opposed to when I was younger. So many people don’t have that experience of it being the epidemic and pandemic that it was. Now it’s a chronic disease. That looks very different for humans relating to each other, for physicians and people caring for folks. This is going to take people back in time to the realities of those moments,” reflected playwright and directorCynthia C. Harris.
“While this piece is very much about lifting a southern hero for us, in her work to educate people, we’re also making a statement about bodies in general. No matter what happens to the body- whether that is some form of illness or accident or assault that changes how we relate to our bodies, changes how our bodies function, changes how they look- that can radically change us and our sense of self. We still get to acknowledge that these bodies deserve goodness. These bodies, our bodies deserve joy, these bodies deserve pleasure. No matter what the experience of the body is,” Cynthia continued.
Cynthia Harris is available for media interviews beginning July 14, 2022.
The Calling Is in the Body Celebrates Early HIV/AIDS Advocate Deidre Williams by AMY STUMPFL
AUG 4, 2022
All Photos: Sally Bebawy Photography
Whether it’s through her work as a theater artist or as a public health professional, Cynthia C. Harris has always recognized the power of storytelling.
“As a child, I grew up listening to women share their stories in my mother’s beauty shop,” the Nashville native says. “Even then, I think I understood that it wasn’t necessarily about the details of the story itself — it was the power of being in community together, of recognizing ourselves somewhere in the story.”
Harris hopes audiences will find that moment of recognition with The Calling Is in the Body, which premieres this weekend at Actors Bridge Ensemble. Billed as a choreopoem, this new work tells the story of one of Harris’ own mentors — Deidre Williams, a vibrant young Black woman who was an early advocate for people with HIV/AIDS in 1990s Nashville.
“Deidre was an incredible human being,” says Harris, who received a Rural Performance/Production Lab fellowship from The Mississippi Center for Cultural Production to support the development of The Calling Is in the Body. “She spoke at a Red Cross Leadership Camp that I attended during high school, and I was immediately drawn to her. She was young, ambitious and full of energy. And then she tells us that she has HIV, and our jaws hit the floor. I mean, this is the early ’90s, so there was a real stigma surrounding that whole subject. But she was so open and wise, and encouraging. I felt like she really saw me. This was in the days before social media and cellphones, and we eventually lost contact. But she had such a profound effect on my life. And as I started working on this piece, I discovered that she had a real impact on a lot of lives.”
As with Harris’ other original works — including Phrases of Womanhood and How to Catch a Flying Woman — The Calling Is in the Body blends storytelling and movement, much in the style of Ntozake Shange’s groundbreaking for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.
“My aunt gave me a copy of for colored girls when I was in fifth grade, and I think I’ve always gravitated to that type of work because it provides the most freedom to explore and really express what you’re feeling.”
In this case, Harris was particularly interested in exploring the idea of “how we navigate this life in our human bodies.”
“I’ve always been fascinated by how we relate to our changing bodies,” she says. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be a serious illness or accident that changes the way we function or how we see ourselves. It could just be the process of aging — getting bigger, rounder, older. That can really change your sense of self, right? And yet all the things that were true about us before, are still true now.
“In talking to people about Deidre, so many spoke of her joy, her energy and the way she was able to encourage and support others, even when she was sick,” Harris continues. “How did she do that? How does anyone make peace and learn to just be in their body, while acknowledging that they still deserve — and can create — goodness?”
Harris says she is delighted to explore such questions with the cast of The Calling Is in the Body, including Teacora Sherrill, Destinee Monét Johnson, Nicole Mason, Rachel Agee and Lisa Yolanda Treece.
“We have an incredibly talented cast — a few returning to the stage after years away and some recent graduates,” Harris says. “I like my cast to reflect a diversity of bodies and hair textures. I like my heroes to be young and older. We’re building something really beautiful, and these are the only humans for the job.”
Likewise, Harris says Actors Bridge — under the leadership of producing artistic director Vali Forrister — is uniquely positioned to bring The Calling Is in the Body to life.
“For me, Vali Forrister simply is Actors Bridge,” says Harris. “She’s absolutely committed to lifting up women’s voices, making space for others to grow and develop as artists. Vali’s been there to support me every step of the way in this process, and I can’t think of a better place to present this work that means so much to me.”
Voted as the Best Celebration of Radical Visibility for 2022
“There are some shows that just capture a specific moment in time. Cynthia C. Harris’ The Calling Is in the Body did just that — telling the story of Deidre Williams, a vibrant young Black woman who was an early HIV/AIDS advocate in 1990s Nashville. Staged at Actors Bridge Ensemble, this brave new work drew us in with powerful storytelling, along with an immersive pre/post-show experience that included writing prompts, local news clips and more. An emotional deep dive into community and connection, it honored those we lost, while celebrating Williams as the ‘Patron Saint of Radical Visibility.'”
Healing Waters Productions 