Holly Bass | |
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| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | writer, journalist |
Holly Bass is a Washington DC-based, poet, writer, journalist, educator and cultural activist. [1]
Holly Bass | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | writer, journalist |
Holly Bass is a Washington DC-based, poet, writer, journalist, educator and cultural activist. [1]
Bass studied modern dance (under Viola Farber) and also creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College (Class of 1993, where she was the commencement speaker). [2] [3] She also has a Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University (1994). [4] [5]
Her movement and spoken-word pieces reveal a fascination with "objectification, observation, and the commodification of art and of the body." [6] Holly has performed across the US and internationally. [7] [8] She is a Cave Canem Foundation fellow and her poems, essays and articles have been published in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Callaloo and Beltway Poetry; [9] [10] and in 1999 she was the first person to use the term “Hip-Hop Theater” in print. [11] [12] [13]
Her artworks include the installation Black Space at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington DC, which comprises a small house placed on an outline of the city, alluding to the tiny house architectural movement and the housing problems in DC. [14]
She wrote and performed the one-person dance piece Diary of a Baby Diva [15] in Washington DC in 2005, a coming-of-age tale set in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Washington Post noted her "wicked sense of humor" in making use of the more ridiculous cultural products of the age, but also a lyrical quality revealing her as an "eloquent poet". [16]
Bass was voted Washington City Paper’s Best Performance Artist of 2012. [17]
In 2018 she wrote and performed The Trans-Atlantic Time Traveling Company, which is "about a sisterhood of three women who time-travel from the present to the 1860s when they become freedwomen, in quest of what it means to be free." [13]
More recently, in 2020, she wrote and performed Moneymaker at New York Live Arts in New York City. The piece has been described as "part political commentary and part celebration of social dance, Moneymaker interweaves a lineage of Black artistry with a satirical critique of the history of exploitation, commodification, and objectification of Black women." [18] American Woman, a day-long durational performance and digital video with sound, was selected for the 2022 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the National Portrait Gallery. [19]
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. Originally a women's college, Sarah Lawrence became coeducational in 1968.
Cornelius Eady is an American writer focusing largely on matters of race and society. His poetry often centers on jazz and blues, family life, violence, and societal problems stemming from questions of race and class. His poetry is often praised for its simple and approachable language.
Nan Mallet Fry was an American poet who lived in Washington, DC. She was born in Kansas City, Missouri and grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut. She earned a B.A. in English at Wells College, followed by an M.A. in Medieval Studies and a PhD in English at Yale University before settling in the greater DC area. After teaching periodically at American University and the University of Maryland, she joined the full-time faculty in the Academic Studies Program at the Corcoran College of Art & Design in 1983, and remained there until her retirement in 2005.
Thomas Sayers Ellis is an American poet, photographer and bandleader. He previously taught as an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Bennington College in Vermont, and also at Sarah Lawrence College until 2012.
Ruth Ellen Kocher is an American poet. She is the recipient of the PEN/Open Book Award, the Dorset Prize, the Green Rose Prize, and the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and Cave Canem. She is Professor of English at the University of Colorado - Boulder where and serves as Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences and Divisional Dean for Arts and Humanities.
Natasha Trethewey is an American poet who served as United States Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2014. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection Native Guard, and is a former Poet Laureate of Mississippi.
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Pamela Sneed is an American poet, performance artist, actress, activist, and teacher. Her book, Funeral Diva, is a memoir in poetry and prose about growing up during the AIDS crisis, and the winner of the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for lesbian poetry.
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Sharan Strange is an African-American poet, activist, and professor.
Cave Canem Foundation is an American 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1996 by poets Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady to remedy the underrepresentation and isolation of African-American poets in Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs and writing workshops across the United States. It is based in Brooklyn, New York.
Truth Thomas is an American singer-songwriter, poet, editor, publisher and founder of Cherry Castle Publishing, LLC. He is the author of Party of Black (2006), A Day of Presence (2008), Bottle of Life (2010), Speak Water (2012), winner of the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Poetry, and My TV is Not the Boss of Me (2013), Jessie Redmon Fauset Book Award Finalist 2014, a children's book, illustrated by Cory Thomas. Thomas is the creator of fixed form of poetry known as "The Skinny." In addition, he has edited and co-edited a number of anthologies, including Where We Stand: Poems of Black Resilience ,The Skinny Poetry Anthology, and is the Editor-in-Chief of The Skinny Poetry Journal. During his early music career, his first full-length studio album, Take Love, was produced in 1982 on Capitol Records by Soul Train television show creator and host Don Cornelius. In 1992, Thomas officially changed his name from Glenn Edward Thomas to Truth Thomas. He is a former Writer-in-Residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo) and the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Howard County, Maryland. His poems have appeared in over 150 publications, including The 100 Best African American Poems and This Is the Honey.
Pam Tanowitz is an American dancer, choreographer, professor, and founder of the company, Pam Tanowitz Dance. She is a current staff member at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts where she teaches dance and choreography. Her work has been performed at notable performance venues such as the Joyce Theater, the Joyce SoHo, and New York Live Arts, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
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Arisa White is an American poet based in Oakland, California. She is a Cave Canem fellow and author of the poetry chapbooks Disposition for Shininess, Post Pardon, and Black Pearl, and the books Hurrah's Nest, A Penny Saved, and You're the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened.
Donika Kelly is an American poet and academic, who is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Iowa, where she teaches creative writing. She is the author of the chapbook Aviarium, published with fivehundred places in 2017, and the full-length collections Bestiary and The Renunciations.
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Maida Withers is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker. Withers is the founder and artistic director of Maida Withers Dance Construction Company (1974) of Washington, D.C. She is a professor at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, at the George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
Candice Iloh is a queer, first-generation Nigerian-American writer, poet, educator and dancer. Their debut novel, Every Body Looking, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and Michael L. Printz Award honor book.
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