Multitudes: Music and Poetry Inspired by Making American Artists
Music, poetry and art combine for a powerful illumination of what it means to be an American and an American artist today.
World Cafe Live and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) present Multitudes, a multisensory event series. Hear world premiere works from some of Philadelphia’s top performers commissioned by World Cafe Live, all inspired by PAFA’s current exhibition, Making American Artists: Stories from PAFA 1776 - 1976.
Multitudes asks five musicians and three poets to share their individual reflections of the artwork, presenting new narratives in American art history by spotlighting stories about women artists, LGBTQIA+ artists, and artists of color. The result is a highly personal and powerful illumination of what it means to be an American and an American artist today.
March 18 Featured Artists: Kingsley Ibeneche, Jaylene Clark Owens, and ILL DOOTS
Exhibition Viewing: 7:00pm | Show: 8:00pm
Ticket holders for the March 18th performance are invited to come early, see the exhibition, and celebrate the final night of this exciting performance series.
ILL DOOTS has always and will forever be a body of change. Since their inception at University of the Arts in 2009, this musical collective of individuals has each brought their own lifetime of artistic influences and experiences into the fold to contribute to the group’s timeless and genre-defying music. Hailing from all over the United States but unified under the undeniable grit and soul of Philadelphia, the band currently consists of four members: US - Emcee, Elle.Morris - Vocals, Scott Ziegler - Bass, & Jordan McCree - Drums. From energy shifting live performances to commissioned theater works and educational workshops, 3 studio albums and countless mixtapes-- to deny ILL DOOTS’ output, advocacy, and relevance to the culture would be a disservice to the community that helped make it possible. Every member strives to embody the acronym behind the whole brand: ILL= I Love Living & I Love Learning.
Jaylene Clark Owens is an AUDELCO and Barrymore award-winning actress, as well as a highly acclaimed spoken word poet, from Harlem, NY. She is the author of AfroPoetic, her debut collection of poetry, now available on the Shop page. She received her BFA from Ithaca College, where she founded, and led, the spoken word organization, Spit That!. Jaylene is a part of The Wilma Theater's resident acting company, HotHouse, in Philadelphia, PA. She has been seen in numerous productions in Philadelphia including WHITE (Theatre Horizon), Red Speedo (Theatre Exile), and her Barrymore award-winning performance in An Octoroon (The Wilma Theater). As a part of the Barrymore Awards, she is the 2019 winner of the illustrious F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Artist. She is the Executive Director of Harlem KW Project, LLC, a theatrical company she created with three other women to create the spoken word infused play, Renaissance in the Belly of a Killer Whale. In 2012 she won first place in the Apollo Theater Amateur Night contest for her poem, "SoHa." She is an alum of the theatre-in-verse #BARS Workshop at the Public Theater, led by Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs. In addition to performing spoken word, she is also a teaching artist. She has taught several poetry writing workshops with students ranging from second grade to adults. Jaylene co-hosts an Arts and Culture podcast called, "#PoppaPank," with fellow actor, Justin Jain. You can watch live episodes of #PoppaPank on Facebook or YouTube, or listen to it on Apple Music, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Kingsley Ibeneche is a Nigerian American performing artist based in Camden, New Jersey. He has choreographed, produced and starred in performances at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Barnes Foundation and The Kennedy Center. His music has been featured by NPR, The Fader and Afropunk and he has danced on SNL, MTV and HBO. Enticed by a vision of using multidisciplinary creative energies to highlight social change, Ibeneche’s work aims to connect African people and the African diaspora through movement and sound. His debut album Udo was released in September 2022.