SoutheastStylings
DC Connection to Hollywood
Eisa Davis (Courtesy Photo)

by Khadijah Ali-Coleman

Q & A with Actress Eisa Davis
Acclaimed actress and singer Eisa
Davis is someone who may not bewell-known but is destined for legacy
status soon. This multi-talented woman has many irons in the ﬁre. Davishas appeared on the cable TV dramas“Soul Food” and “The Wire” and mostrecently seen on NBC’s “Law and Order SVU.” She has, in the past, brought
her stage plays “Hip Hop Anansi” and“Bulrusher” to us through the Imagination Stage in Bethesda and the theatergroup Museﬁre. An accomplished songwriter and singer, her CD, “Tincture,” iscurrently in record stores nationwide.
Davis talks to East of the River
about her up-and-coming projects andher views on celebrity, arts education in
the DC area and her father, Sam Jordan, executive director of Health CareNow and former Ward 7 councilmember candidate.
EOR: Are you a native of DC?
ED: My father is a longtime residentof DC, but I have never lived there. Iwas born in Berkeley, California, andraised in the Bay Area. I live in Brooklyn, New York.
EOR: What was your inspiration to enter the ﬁeld of the arts?
ED: I can’t locate one single inspiration. I can’t remember when I wasn’t
immersed in music and drama and ﬁlm.
56 ★ East of the River | June 2007

My grandmother and mother were always taking me to dance classes or piano lessons, reciting poetry, encouraging
me to write stories...The arts have always been a way of life for me. And thisearly appreciation has enriched every
experience I’ve ever had.
EOR: Has DC had an impact on yourcurrent success as an artist? How?
ED: Last year, I created a play at Imagination Stage with deaf choreographer
and performer Fred Beam, director Patrick Crowley, and an amazing half-deaf,half-hearing cast. Janet Stanford, theartistic director of Imagination Stage,brought us all together. The piece, “HipHop Anansi,” was my very ﬁrst professional production as a playwright, so I
can thank DC for that.
EOR: What productions have you been apart of in the DC area?
ED: Besides “Hip Hop Anansi,” myplay “Bulrusher,” a Pulitzer Prize ﬁnalist this year, was given a reading by thetheater company Museﬁre.
EOR: What is your biggest aspiration as
an artist?
ED: To create more compassion andfreedom and joy in all of our lives.
EOR: Your father seems to be your biggest cheerleader ... what has his role been
in your success?
ED: He and I recently became friends.
It’s a wonderful moment when parents

and children can move beyond theconstricting aspects of these familial
roles and begin to understand and accept each other as people. This shift in
my relationship with him altered mywork and gave me the emotional freedom to create what is now my best
known play.
EOR: What are your views on his run
for public oﬃce in DC?
ED: I’m biased, but I know that hewould be a great leader.
EOR: What are upcoming projects you
are working on or will be working on?
ED: I am currently performing in the
Public Theater’s production of Passing
Strange in New York City. I also justreleased an album of my original music.
And my play “Bulrusher” is going to be
produced in my hometown of Berkeley
this September.
EOR: What have been your most enjoyable collaborations?
ED: In my work, I am always trying
to reach the caliber of the many giftedteachers and collaborators I’ve had theopportunity to work with. And some ofthose people will never be celebrities nor
do they want to be. We spend too much
public and private time in our culture
focusing on celebrity, and it hurts us inways we don’t even realize. Some of themost important people to my growth as
an artist are the playwrights Anna Deavere Smith and Adrienne Kennedy andthe black poets’ organization Cave Canem. Their innovation and trailblazinghas made a lasting impact on my work.
EOR: If you could advise your father onways to improve arts education in DC,
what would be some suggestions?
ED: Arts education is absolutely essential to creating the human in human beings. Arts aren’t just fun things
to do when you’re done with scienceand math, they’re serious tools that allow you to understand yourself and theworld. How else can we foster a citizenry that can thrive in a global society
without studying the arts that form ourmany cultures?
Visit Davis’ site at www.myspace.
com/eisadavis

Annual Poetry Slam at Ballou
High School
Words ﬂew and audience members
applauded as Ballou student and staﬀ
poets battled it out on May 15 during
the school day. The annual poetry slamhad judges and prizes for the lyricists
who garnered the highest points during this event sponsored by the DC
Creative Writing Workshop. Judges
included Mary Brown, the executive
director of the youth art group Lifepieces to Masterpieces, Veronica Nolan, executive director of the college
prep program Urban Alliance, Juanita
Wade, a DC Grants Initiative oﬃcerand yours truly.

Meet Ward 7 Artists:
James Stephen Terrell andTracy-Lynne Toles
Poetry slam Rambo Everett and judge Juanita WadeThe event was enjoyable. I was impressed by
the intensity of many ofthe poems while the enthusiasm and charismaof the Ballou staﬀ poets
was energizing. The audience was allowed to boo
the judges when we gave
our scores, so we faced a
lot of boo-ing and criticism when we gave lowscores to those who wereclearly crowd favorites.
First place winner student
Rambo Everett made animpact on the audienceas his poem dealt withloneliness and depression.
James Saunders, a Larry
Neal Award winner and a 2006 Parkmont Poetry Contest winner kickedoﬀ the event with one of his poems from “Voice of the Knight,” Ballou’s
literary magazine.
Special education teacher Ms. Chen was one of the highlights of theevent, performing a well-received poem called “My People.” The poem
spoke to the stereotypes people have about Asian people – dispelling theimage of the Korean vendor who asks do you want salt, pepper and ketchup
on your French fries or who doesn’t speak English.
Stage presence was highly judged, and staﬀ members wowed the crowds
with their stage charisma. Sage Morgan-Hubbard -- National Slam Poetand writer-in-residence for DCCWW – performed her ode to poetry as sheraised the bar to new levels. Her lyrical ﬂow reverberated through the roomas an a cappella hip hop melody.
Nancy Schwalb, founder and artistic director of DCCWW, participatedand was proud of the students who participated this year. “This is something
we look forward to each year,” she said. Student winners were: Rambo Everett, Micquel Smith – second place winner, Alexis Monroe – third placewinner and Neferteria Crawley, who came in fourth.
To learn more about the DC Creative Writing Workshop, call 202-2971957, or visit www.dccww.org.

Youth Artwork Contest Seeking Entries (ages 13-19)
National Women’s Law Center celebrates its 35th anniversary with anart contest for youth ages 13-19. “Expanding the Possibilities for Womenand Girls” is the theme of this national art contest which invites young artists to submit their original photography, paintings, drawings, ﬂash animation and Web-based media.
Artwork should creatively address something relevant to theme, incorporating at least one of the following angles: the diﬀerent roles women play,advances women have made, and/or the challenges women have faced historically and continue to face.
A panel of judges will select a winner by Sept. 30 based on the artwork’soriginality, presentation style and relevance to the contest’s theme. The winner receives $500.
Submissions must be received by June 30. For further info and to download
an entry form, visit www.nwlc.org/contest/ ■by Deidre R. Gantt, Ward 7 Arts Collaborative Inc.
Anyone who has lived in Ward 7 knowsthat talent runs deep within our community, although
it is seldom reflected in the media oramong the wider Washington arts scene.
For three years, the Ward 7 Arts Collaborative has partnered with city administratorsand private developers
to ensure that the arts have a prominentplace in projects like the Great Streets Initiative, the Benning Library reconstruction
and the Eastgate/Hope VI redevelopment.
The Collaborative has also helped
emerging and established artists to secureteaching, presentation and funding opportunities around the city. This summer’s exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, “A Creative Profile: Artistsof the East Bank,” is the largest exhibit theArts Collaborative has been affiliated withto date. More than two-thirds of the 21
featured artists live in Ward 7. Two of theseartists, James Stephen Terrell and TracyLynne Toles, exemplify the diverse range ofartists the Collaborative has engaged.
Terrell is a professionally trained painter and guitarist. Born and raised in Anacostia, he has received fine arts degrees fromHoward University and Parsons School ofDesign (New York), and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary (NewYork) with a focus on theology and thearts. After returning to DC, Terrell becamean ordained minister and began exhibiting
locally at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
Library, the Graham Collection Gallery, theSumner School Museum and several otherlocations. He has also played at venues
such as the Lincoln Theatre, Bar Nun andthe Martini Lounge on H Street.
Toles, a Michigan native who currently
serves as the Collaborative’s office manager,
has self-published three books of Christianpoetry, with a fourth volume due out in
September. Also a self-taught visual artist,
Toles had been creating mosaic bead artwork for friends and family for two decades
but only began producing professionally
two years ago. “A Creative Profile” is her
first exhibit. She credits the Collaborative’s
interim executive director, Wanda Aikens,with encouraging her to apply. Toles recalls, “When I actually got the letter, I waslike, ‘Oh my God, they actually picked it.’
It’s still really exciting…especially to go to
the museum and see something with yourname on it.”Both Terrell and Toles believe deeply
in the power of the arts to transform lives,
particularly young lives. Since 1999, Toles
has run GIRLTALK, a mentoring program foryoung women ages 11-18, now based in theRiverside Center in Marvin Gaye Park. Terrell spent a year teaching art in DC Public
Schools. He is currently designing the art
and music curriculum for the Colin L. Powell Public Charter School, which will open
in 2008. “Art gives our youth an outlet
which helps [them] stay out of the streets
and out of the prison system,” says Terrell.
“It brings a person into a meditative state
where one is forced to sit in contemplation.
If more of our youth sat in contemplation,
we would not see so much violence, early
incarceration, early teen pregnancy, early
addiction to drugs and alcohol.”
The Arts Collaborative has a growing
slate of programs for both emerging andestablished artists as it works to create
Washington’s next arts district right herein Ward 7. Terrell, who also attended a Collaborative-sponsored framing workshop
in January with painter Henry Ferrand,says, “They do a great job in keeping me
informed on the art-involved activities inDC.”
Meet Terrell, Toles and other East of theRiver artists at a free public reception onJune 10, 4 p.m., at the Anacostia Community Museum. Also see “A Creative Profile:
Artists of the East Bank,” on display throughAug. 12 at the Museum, 1901 Fort St., SE.
For more information, contact the museumat 202-633-4820 or the Ward 7 Arts Collaborative at 202-396-1201 x107.

LEFT: Painting by A Creative Profile artist James
Stephen Terrell
RIGHT: Mosaic bead artwork by A Creative Profileartist Tracy-Lynne Toles

Photos by Bruce McNeill

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