Panel: "Feel, What I Felt" Womxn Creators
Channel: San Francisco Public Library
Date: 2021-03-28

A dynamic panel of fierce women artists titled "Feel, What I Felt," which was a post-it quote Miller wrote and kept as inspiration during the writing of her memoir, referenced in an interview with The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah. The panel features cultural creators Cece Carpio, Diana Gameros and Amara Tabor-Smith and is moderated by Ellen Sebastian Chang. Together, they discuss Miller’s book, art and their artistic practices. 

Ellen Sebastian Chang, a legendary figure in Bay Area performing arts, is a director and arts educator whose career spans 50 years. Her current projects include an ongoing collaboration with AfroFuturist Conjure artist Amara Tabor-Smith and the Deep Waters Dance company’s House/Full of BlackWomen, a multi-year site-specific dance theater work that addresses the displacement, sex trafficking and the creative well-being of Black women and girls in Oakland, California. Sebastian Chang is also the creative director of The World As It Could Be: Human Rights and the Arts Education Program. She is a recipient of awards and grants from Creative Capital, MAP Fund, A Blade of Grass Fellowship in Social Engagement, Art Matters, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, NEA, Creative Work Fund, the California Arts Council and the Zellerbach Family Fund.  http://www.deepwatersdance.com/collaborators/

Cece Carpio is a visual artist who tells stories of immigration, ancestry, resistance and resilience. Her art documents evolving traditions through combining folkloric forms, bold portraits and natural elements with urban art techniques. Carpio highlights everyday people who have been invincible in order to share their thriving presence and to show the dignity and power of their existence. Carpio has produced and exhibited work in Cuba, Fiji Islands, Guam, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Norway, Philippines, United Kingdom and throughout the United States. She has been awarded the Rockwood Institute Fellowship for leaders engaged in the Arts as a critical agent of change and the New York Foundation of the Art Immigrant Artist Fellowship. The City of Oakland, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, UC Berkeley and Oakland Museum of CA, have commissioned her work. She is currently working as the Galleries Manager for the San Francisco Arts Commission and is a Public Art Advisor for the City of Oakland.  https://www.cececarpio.com/

Diana Gameros is a singer, songwriter, music instructor and activist. Her music reflects the 21st century experiences of an artist at the borderlands between cultures, languages and genres. Originally from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Gameros moved to the Bay Area in 2008. Since then, she has used music as a platform to bring light to her Latinx heritage and to expand the conversation around social justice issues especially those involving the immigrant community. https://www.dianagameros.com/

Amara Tabor-Smith describes her experimental dance theater work as Afro Surrealist Conjure Art. Her dance making practice, utilizes Yoruba spiritual ritual to address issues of social and environmental justice, community, identity and belonging. A San Francisco native and Oakland resident, she is the artistic director of Deep Waters Dance Theater (DWDT) and was the co-artistic director of Headmistress, an ongoing performing collaboration with movement artist Sherwood Chen. Her work has been performed in Brazil, The Republic of the Congo, Judson Church/Movement Research, NYC and many venues throughout the San Francisco/Bay Area and the United States. http://www.deepwatersdance.com/about-2/