Poetry Gumbo, Open Mic, and Conscious Entertainment is a jam-packed event filled with community poetry,
education around climate change, crowd participation, and open mic. Artists from the across the Twin Cities will showcase their talents.
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Dr. Sheronda Orridge is Owner / Operator of Loving Spirit Holistic Services. She is a Holistic Life Coach, Trainer, Community Organizer, Spoken Word Artist, Writer, Author, Performer, Motivational Speaker, Community Consultant, Community Editor, Certified Doula, Certified TOP Facilitator, Actress, Event Planner, Curriculum Developer,Talk Show Host, Metaphysical Practitioner, and Ordain Minster.
Maurice Williams is a Twin Cities R&B and Guitar+Vocal artist. Initially, Maurice started his music career as a rapper in 2011. In 2014, he decided to shift gears and focus more on singing. After some experimentation with his voice, three mix-tapes, countless singles, and a few years under his belt as a singer, Maurice has definitely found his sound. Maurice’s music can be described as sad, moody, emotional, and vulnerable. He sounds great on prerecorded instrumentation, but you will find him at his rawest and most efficient when it’s just hm and his guitar. Drawing inspiration from pop music, country music, blues music, and everything in between, Maurice is quite the eclectic talent.
Kashimana Ahua is a singer-songwriter with a rich soulful blues voice that soars through her original pop acoustic compositions. Along with her distinctive voice, Kashimana’s stage presence pulls you in and leaves you in a warm and fuzzy thrall that’s hard to shake. Her songs are simple, catchy, and paint compelling stories of her experiences in Africa, Europe and America. Born in Nigeria, Kashimana traveled the world with her amazing parents and family, who influenced her to love music and art by singing around the house and owning a very eclectic music collection. At the young age of five, she discovered Michael Jackson, and thus began her love for performing. Later on she was waylaid by the decision to become a doctor: “Biology was my thing for a long time and I still geek out on the latest WebMD or Wired science article.”
Isaac V. Washington aka WORDPLAY4U2HEAR is an independent spoken word/music producer operating out of St. Paul, Minnesota. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, he has lived in Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, Louisville and Miami. He has been performing spoken word for 5 years and producing music for about 3 years. His blending of original music with heartfelt poetry has thrilled audiences in Philadelphia, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Atlanta. Venues include The Unplugged series at Arnellia’s Lounge, Roots of Rondo, Rondo Days, The Capri Theatre and the Penumbra Theatre to name a few. His craft is hard-hitting, thoughtful poetry, dealing with knowledge of self, love, politics and community. The past 5 years have shown that he is in tune with with what inspires youth, elders and those who are just looking for someone to help with getting through every day life. Currently working on debut CD and book titled Poems In The Key of Sight, his artwork is well received as keys in unlocking that which stagnates people in pursuing peace love and harmony.
Delinia Parris grew up on the Westside of Chicago surrounded by violence, at the age of 10 she was given a journal as a gift and began to write in it every single day. Delinia uses her writing as a tool to heal from her past, handle situations in her present, and build a promising future for her and her family. Delinia comes from a long line of writers including her great grandmother Ina Brown who wrote a book of poetry. It has been said that Delinia has a mother’s spirit and people feels at ease as they listen to her story unfold in front of their eyes. Even though she has been writing for nearly 40 years she started performing in 2012 when she got selected to be a part of a spoken word workshop series Arts Responding to Foreclosure. Since then Delinia made the decision to start performing more often as a result she became a regular performer at Da Village.
The Storymobile, known as the Storymobile 2.0 & accompanying Elf (Electric bike), engaged over 1000 people over the course of the 2016 season summer. Saint Paul Almanac’s Storymobile 2.0 is a hand-built arts space on bicycle wheels that’s solar powered and decked out with Ipads to easily capture stories. During 2016 the Storymobile hit the streets of Saint Paul receiving much praise, interest, and most importantly, stories! Storymobile 2.0 took part in over
25 events in 2016, collecting hundreds of stories. The Storymobile collects and preserves what is important to people.