Saturday night is SOLD out! See below for details on attending virtually.
Join us for our grand opening and first Story Mixer of the year — an evening of storytelling through art featuring works that explore new beginnings, second chances, and starting over.
Due to our Friday and Saturday night performances selling out, we’re adding a way to join in opening weekend from the comfort of your own living room on Saturday, April 30. Streaming link will be emailed out a day in advance.
ARTIST LINE-UP
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Kelly Morris, known professionally as “Duke of Who Knows Where," grew up in rural Camden, South Carolina. At age 6, he started receiving guitar lessons from a lady that worked in the front office of the Montessori School of Camden where he attended. “She was a songwriter herself. She would play and sing upon request usually and it would instantly become this magical thing before my eye's.” At 23, Kelly would find himself writing, audio engineering, and self-producing for him and his brother’s band, “The Mobros.” Starting in 2014, every year has consisted of major US tours (playing 250+ shows a year) opening for acts like BB King, Band of Horses, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, The Wood Brothers, and Houndmouth. “It took a learning curve and consistent strategizing to manage ourselves without a label. Honestly the fun overshadowed the work that was required.” This year, Kelly is releasing his debut solo record comprised of songs that he wrote during the pandemic as well as songs he’d written when he was a teen. The record is co-produced by Asheville-local Mike Johnson, who is an extraordinarily accomplished multi-instrumentalist/audio engineer. Like Kelly, Mike plays with his brother, Jack Victor ( an extremely talented multi-instrumentalist), in an indie rock duo called Slow Packer.
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CocoEva Soleil LuzGuerrero Alcazar is an interdisciplinary artist (writer, musician, spoken word artist, dancer, and painter), activist, anti-human trafficking and equity advocate research-consultant and educator. She is originally from La Paz, Bolivia. Her life commitment is focused on prevention and intervention of human trafficking as well as securing access to services for victims and survivors, centering their expertise and experience through participatory and actively anti-oppressive processes and research, by diligently applying and implementing an equity lens and practice. She studied Political Science with a background in Community Advocacy and Social Policy and is pursuing a Master of Arts in Social Justice and Human Rights. She has a 10-year history of creating systemic, institutional, and interpersonal transformation to increase fairness and safety for communities through organizing, advocating policy change, and teamwork with various governmental and community stakeholders. She is currently a Research Fellow at Anti-Trafficking International, works with Polaris as a research consultant for the National Survivor Study and serves as an Appointee in the Department of Justice North Carolina Task Force on Racial Equity and Criminal Justice Victim Advisory Group and offers consulting on issues of equity, research, and survivor leadership to various agencies.
Simultaneously, she is pursuing her project I am AveMagnolia (www.avemagnolia.com), a mix of her artistic work as well as an analytical framework examination of the impacts of trauma on our personal and collective lives, and its inherent relationship with systems of oppression and pathways of liberation. Her work engaging the community as an educator, advocate, and artist, as well as in her one-on-one work with individuals is strongly based in the pedagogy of Paulo Freire's Popular Education. The approach she brings is a merging of Popular Education, creative expression in all forms, advocacy for intersectionality (Crenshaw) in social justice, and somatic awareness –as tools for self-actualization and transformation, both on a collective as well as individual level. She has worked with targeted communities of all ages in Latin America and the United States, both through institutions and nonprofits, as well as through organizing and community work. Her art, music and writing have been exhibited and publicized in galleries in the United States and South America. Her passion for social justice comes from understanding that experiences that shape our humanity as well as our disconnection from it, result from the macrocosms of systemic oppression (collective trauma) translated into the microcosmos of interpersonal/personal oppression (personal and interpersonal trauma).
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Tim began his career performing with Noun Improv at Appalachian State, graduating with a bachelor’s in Theatre Education and began teaching in the Asheville area shortly after. Tim developed summer programs for Flatrock Playhouse’s Studio 52 and instructed adult workshops and classes at Asheville Improv Collective all while teaching middle school theatre at Valley Springs Middle. Tim’s approach to both the arts as well as the craft of teaching prioritizes the process of play over the final result. He implements the rules of improv as a philosophy for living and as an indispensable tool for performance.
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Gina Cornejo:
Multidisciplinary artist Gina Cornejo lives in Asheville, NC. She is the daughter of a Peruvian mariachi singer and a professional jazz dancer from Chicago. As an acclaimed artist who embraces risk and honesty, autobiographical writing, performance, and sacred travel serve as guides to her creations of exposed storytelling.
For 17 years, she claimed Chicago as her artistic home where she performed on the stages of the Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, 16th Street Theater and the Neo-Futurist Theater. As an ensemble member of Teatro Luna (Chicago, LA, touring), Gina contributed her original writing, performance and choreography to this multiple Jeff Award winning ensemble.
Gina is a Core Member on Asheville’s Revolve Advisory Board. As part of its First Draft Residency program, her solo performance “when sugar was sugar was sugar,” received a month-long theatrical run and her pandemic-born original solo piece, “Atmosphere,” was featured as a collaborative film.
In the fall of 2020, Gina teamed up with North Carolina-based Stewart/Owen Dance to produce a stage production of “Atmosphere” as a part of a greater evening-length work, “Still: Life” at the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, which has also been reimagined by Asheville film-maker Michael-Jamar Jean Francois as a stage work for film. Most recently, “Dirty Laundry the film,” features Gina’s cringeworthy and charming autobiographical script with choreography, music, production from Stewart/Owen Dance. This ambitious dance/theater work discloses the irreverent unraveling of marriage and divorce and its multimedia companion film was created during a one month artist-in-residence at the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.
For more please visit ginacornejo.com
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Stewart/Owen Dance:
Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen, a husband and wife duo, are the co-founders of Western North Carolina based Stewart/Owen Dance, where they are dedicated to building a sustainable community for professional dance artists to set roots and share stories.
Stewart and Owen's choreography has been presented by festivals and companies across the U.S., and their careers have most notably taken them across the globe on fifteen U.S. State Department tours to teach, perform and choreograph contemporary dance with Washington D.C. based Company E. In 2017 they made North Carolina their home base where they work to cultivate the craft of storytelling through movement. They are passionate cross-genre collaborators, incorporating work from local writers, musicians and filmmakers. They have choreographed music videos for artists such as Moses Sumney, Sylvan Esso and Ben Phantom.
ST/OW won the Audience Choice Award at the NYC Dance Gallery Festival 2018, were commissioned as Dance Gallery 2019 Level UP Artists, are recipients of a McDowell Regional Artist Project Grant, a North Carolina Artist Support Grant and were voted "Artists Who Most Pushed the Boundaries with the Human Body" by 2020 Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. Since the pandemic, they have focused on producing COVID-conscious dance experiences for live audiences, including drive-up performances and guided walk-along dance exhibits presented by Asheville’s beloved Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.
For more information, visit www.stewartowendance.com
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Michael-Jamar Jean Francois:
Michael-Jamar Jean Francois is a Haitian-American cinematographer who has been living in Asheville for the past six and a half years. In 2013 he earned a Bachelor's Degree in Graphic Design and Commercial Arts from Indian River State College, but not long after he followed my heart to his true passion: photography and cinematography.
After 14 years of practicing film photography he started Citadel Rising, a small production company focused on providing sanctuary for artists to capture their best work on camera. Some Asheville artists he’s worked with include contemporary dance company Stewart/Owen Dance, fashion designer Coco Villa, and experimental pop musician Soft Talk.
His mission is to breathe life into projects that inspire people to succeed in any path they choose. He focuses his time working with my peers and getting involved in community activism and local events. Currently he is forming a program that teaches low-income kids to operate 35mm film cameras, with the understanding that the next generation’s success relies on access to quality materials and education.
For more please visit www.lakesolace.com
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Erin Hallagan Clare is the founder and Artistic Director of Story Parlor, a multi-disciplinary arts space featuring storytelling and the exploration of the human condition. Launched in 2015 (formerly known as “Story Bar”), Story Parlor offers community-driven events and workshops designed to bring audiences and artists together through the universal language of creativity.
Erin received her BA in Film and Theatre, and is currently studying for her Masters in Psychology with a Creativity Studies specialization. In 2019, she was certified as a Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach, leading to the launch of her coaching practice, Inward & Artward.
Prior to these projects, Erin served as the Creative Director of the Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference, in addition to producing the PBS and PRX-affiliated project, On Story. She is on the board of the Austin Film Festival and serves on the Public Art, Community Events, & Festivals Committee with the Asheville Area Arts Council’s Arts Coalition. Her early career was spent in the Philadelphia theatre scene, teaching writing classes at the Graduate School of DC, and managing an equestrian center in Rock Creek National Park. In kinship with her experience as a Creativity Coach, Erin is an accredited Enneagram Practitioner as well as a certified yoga teacher through the Yoga Alliance with over 450 hours in trainings. At the request of her soul, Erin is a writer and storyteller, and regularly teaches creativity and storytelling-based workshops. Her most important role to date, however, is that of a mother to her two boys, Rye and Owey.