Tuesday, July 27 at 7:00 PM-8:30 PM

Join your fellow Forum attendees and a lineup of artists from Pittsburgh and beyond for a celebration of creativity as a source of joy, resistance, and community. The evening kicks off with remarks by Simon Tam of The Slants and includes performances by musicians INEZ and Brittney Chantele, poets Dawn Lundy Martin and Jubi Arriola-Headley, multidisciplinary artist Bria Walker, and writer Hannah Eko. Creativity is for everyone, so the evening will also feature an open mic session where you can share your creative spark through spoken word, music, or performance.

Taylor Waits

Taylor Waits PhD student, DJ, blogger, cofounder of #ChangeRapeCulture, and creative currently pursuing a Doctorate of Philosophy for Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Born in Houston; raised in Washington, DC; and living her young adult life in the Texas; Waits combines all of her experiences in her projects. She currently teaches media after school with high-school aged students; provides graduate school consulting services, scholarship and fellowship application assistance; and deejays as well as produces music. She aspires to open her own high school after her graduate work, continue to service her community, and work in the academy.

*Photo credit J. Michaels Photos

Simon Tam

Simon Tam is best known as the founder and bassist of The Slants, the world’s first and only all-Asian American dance rock band. He helped expand civil liberties for minorities by winning a unanimous victory at the Supreme Court of the United States for a landmark case, Matal v. Tam, in 2017. He also leads The Slants Foundation, a nonprofit that supports arts and activism projects for underrepresented communities.

*Photo credit Robbie Glen

Jubi Arriola-Headley

Jubi Ariola-Headley Juni Arriola-Headley (he/they) is a Blacqueer poet, a storyteller, a first-generation United Statesian (the son of Bajan immigrants), and author of the poetry collection original kink (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020). Jubi’s a 2018 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, holds an MFA from the University of Miami, and has received support for his work from Millay Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Lambda Literary, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. He and his poems have been featured in Literary Hub, The Rumpus, Beloit Poetry Journal, Nimrod, Southern Humanities Review, Washington Square Review, PBS NewsHour’s Brief But Spectacular, & elsewhere. Jubi lives with his husband in South Florida, and his work explores themes of masculinity, vulnerability, rage, tenderness & joy. Black Lives Matter. Trans Lives Matter. Stop Asian Hate. Art is Labor. Abolish Policing. Eat the Rich. Free Palestine.

*Photo credit Paulo Arriola-Headley

Bria Walker

Bria Walker is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based out of Pittsburgh, PA. She is currently Assistant Professor and Head of Performance and the MFA Performance Pedagogy program in the University of Pittsburgh’s Theatre Department. Selected acting credits: The Royale (St. Louis Repertory Theatre & City Theatre); Fires in the Mirror, The Bougie Gentleman, Romeo & Juliet (Pittsburgh Public Theatre Playtime Series); Pop!, Marcus or the Secret of Sweet (City Theatre); From the Mississippi Delta (Triad Stage); By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (The Rep at Point Park); Saints Tour (Bricolage Production Company). Selected directing credits: co-director of Crowns (Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre); for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, The Every 28 Hours Plays Project (SUNY New Paltz), Avenue Q (SUNY New Paltz & University of Pittsburgh; Polaroid Stories (Southern Oregon University); Dog Shit (B.U.S. 11); staged reading Off With Her Maidenhead (The Pitch series for Merry-Go-Round Playhouse). Writing credits: Crossroad (City Theatre Spotlight Series); You think the arts don’t matter? What about quarantine? (Pittsburgh-Post Gazette op-ed); Chant (The Monologue Project); The Doll Confessions, with original writings: Monk Monk’s Interlude & Tattered Love . Education: MFA - Denver Center for the Performing Arts (NTC); BFA - Wright State University.

*Photo credit Thurner Photography)

Brittney Chantele

Brittney Chantelle Brittney Chantele's life as a queer, bi-racial, non-binary individual who grew up in a small town and served in the Army National Guard has given her a very personal understanding of injustice. From witnessing, and sometimes being subjected to, injustice such as racism, colorism, sexism, and sexual assault, homophobia, and xenophobia, these experiences became a turning point that gave her two options: say nothing or do something. With hundreds of spoken-word and music performances, multiple visual art collections, collaborations with other Pittsburgh musicians, 2 EPs, and a third album on the way, she’s not afraid to get people to have the hard conversations necessary for a better world.

*Photo credit Riley Benson

INEZ

INEZ INEZ is a proud Homewood resident, Pittsburgh native, and self-proclaimed FireShorty™. A cum laude Berklee College of Music alumna, she is the nurtured product of two musical parents, as well as a musical polymath: singing, songwriting, producing, arranging, mixing, mastering, and drumming. In January 2021, she was named "Pittsburgh Music Artist of the Year” (2020) by WYEP. She hopes to continue uplifting, advocating, and creating space for Black women and femmes, using love and the full spectrum of her talents.

*Photo credit Nicolette Kalafatis

Hannah Eko

Hannah Eko is a Black-Nigerian writer, teaching artist, and creator of honeyknife, llc. Born in London, she grew up in Southern California and has lived on both sides of the ocean and some rivers in between. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work has been featured in Buzzfeed , Bust , b*tch , make/shift , and Aster(ix) . She is a 2019 recipient of the Advancing Black Arts Grant, a Peter R. Taylor Kenyon Fellow, Tin House Scholar, and VONA (Voices of Our Nations) alum. Her first book, Honey Is the Knife , is out soon.

*Photo credit Graphiking Photography

Dawn Lundy Martin

Dawn Lundy Martin is an American poet and essayist. She is the author of four books of poems: Good Stock Strange Blood, winner of the 2019 Kingsley Tufts Award for Poetry; Life in a Box is a Pretty Life, which won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry; DISCIPLINE, A Gathering of Matter / A Matter of Gathering, and three limited edition chapbooks. Her nonfiction can be found in n+1, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Believer, and Best American Essays 2019. Martin is the Toi Derricotte Endowed Chair of African American Poetry at the University of Pittsburgh and Director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics.

If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact the Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at diversity@pitt.edu by July 21