Marinda: COMING UP ON KVIE ARTS SHOWCASE.... WE CELEBRATE ARTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD AND RIGHT HERE AT HOME.

A THEATER HAVING A TRANSFORMATIVE IMPACT Leilani: ... we actually ask them to tell the story on their feet.

Tell the story with your body.

Tell the story with your voice.

Marinda: PHOTOGRAPHING A CITY Asia: A lot of the portraiture and stuff that I shoot is, it's the documentary of history.

It is like a way of just remembering a time.

Marinda: THE INDUSTRIAL AESTHETIC Taryn: This is a very sculpture centric show and each of these pieces will likely look very different according to the differing context that they're presented in.

Marinda: HOW COMICS TRANSFORM ART AND SOCIETY Mark: Many people throughout history actually worked within illustration, worked within political art, worked within caricature.

It's, it'’s really kind of embedded in art practice.

Marinda: TIE-DYE DESIGNS Tammy: I hope it makes them feel good about themselves, that the style fits them just right, the color compliments them, and I hope they feel really like an individual.

Marinda: IT'’S ALL UP NEXT ON KVIE ARTS SHOWCASE.... ♪♪ Marinda: CALIFORNIA BASED THEATER TEADA PRODUCTIONS IS CREATING A TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE AND OUTLET ROOTED IN STORY TELLING.

♪♪ Ova: TeAda is all about elevating the refugee and immigrant experience.

The work that we do is very important because it really is a way to give the community an opportunity to find pride.

Marinda: Through storytelling and live performance, TeAda Productions extends an outlet of service, education and creative courage... rooted in preserving the voices of those who have been silenced or unheard for far too long.

(Man speaking in foreign language) Leilani: Uh, OK I don't know what you just said.

Leilani: primarily why I wanted to find, uh, start the theater TaAda productions, um, is because I wanted a place to be able to tell the stories that aren't being told on most of American stages.

And I just was getting really frustrated at the limited opportunities, not just as, um, as an actor, but also as a writer and our producer.

Ova: I mean, a lot of the communities we work with don't have that chance to be able to see themselves in a way that is honest and truthful, the communities that we work with don't have the space don't, don't usually have the space to be able to present themselves in an authentic way.

I'm Lao, American Leilani is a mixed heritage.

And even to, to create, we had to create our own stories.

We had to work and create our own pathways.

Being in theater is not something that is the, the normal track.

Uh, and so, um, to find a way to elevate and use the platform of theater to share our experience and stories is important.. Leilani: ...so we actually have to go in the community and make people comfortable with theater.

Um, I'll give you an example.

When we first start our workshops, we don't call them theater workshops.

We call them storytelling workshops... we actually ask them to tell the story on their feet.

Tell the story with your body.

Tell the story with your voice.

(Cast shouting) Ova: The creative process for TeAda is we're very, um, what we call ensemble base.

So we're very collaborative.

We work with various different communities... With an equal footing with the community.

And I think that's, what's important.

It also creates transformative experiences for the participants, um, for the cast members who are in the place where we do develop them to that point.

And I think that's something that is very very challenging because in theater, sometimes many of the, uh, theater companies would just come in and they're very, uh, more colonial.

They would come in and just kind of take the story and then kind of shape it without any collaboration with the community... Marinda: Simply sharing a story can spark something so profound, giving guidance, honor, understanding and perspective on the past.

It can also have a transformative impact on the future.

Leilani: From our plays and not just masters of the current, but from the plays we do.

There's many different levels of transformation that people get when they come to our shows.

And for some, it's seeing their own stories on stage for the first time.

And for others, it's realizing that the stories are similar and that they, even if they're not Micronesian, they can see.

what, um, the Micronesians are going through as a reflection of what they themselves may have gone through, so we've had a lot of discussions with people from many different communities saying.

"That's just like in my community."

There's this whole sense of, um, negotiating both assimilating or retaining your culture and how that's a continual battle.

(Cast chanting in foreign language.)

Leilani: There's always a necessity for our plays to educate in an entertaining way, in a way that isn't just, you know, exposition like so we try to find a way to engage the audience and have them both laugh and cry, but at the same time, learn something.

Marinda: Through every production TeAda creates an opportunity to preserve and honor traditions, build growth, gain self-care, start conversations and transform communities.

Ova: When you come to a production of TeAda, you will see number one, diversity, so much diversity in terms of people, uh, in terms of, uh, faces.

Um, like for example, our current, uh, production that we had just done was a community sharing where we work with, uh, an organization called program for torture victims.

Many of them are from different, um, African uh, countries like Uganda and Cameroon.

And so it's an opportunity for them to really explore what has happened to them and why they're here.... Leilani: So for me, it's more than representation.

It's not just about getting our bodies onstage as people of color.

It's about making sure we're telling authentic stories and not just fetishize stories or fantasies for the white gaze.

And that's why we do our work is we want to get the stories from the sources of the people, um, and help give them a platform for those stories to be told authentically and not watered down in a way that is just marketable, but in a way that offers an opportunity for conversation and, um, and dialogue and hopefully change.

"Yeah" ♪♪ Marinda: DETROIT, MICHIGAN ARTIST ASIA HAMILTON PHOTOGRAPHS THE PEOPLE AND PLACES THAT SURROUND HER.

♪♪ Asia: Every human being they have a uniqueness about them that you can grasp with a photograph.

Photography saved my life.

It was exactly what I needed to do and what I was born to do.

I grew up on the northwest side of Detroit.

Photography has been a way of being my therapy.

One of the things that I want to talk about specifically is how mindful photography is and how it requires for you to take your thoughts and focus on something else.

And it was a time where my mother, she had gotten ill, she had a stroke and I was in extreme panic and I needed to take a walk and I was just walking around and I saw the way this light was hitting the building and the textures on the building and I was like, oh my God, that's so beautiful.

And I had to take out my camera and started just taking pictures and it literally took me out of that element and had me focus on something else.

The meaning for the textures is just the history behind it.

How did those textures come about?

What did those places look like beforehand?

And a lot of the portraiture and stuff that I shoot is, it's the documentary of history.

It is like a way of just remembering a time and so those textures are bits and pieces of a time that has passed.

I love to take posed candid photos.

There's always those instances of a glimpse of a person.

And a lot of times when I start to shoot, I'm looking for that in between.

Just so that I can capture the real essence of a person.

There's a photo called "Westside.

"” I literally pulled up on these people, it was a father and a son standing outside and it was the golden hour in photography.

The sun was shining and they looked, it just looked beautiful.

I took a picture of them in the midst of asking them, can I take a photo?

And I continued to photograph them a little bit more but it was that first shot that got it.

For a long time I photographed a lot of nude women, black women specifically.

And it was because there really wasn't enough black women being shown in a way that was artistic and I wanted to present them as beautiful in their body.

And that was a learning process for me because I had to become comfortable with myself.

The series of mixed media photographs that I did with merging the textures and the portraiture together was really embracing our history, our lineage, how we go through life from beginning to end.

You know, those textures, all of that information in there in our being and how we interact with each other.

There is a photo of a man and a woman.

They're like my grandparents.

Starting there at that unit was pretty much the head of the family.

We look to them for our wisdom.

And then I have another exact photo of a younger generation of a young boy and a young girl because that's our beginning, that's where our start is.

There's this one picture it's just a bunch of kids on the playground.

And I was like, hey, y'all come together, get together, let me get a photo of you.

And the pose that they gave me was so fierce.

That's one of my favorite pictures.

You want to be able to educate people with your work.

That doesn't always have to be in the form of a protest.

It can be in the form of just healing the people as is.

That's what I do.

I use it as a way to heal myself and whomever else that comes in contact with it.

I love to give back because I had some amazing mentors, I've taught, middle and high school students photography.

I started a business called Photo Sensei, which is a photography tours and workshops around the Detroit area.

Another thing that I've done is open up the Norwest Gallery of Art.

The gallery has definitely taken on its own life, and it is a necessary place for this neighborhood.

I show Detroit how Detroit performs by just being myself, I'm always gonna be Asia in my work, in how I greet people, how I run my space.

It's all very calm.

When people come in here, they're smiling and they're like, oh my God, the energy in here is so good.

And that's because I want you to know that I'm sharing a part of my love with you.

This is my passion.

This is my home.

So it's like me opening up my home to you.

♪♪ ♪♪ Marinda: WE HEAD TO PEMBROKE PINES, FLORIDA TO THE FRANK C. ORTIS ART GALLERY TO SEE THE EXHIBIT "“NEW INDUSTRY CONTEMPORARY VISIONS OF THE INDUSTRIAL"” ♪♪ Taryn: "“New Industry"” is really inspired by urban architecture, industrial engineering.

We're really looking to a lot of very exciting South Florida artists to utilize these everyday construction materials in new and innovative ways.

Norman: I was exploring the human figure, I was trying to simplify it in in a way where I used three simple lines of different thicknesses to embody the human figure.

My name is Norman Silva and I'm an artist.

This is by far my largest exhibition.

This piece is called "“Alone.

"” These pieces of steel came from my backyard, so I cut them up, added a little bit of a neck in here, and I created a person, a human figure in the simplest way, three lines, different thicknesses, different textures.

The reason why it's called "“Alone"” is coming from that saying, being alone in a crowd.

This particular person within the piece, if you notice it has a little shinier head than the others, so it kind of stands out a little bit.

Even though it is within all of the rest of the people in there, it feels alone.

If you look around, you could start seeing different personalities in the other people within the piece.

Like this couple, there's an older lady, I like to say there's another couple over here gossiping.

So there's a crowd, a scene is happening within this particular little piece.

My current series of sculptures are basically an outlet from my inner architect.

I love the materials that I'm using right now.

The wood, the concrete, the steel.

There's definitely a tradition from modernism onwards of being very, very conscientious about the materials that we use in fine art.

So the show really does that in a very beautiful and lyrical way.

I am Taryn Möller Nicoll and I'm the chief curator here at the Frank C. Ortis Art Gallery and exhibit hall, Pembroke Pines.

More rugged materials such as weathered wood have been placed in beautiful symmetrical formation such as Norman Silva'’s.

And then we have everyday materials like concrete being used for bases.

It definitely challenges what people expect to see from a contemporary fine art piece.

The Frank is about two years old.

We have a year-round open call to artists and we really do invite every single cultural producer to submit their work here to the Frank, we want to see what people are making.

So regardless of their level of professionalism, whether they are just starting out or they're seasoned lifelong artists who really have honed their practice, we encourage everyone to submit their portfolio to us and keep us abreast of what it is that they're working on.

Norman: The way in which I create, either comes from an idea at first that I sketch down or from something that I pick up and see something in it that inspires me to create something out of it.

Walking down the street, we're on a sidewalk.

Can we see cracks and imperfections in the concrete?

Maybe after seeing an exhibition like this, we have more of an appreciation for these little details in our lives and we're able to see things slightly differently.

♪♪ Marinda: NOW WE VISIT THE EXHIBITION "“BEYOND THE CAPE: COMICS AND CONTEMPORARY ART.

"” LOCATED AT THE BOCA RATON MUSEUM OF ART IN FLORIDA.

THIS EXHIBIT FEATURES CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS INFLUENCED BY GRAPHIC NOVELS AND COMIC BOOKS.

♪♪ Irvin: They have an urgency about them, there's something very topical.

♪♪ So the exhibition "“Beyond the Cape"” is really looking at those artists who are inspired by comics but in different ways.

They are about the environment, politics, race relations.

There are many artists like Lichtenstein and Warhol who are influenced by comics, by pop culture.

But in this you'll find our artists who really are telling a story that's sometimes quite deep, quite dark.

Kerry James Marshall is looking at the streets of Chicago.

William Wiley's tapestry that is looking at the shooting of a man who the police thought he was pulling out a gun, but in fact he was pulling out his wallet.

Mark: I'm finding right now in this moment, just kind of seeing my work against these other artists'’ work, is that they actually are speaking clearly without holding back about what is actually important to them and what's actually happening in their period of time that they are living.

My name is Mark Thomas Gibson.

I'm originally from Miami, Florida.

I am an artist.

I'm also an assistant professor at Temple University, Tyler School of Art.

I kind of play with pop culture.

I play with comics, I play with history, I play with like a little bit of everything.

This book had a lot to do with this idea of utopia.

Once I actually start engaging with the practice of drawing, then I'm starting to formulate whatever my actual answer is about that subject.

In this case, this one was utopia and so by the end of it I actually come to an answer for myself and I don't think I could have actually found that type of answer any other way.

Every page is an individual drawing, 350 of them that tell the narrative of my main character.

I use as my protagonist a werewolf character, which is the idea of someone who has been traumatized but then becomes a traumatizer.

I think about that a lot in America, how we have a lot of that.

That kind of continuously... it seems to happen where people become traumatized by either being economically oppressed or seeing a loved one murdered or seeing culture act and respond to them as an "“other"” when they are actually a part of the fabric of this country.

And then that gets passed on, like to your kid that gets passed on to the community.

Some of them become paintings, some of them do not.

Most of them do not.

But in this case, this would later become "“Library One and Two.

"” I wanted to kind of show an area that had been lived in and kind of overgrown in thought.

My main character in this narrative that this comes from, don't really know even what time period it is that he's in.

So you have a sword and kind of a hilt, a kind of a spear.

You have like books that are kind of contemporary.

So there's "“Utopia"” of course.

And then there's "“Beloved"” you know, by the great Tony Morrison.

I think about books that I've read growing up that told me something or made me think about relationships around slavery, relationships about American expansionism, all of these things that we kind of think about when we're talking around America as these kinds of cannons of like who are we?

What are we?

Part of what I figured out in the whole utopian thing was that it really kind of comes down to communication, so you have to actually work with each other to actually navigate what it is that we want.

This exhibition I think is yet another good example of what we have been pretty good at here and that is to break the boundaries between these silos of art forms where you have the graphic novel, the comic, and you have fine art.

Well here you have this sort of blending of the two.

And it was kind of hard because when you would have that kind of influence in your life and you'd go to an art school per se, they say, oh, that's not art.

And they would throw that aside or kind of demean it or demote it.

Many people throughout history actually worked within illustration, worked within political art, worked within caricature.

It's, it'’s really kind of embedded in art practice.

And if you go all the way back to Lascaux and look at those like caves, I mean there's some caricature kind of going on in that as well.

So that way in which we kind of think through narrative and sequential art, um, it's always been present.

♪♪ ♪♪ Marinda: A COMPANY IN DETROIT, MICHIGAN CALLED BRIGHTLY -TWISTED CREATES COLORFUL TIE-DYED FASHIONS, HOMEWARES, AND ACCESSORIES.

THESE PATTERNED PIECES BECOME WORKS OF ART AND THE CREATIVE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.

♪♪ Alex: No matter who you are, you're welcome in Brightlytwisted.

It's artwork being put onto clothing.

- People have ideas in their head of what tie-dye looks like, and it looks really different than what we make.

Tammy: A designer here in Michigan came in and just looked at our things and she says, oh, it's everything and nothing like tie-dye.

And I thought it described our process perfectly.

We use rubber bands, we use all the processes, but we have just a different way of looking at it.

My husband Greg is the originator, so it started with him and then I joined him.

And we did it for about a year together and then we hired our first employee, which was Zack.

And then Alex has been with us the full 10 years.

Alex: We just moved to Detroit, Michigan, in Corktown.

We're trying to keep it so that you get a sense of Detroit when you're in here, and that we become a real stop when you come to visit.

Tammy: Each of us make about 20 to 30 pieces a day.

We all dye about six hours, and then the business comes after that.

Alex: We have an arrangement of different products that we provide here, all the way from just your basic accessories like socks, scarves, headbands, to higher-end clothing.

What we've said from the beginning is that it's uncommonly pretty.

And for me that reads as anyone can wear it.

I don't think a lot of people think they can wear tie-dye, and then they see our pieces and it doesn't read to them as tie-dye.

They're like, oh this isn't tie-dye, this is hand-dye, this is artwork that you're wearing.

What we've done is we've created different designs and different colors, and made it more accessible.

Tammy: One of the most important things were fabric and the kind of fabrics that we choose.

And the hand always is soft and has a good drape so that the apparel starts out as a great shape.

And then we just amplify it with beautiful dye.

Alex: The designs we're known for are the Snakeskin print.

Zack actually created it all on his own.

It was the first design that he did.

But what we're really known for more is our color.

We've just escalated the color.

Barefoot is one of those colors; it's all different kinds of creams and tans and that has been one of our most popular.

And then we have one that's like completely contrasting.

It's called Stately and it's all black and it has bright colors at the bottom.

Everything has a little bit of difference, and I think that's important in the world that we're living in, is just to keep that individuality.

And I think that's what really draws people to what we do.

Tammy: I hope it makes them feel good about themselves, that the style fits them just right, the color compliments them, and I hope they feel really like an individual.

Alex: tie- dye has actually been much more of a therapeutic process.

At the end of a really stressful day to get back there, and just to let go and dye, and not think about anything else, has been the best gift for me.

♪ (somber piano music) ♪ Earlier in 2018, in February, I told my team that I was one of the survivors of Larry Nassar.

I saw him when I was 11 years old, to the time I was 15.

And so, it's been a very intense last year, not just for me but for the three people that I work with that had to take on my absences.

Part of the physical manifestation from my trauma from him was I have endometriosis.

Tammy: When Larry Nassar was arrested, I mean, she was the first person I called and she said she hadn't had anything happen.

And, as she kept getting more sick, then I started to sense that that wasn't true.

Alex: So, when we were opening the store, I was very sick.

So we were trying to come up with stuff that I could do to still help and one of my mom's ideas, she was like, well why don't you do the window display?

So, I decided I was gonna make a dress out of all of our own material.

I've always loved butterflies, what happened in this process of creating a dress is that I was able to kind of let go a little bit of the trauma that I had been through and start healing.

And so it became very powerful.

Tammy: And I got to watch her begin to heal.

It was an absolute healing process.

So, art therapy, there's a lot of validity to it.

My hope is that it just shows that there is a place that you can get to, beyond the dark.

And so what I hope is that this dress, you can look at it and you can say, okay, I can get there.

I can get to that beauty.

I can get to that comfort of being like, this happened to me, this isn't me.

But I'm here now because of it, and I'm in a better place.

Tammy: I think a butterfly flying just kind of describes these women, they're just flying out of cocoons and they're starting their lives again.

And it's beautiful.

Alex: Because of the women that came before me, I've been given the ability to be able to feel that confidence that I felt as a young gymnast.

And to now feel it again as an adult is something that I don't think I could say thank you enough to any of them.

And that the dress is for them, and that's important.

♪ (piano music) ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Annc: Episodes of KVIE Arts showcase along with other KVIE programs are available to watch online at kvie.org/video.