Complimentary One Day Festival

indoors & outdoors at 7 Stages!

In the stillness of history, certain dark experiences have been ignored for the ease of moving forward. We let these stories float by and end up building our future around them. Eventually, it will all come back to us, and we must choose to either illuminate all of our past or stay in the stagnation of our silence. 

7 Stages honors the work of US Poet Laureate and Mvskoke (Muscogee Creek Nation) Artist, Joy Harjo. Her collection of poetry, An American Sunrise, prompted vital conversations and fierce artistic responses. We continue to ask:  

If you could listen to the past, how would you design tomorrow’s sunrise?

What we speak always returns…”

-Joy Harjo,  An American Sunrise

We invite you to our Human Sunrise Festival on May 28th, from 3 – 7 PM in our lobby and outdoors. An eclectic range of artistic responses to Harjo’s journey encourages audiences and L5P visitors to honor the Muscogee and Creek people and their land. As we shed light on colonialism and complacency, we celebrate all of our ancestors and commit to future generations through art making and story sharing. 

An immersive installation explores the four classical elements and our stories’ relationships to them. Visual art created by our students, teaching artists, community members, as well as local, national and international artistic associates decorates our gallery. Spoken word poetry, music, dance, aerial performances, and a screening of selected films create a flurry of activity, engagement and connection throughout the event.

Join us for an artburst of sunrise and possibility!

On May 28, 1830, President Andrew Jackson unlawfully signed the Indian Removal Act to force move southeastern peoples from our homelands to the West. We were rounded up with what we could carry. We were forced to leave behind houses, printing presses, stores, cattle, schools, pianos, ceremonial grounds, tribal towns, churches. We witnessed immigrants walking into our homes with their guns, Bibles, household goods and families, taking what had been ours, as we were surrounded by soldiers and driven away like livestock at gunpoint. There were many trails of tears of tribal nations all over North America of indigenous peoples who were forcibly removed from their homelands by government forces. The indigenous peoples who are making their way up from the southern hemisphere are a continuation of the Trail of Tears.

May we all find the way home.”

-Excerpt from the introduction to An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo

New Georgia Project will be with us providing voter resources. New Georgia Project is a non-partisan effort to register and civically engage Georgians.

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Click here to reserve a time for your donation!

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The Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition will provide health screenings and resources. AHRC is a community-based wellness organization committed to promoting health and dignity by reducing the impact of HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, STI, and Substance Use within vulnerable communities.

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April 23, 2022 2-5pm (EDT) 

As we continue to examine our role, ask what is essential, and connect with the needs of our community, we offer our local community services provided by the New Georgia Project and Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition including COVID-19 resources and health screenings, food provided by Just A Touch Ministry & Outreach, complimentary Big Read books – Joy Harjo’s An American Sunrise, warm coffee from Java Lords and connections with partner organizations and artists to raise awareness and funds.

Join us at 7 Stages to share resources, make connections, and learn something!

How would you like to be identified for your whole life by the one worst thing you’ve ever done?

Out of Hand Theater and Georgia Justice Project present CALF by Leviticus Jelks, directed by Nikki Young, featuring Marlon Burnley, with music composition and sound design by Eugene H. Russell IV.

CALF follows Bull Willis upon release from prison, as he tries to build a new life and meet his son.

Join us at 7 Stages on May 9th at 8PM as Out of Hand Theater combines art, information and conversation, to engage audiences about the barriers individuals face when re-entering society after being entrenched within the criminal justice system. Get tickets and learn more at outofhandtheater.com

Out of Hand’s unique approach to theater includes four programming areas: equitable dinners, shows in homes, community collaborations, and education.

Out of Hand works at the intersection of art, social justice, and community engagement. We spark conversations to build a better world by using the tools of theater to support and enhance the work of community partners.

Masks are required at this event! Click below for 7Stages’ up-to-date health and safety policy.

Service Saturday with Giwayen Mata Community Celebration: 

March 26, 2022 2-5pm (EDT) 

As we continue to examine our role, ask what is essential, and connect with the needs of our community, we offer our local community services provided by the New Georgia Project including COVID Testing and Health Screenings, food provided by Just A Touch Ministry & Outreach, clothing and PPE distributions, complimentary Big Read books – Joy Harjo’s An American Sunrise, warm coffee from Java Lords and connection with partner organizations and artists to raise awareness and funds.

PLUS – Join ensemble members of Giwayen Mata from 2-3:30pm for an interactive African based drumming and movement jam!

Lobby installations feature Dr. Julie Johnson’s Moving Our Stories, providing a glimpse into the history of Black women’s prison labor in Georgia paying homage to women whose stories would otherwise remain untold.

Monday March 28 @7pm (EDT) – ONLINE

A complimentary virtual dialogue,  Art of Activism brings together community, performers, and patrons for a vital conversation centered on the themes of I AM ATL Woman. The dialogue will include experts such as Julie B. Johnson of Moving Our Stories, Yolanda Owens owner of iwi fresh, and Race and Equity, educator C. Yemanja Kennedy-Shaheed, with Giwayen Mata Co-Founder Sarahn Henderson, midwife and maternal wellness advocate, and Artistic Director Tambra Omiyale Harris.

Together, we celebrate Giwayen Mata’s 29th anniversary!

Swing by Java Lords or gather ingredients for our specialty drink G-I-N MATA (an African take on a gin cocktail featuring Drumshanbo Gunpowder Gin, Ginger Beer, and Hibiscus syrup) for the virtual event kicked off with a clip of the filmed live performance.

While you do not have to have seen the show to attend the complimentary virtual event, we welcome all voices to connect our various intersections, share in commonalities, and celebrate  Giwayen Mata’s 29th anniversary.

Nicolette Emanuelle’s What Are You? is headed outdoors as part of Art on the Atlanta Beltline in 2022!

April 30 and May 1, 2022 at 2 p.m. on the Atlanta Beltline at Southside Trail – McDonough Blvd Tunnel.

What Are You? is an exploration of what it means to be mixed-race in America. 

Leading artist Nicolette Emanuelle began questioning why she had been asked “what are you?” for most of her life, leading to a deep exploration of how racial identity can imbue both a sense of community and feeling like an outcast. 

Nicolette was raised with roots in the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina, and after interviewing other multiracial/multi-ethnic people, she found a wealth of common ground and a path forward in her own journey. 

What Are You? captures the absurdity of America’s narrative on race and invites viewers to “check their boxes” and engage in vital conversation around multiracial/multiethnic people and their experiences. Featuring the talents of Meredith Gordon (AKA Squeeze the Clown) and aerial artist Jaylynn Haywood, this immersive performance will be premiering as part of Art on the Atlanta Beltline, combining aerial movement, shadow play, music, and personal testimonies to highlight the beauty and expose the struggles of multi-racial people while honoring their resilience. 

This event is complimentary! No need to reserve tickets, but your donations are always appreciated – DONATE NOW

This installation and performance is located on the Atlanta Beltline at the Southside Trail McDonough Blvd Tunnel . This area of the beltline is hard packed gravel, about two city blocks from the nearest limited on-street parking at 78 Milton Ave SE. Audiences will move through the performance space without seating at this outdoor event, and are urged to dress according to weather. We encourage everyone to wear masks in continued efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19, and will have them available at the tunnel entrance.

In anticipation of our Art on the Atlanta Beltline event, check out the 2021 film iteration of What Are You? 

I AM ATL Woman is Giwayen Mata’s premier performance work dedicated to the actual lived experiences of our native Atlanta company members and audience members alike, who in addition to being southern women, have also grown up in families with significant African diasporic identities, thus providing a lens that is consistent with the company’s 29 year image of Africa via the dance and the drum.

This project employs contemporary yet down home southern narratives of dance and spoken word to highlight the unique and rich blueprint that makes growing up and being a woman in Atlanta a profound and iconic experience.  While southern cuisine, entrepreneurship, Civil War history, local movie production, and reality television are able to highlight some aspects of Atlanta living, I AM ATL Woman is a specific glimpse into how Black and African-centered women of Atlanta literally move. Those movements create a valuable perspective of American life as seen in Atlanta, known to some as the Black Mecca of the South.

I AM ATL Woman showcases the culture of Atlanta as uniquely formative to our nation’s regional influences as those of New Orleans, the Gullah, and New York scenes. With over 100 years of lively historically Black college life, a rich African diasporic identity, and a legendary music scene spanning rhythm and blues, soul, and hip hop, the Atlanta woman is an icon worth embodied storytelling.

ABOUT GIWAYEN MATA

Giwayen Mata formed in 1993 and included 10 trailblazing women! As an all sistah, dance, percussion, and vocal ensemble these women work in the spirit of their namesake from the West African Hausa language, translating to “Elephant Women”. They have lived up to this title by being towering leaders onstage and in classes.

By specializing in the dances, rhythms and songs of the African Diaspora and interacting with them in a contemporary American context, Giwayen Mata unites audiences in an atmosphere of strength and positivity while addressing the struggles and triumphs of black women.

Giwayen Mata’s vision is to use the hidden treasures of Black womanhood to create a lasting positive impact on every girl and woman within our reach, therefore exponentially uplifting our entire world one family, community, organization, and institution at a time.

Giwayen Mata’s mission is to celebrate the lives of women and uplift communities and the planet, while perpetuating the cultures of Afrika and the Afrikan Diaspora through the study, creation, teaching, and presentation of artistic media including dances, rhythms, songs, poetry, and prose around the world.

All 7 Stages in-person performances and activities require audiences to wear masks at all times. Food or drinks are also no longer allowed inside the theatres. In addition, all artists and patrons are required to provide proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative COVID-19 test taken in the last 72 hours. If you are not feeling well, please stay home and do not attend any in-person events! We are happy to exchange any tickets for another time when you are feeling better. Just reach out to the box office 404-523-7647 or boxoffice@7stages.org, and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

For more information on 7 Stages’ health and safety policies, visit https://www.7stages.org/covid-19-health-safety/

February 26, 2022 we continue to examine our role, ask what is essential, and connect with the needs of our community with service and creativity.

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As the climate allows, we will be in our lobby and out front of our building while practicing COVID safety procedures.

Join us in safely sharing resources and remaining connected with our community!

Lifesouth blood donations will take place at mobile units in 7 Stages’ parking lot.

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February 26, 2022

2-5 p.m. at 7 Stages, 1105 Euclid Ave. Atlanta, GA 30307

Experience a thought-provoking array of interactive art installations, performances, and films as you journey through 7 Stages to envision the future.

Are we ready to talk about it yet? The ‘F’ word we’ve all been terrified to mutter? The dazzling ‘F’ we all secretly fantasize about exploring, even as recent shifts by certain unnamed variants have forced our dreams into agonizing quarantine yet again? This word sends shivers down spines of warriors, puzzles devoted geniuses, and wipes canvases clean for creators. This is a critical time to ask what we want: How do we move forward with reflection and accountability? How do we dream cultural justice into practice, choose risk over complacency, irreverence over veneration, creation over destruction?  What are our darkest nightmares or boldest dreams? 

We invite you to explore all the beauty and terror of Curious Future Encounters. This four-day festival brings together artists of many disciplines, providing a platform for boundary-pushing works with a focus on interactive elements. Explore the future as envisioned in live performances and installations by D. Woods, Stephanie Kohler, Diego Serna, Jillian Mitchell and company Kit Modus, Nadya Zeitlin with Katya Kouznetsova & Dima Alekseyev, Mariposas Rebeldes, The Radical Archive of Preservation, and short films by Mark Blane, JJ Watson, James Proctor, Lauren Vick, Nina Marinov, Full Radius Dance, Celeste Miller, Embodied Social Justice, and Sean Dorsey. 

If you can’t make it in person, or want to watch the film festival again at home, VIRTUAL FILM FESTIVAL tickets are available at 7Stages.org/tickets and virtual access is included with your in-person ticket!

The festival offers timed-entry tickets, during  which small groups of audience members journey through the 7 Stages building. Please arrive 15 minutes before your allotted time and check in at the box office. Proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test are required for entry. Masks are mandatory for audience members for the full duration of the experience. For more information on 7 Stages’ health and safety policies, visit https://www.7stages.org/covid-19-health-safety/

Map of 7 Stages during Curious Future Encounters

The Messenger

– Bautanzt Here, teachers and students of the Contemporary Art & Architecture Lab – Interactive installation and performance – Box office Lobby

“We are inviting you to encounter curious Messengers from the Future. They have landed on our planet with a goal to know more about us, humans of the 21st century, our hopes, dreams and expectations about the Future. They are gathering all this information for our successors, who will see and analyze it when their time comes. “

Ditto

– Kit Modus – Interactive Dance performance – Front Lobby

In Ditto, participants are compelled to illuminate their own way through a reflecting and refracting environment that engages a dystopian vision with movement, music, darkness, and light.  Developed by Jillian Mitchell, founder of Kit Modus, featuring dancers Meg Gourley, Mary-Evelyn Kirkland, and Emma Morris.

Bosquitzpaplotl

– Mariposas Rebeldes – Installation and workshop – Throughout 7 Stages

Bosquitzpaplotl is an immersive installation by Mariposas Rebeldes, a collective of queer Latinx and Indigenous persons conducting urban agriculture on Mvskoke land in what is now known as Atlanta. Throughout 7 Stages, explore the past, present, and future of urban ecology via “relics, once waste, now transformed into a habitat for Atlanta verdure.” Discussions and workshops revolve around the perpetual impacts of colonialism on local ecology.

Visible

– Diego Serna – Gallery installation – Mainstage Voms

Visible is a two-part gallery representing a journey of transformation, from internal struggles with mental health and self-care to the trials of existing in the public eye and the politics ingrained therein. Serna invites participants to explore uncomfortable and oft-avoided topics to draw forth fresh perspectives.

My Favorite Color Vol. 2: Trouble In Paradise

– D. Woods – Performance – Mainstage

Woods’ interactive concert uses live music, dance, and projected visuals to relay her history as a performer and the tolls that Black artists and entrepreneurs pay while navigating their respective industries. Woods’ cyclical journey began on small stages, took her far and wide, then brought her back to 7 Stages with new experiences and priorities. Participants will be selected to interact from the Mainstage or seating areas. Creator/Performer: D. Woods. Ensemble: Kendre Scales, Liv Crosby. Creative Director: Shanell. Mental Health specialist audio : Raynard Robinson.

Witness Pearl

– T.R.A.P. (The Radical Archive of Preservation) – Mainstage Dressing Room*

Two original short performances pay tribute to Atlanta-based writer and activist Pearl Cleage, whose varied career has included writing and producing several plays at 7 Stages. Each piece re-imagines a slice of Cleage’s life through the lens of performance archivist Shady Radical.  The Radical Archive of Preservation is inspired by archival materials including original stage plays written by Cleage (A Song for Coretta and Love and Trouble) produced at 7 Stages. This work acts as a bridge to understanding our collective and unique experiences of the past through an encounter with the present in hopes of creating a better, more compassionate future.

All Bodies Welcome

– Skyeris – Interactive installation – Blackbox hallway

Skyeris explores the natural and mystical cycles through which our bodies interact, bringing together science and mysticism to present all human bodies as part of nature, with a spirit of acceptance, appreciation, and reverence. All Bodies Welcome invites you to reflect and engage, to your degree of comfort, with ways to de-stigmatize our cultural ideas of the body.

CFE FILM FESTIVAL

– Blackbox – In person and online

 

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Narrative Films :

 

Nine Grams Of Lead – JJ. Watson

When an inbound Soviet missile is detected on a new computer system, an American general finds himself in a position to launch the Atomic bomb.

Running Time – 10 m 20 s

 

Ghost Bike – Mark Blane

In this allegory on truth and loss, a grieving mother meets a stranger who may hold the key to solving her son’s untimely death.

Directed & Written by Mark Blane
Cast: Tamara Tunie, Mike Doyle, Carly Blane and Mark Blane
Executive Producers: Jenna Mack, Charles Tolbert

Running Time – 19 m 28 s

 

Experimental Films  :

 

Accept the Poetics of Aging – Celeste Miller

A dance meditation on aging as a moving point on the thread of life.

Choreography, editing and performance by Celeste Miller. Music by Chip Epsten. Shot on location at the Home for Wayward Girls and their Dogs, Sautee Nacoochee, GA.

Running time – 2 m 39 s

 

Substance – Nina Marinov

SUBSTANCE is a movement experiment. Movement of body, movement of camera, movement of lights, sounds, and textures. Dance that is born from these movements to (hopefully) move your soul. Or calm ours. Filmed in St. Petersburg, Russia and Atlanta, GA. Creative Director : Irina Sergeeva

Running Time – 3 m 1 s

 

Future Untitled – James Proctor
A work of experimental cinema that focuses on the aesthetic of futurism, while incorporating words and imagery that tell the story of acceleration, exponential growth, and ever increasing novelty.

Running Time – 2 m 39 s

 

WORK IN PROGRESS – Lauren Vick 

This piece examines time, birth/rebirth, youth, hunger – but most importantly it’s about transformation and it’s inevitablity. The choice to change. The choice to swim in the whirlpool of your life that’s taking you with it one way or another. The future will be the now regardless of how we live. But the future we Want, is entirely dependent on that.

Running Time – 2 m 11 s

 

Masked – Keana Goldsmith

Time has passed after a toxic gas had effected an entire city. A man goes through the daily motions of living in his new reality adorned in a gas mask. During his time alone, he recalls the family that he had lost due to the incident. He mourns their death and reminisces on the past and the could have been future. Masked focuses on the emotional internal struggle of one person alone discovering their own regrets after what always seemed to be there is gone.

Running Time – 8 m 37 s

 

Dance Films :

Lay Me Down – Diego Serna

“Lay Me Down is a glimpse into a moment in time in my near future. It is a final goodbye to my mother who is battling stage four breast cancer. As the disease continues to deteriorate her, I know the last days will be extremely difficult. This is my way of rewriting the ending in order to remember her in an artistic and beautiful way.” Director of photography: Tim Cofield. Choreographer: Bubba Carr. Aerial choreographer: Max Torandell

Running Time – 5 m 30 s

 

SEEK/AFTER – Sean Dorsey

Set in a dream-like rocky landscape, this dance film by transgender choreographer Sean Dorsey invites trans, gender-nonconforming and queer communities to imagine and seek expansive Futures and is part of Sean Dorsey Dance’s multi-year project THE LOST ART OF DREAMING (co-commissioned by 7 Stages!)

Running time – 3 m 12 s

 

Restructure – Full Radius Dance

‘Restructure’ explores the regaining of  balance. Confined by our environment but using it as inspiration for movement and dance.The gestures representing earth, water, fire, wind, and the lotus blossom, based on Gorinto, a Japanese type of a Buddhist Tower. The ultimate rebirth.

Running Time –  9 m 5 s

 

Declaration of Belonging – Embodied Social Justice 

Dancers from USA (CA, NY, IL, CO, WA, GA) and Sri Lanka investigate what justice looks and feels like in the body. A shared phrase used as inspiration for each dancer to explore in their own space and filmed individually. Leah Mann, Charne Furcron (dancer/collaborator) and Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp (dancer/film maker). Poetry by Meisaan Chan and Sound score by Saraswati Andrea Lee (Newark, NJ).

Contributing dancers include: Kimberly Bow (Boulder, CO), Amy “Catfox” Campion (Los Angeles, CA), Meisaan Chan (Chicago, IL), Marla Durden (Seattle, WA), Janice Eng (Seattle, WA), Ashley Fargnoli (Sri Lanka), Charne Furcron (Atlanta, GA), Alina Hinton (Atlanta, GA), Brianna Jones (Atlanta, GA), Leah Mann (Vashon Island, WA), Jennifer Nugent (New York, NY), Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp (Rochester, NY), Jessica Scudder (Atlanta, GA) and Jordan Scudder (Atlanta, GA)

Running Time – 8 m 37 s

 

 

*As of December 2021, all 7 Stages in-person performances and activities require audiences and staff to wear masks at all times. Food or drinks are also no longer allowed inside the theatres. In addition all artists and patrons are required to provide proof of full vaccination* against COVID-19 or a negative PCR test taken in the last 72 hours. If you are not feeling well, please stay home and do not attend any in-person events! We are happy to exchange any tickets for another time when you are feeling better. Just reach out to the box office 404-523-7647 or Jasmine@7stages.org and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

*Participants are encouraged to bring headphones for select enhanced audio experiences.

*Some encounters feature nudity, strong language, and deal with mature topics. Discretion is advised.