Thursday, October 16, 2008
What Can Be Night a Great Success!
What Can Be Night on October 15th was a celebration not just of the in-progress film What Can Be but of a culture of vision as expressed through music, spoken word, and testimony.
A packed nightclub in Culver City rocked with words, sounds, emotions, and hope. Visions of a world without war, without borders, without poverty and violence.
The house band was the Rock A Mole All-Stars with Ernie Perez (Boxing Gandhis), Carvell Holloway (Ten East), Michael Sulcer (Ray Charles Orchestra), Wayne White (Herbie Hancock, Commodores), Boudreau (Gladys Knight), and Miguel and Marisoul from La Santa Cecilia. They rocked the house with not one but two versions of the What Can Be theme song. Also, the entire La Santa Cecilia band served up some of their cutting edge Mexican music.
DJ Tamra kept things going with a delicious mix of music.
Poets who hit the mic were:
Besskepp, Mike the Poet, Ashlynn, Busstop Prophet, Kat, Thesaurus G, Poet John Paul, Metaphysicz, Porschia Baker, Black Spinach, Matt Sedillo, Amalia Ortiz, and Lee Ballinger
There were special contributions from Shamako Noble of Hip Hop Congress, Drew Amavisca (who’s also the director of What Can Be), Saria Idana, Shakespeare, and Cheri Honkala of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.
There were re-interpretations of the work of Bob Marley and Langston Hughes.
What Can Be Productions will soon launch a MySpace page and web site which will feature the visions of musicians, writers, and visual artists from around the world. If you would like to be part of this, contact whatcanbemovie@aol.com.
Many great connections were made on Wednesday night. For example, a local video editor said: “That was really an incredible event. I felt like I was in a room full of celebrities and that the place just pulsated with creativity and life! It was a wonderful experience and very inspiring.”
Eppelsauce Music from South Africa was also in the house and we will be working with them in the future (www.epplesauce.com). This is their mission statement:
“Eppelsauce Music is a dynamic record label specializing in African and World Music. With most African artists now produced outside of Africa, Eppelsauce Music, based in Cape Town, South Africa, proudly offers the richest sounds and artists from across the African continent, made in Africa.
Eppelsauce Music presents the finest from traditional to modern, to everything in-between. The messages in our music are heart-felt, insightful and uplifting…sure to leave you melting like gold to the true wealth of the African continent.
Eppelsauce Music is an innovative social enterprise, dedicated to:
Promoting refugee rights and transforming xenophobia into cross-cultural understanding by producing and presenting refugee musicians from across the African diaspora
Fostering poverty alleviation while supporting the cultural development of artists in rural, marginalized and vulnerable communities
Inspiring global education through collaboration in production and performance between Cape Town, broader Africa and the world.”
*****
Statement by What Can Be Productions / October 15, 2008
We are here tonight to celebrate the making of a film called What Can Be that hasn’t even started shooting yet. What’s up with that?
A couple of years ago Trini Rodriguez, who runs Tia Chucha’s in the Valley along with her husband Luis, coined the phrase “Don’t go by what is, go by what can be.” Somehow those words reached the ears of Mike the Poet, who incorporated them into a poem called “One Global Human Family.”
This poem is a great example of one of the most important developments of the 21st century—the turn toward a culture of vision. We are making the film What Can Be to help connect as many visionary artists as possible. Across LA. Across America. Across the world. We want to get the ball rolling NOW, not wait until the film comes out in the spring.
What’s at stake here?
We’re in the middle of a war and preparing to start new ones. Fifty million of us have no health care. Immigrants are hunted in the streets like animals. We just gave away $700 billion to the banks.
In the middle of all this, the American people are trying to find a way to dream. The majority oppose the war. The majority favor universal health care. The majority want to see immigrants left in peace. Everyone except Congress is against the bailout.
What’s missing is a vision, an overarching dream that can inspire the American people with the knowledge that the world they want is very possible, in fact it is within their reach as soon as they link up with each other.
This is where America’s millions of artists come in. It is up to the artists to give the American people a vision of a world without war, without borders; a world of healthy happy people who love and respect each other.
That’s what we’re here to explore tonight.
A packed nightclub in Culver City rocked with words, sounds, emotions, and hope. Visions of a world without war, without borders, without poverty and violence.
The house band was the Rock A Mole All-Stars with Ernie Perez (Boxing Gandhis), Carvell Holloway (Ten East), Michael Sulcer (Ray Charles Orchestra), Wayne White (Herbie Hancock, Commodores), Boudreau (Gladys Knight), and Miguel and Marisoul from La Santa Cecilia. They rocked the house with not one but two versions of the What Can Be theme song. Also, the entire La Santa Cecilia band served up some of their cutting edge Mexican music.
DJ Tamra kept things going with a delicious mix of music.
Poets who hit the mic were:
Besskepp, Mike the Poet, Ashlynn, Busstop Prophet, Kat, Thesaurus G, Poet John Paul, Metaphysicz, Porschia Baker, Black Spinach, Matt Sedillo, Amalia Ortiz, and Lee Ballinger
There were special contributions from Shamako Noble of Hip Hop Congress, Drew Amavisca (who’s also the director of What Can Be), Saria Idana, Shakespeare, and Cheri Honkala of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.
There were re-interpretations of the work of Bob Marley and Langston Hughes.
What Can Be Productions will soon launch a MySpace page and web site which will feature the visions of musicians, writers, and visual artists from around the world. If you would like to be part of this, contact whatcanbemovie@aol.com.
Many great connections were made on Wednesday night. For example, a local video editor said: “That was really an incredible event. I felt like I was in a room full of celebrities and that the place just pulsated with creativity and life! It was a wonderful experience and very inspiring.”
Eppelsauce Music from South Africa was also in the house and we will be working with them in the future (www.epplesauce.com). This is their mission statement:
“Eppelsauce Music is a dynamic record label specializing in African and World Music. With most African artists now produced outside of Africa, Eppelsauce Music, based in Cape Town, South Africa, proudly offers the richest sounds and artists from across the African continent, made in Africa.
Eppelsauce Music presents the finest from traditional to modern, to everything in-between. The messages in our music are heart-felt, insightful and uplifting…sure to leave you melting like gold to the true wealth of the African continent.
Eppelsauce Music is an innovative social enterprise, dedicated to:
Promoting refugee rights and transforming xenophobia into cross-cultural understanding by producing and presenting refugee musicians from across the African diaspora
Fostering poverty alleviation while supporting the cultural development of artists in rural, marginalized and vulnerable communities
Inspiring global education through collaboration in production and performance between Cape Town, broader Africa and the world.”
*****
Statement by What Can Be Productions / October 15, 2008
We are here tonight to celebrate the making of a film called What Can Be that hasn’t even started shooting yet. What’s up with that?
A couple of years ago Trini Rodriguez, who runs Tia Chucha’s in the Valley along with her husband Luis, coined the phrase “Don’t go by what is, go by what can be.” Somehow those words reached the ears of Mike the Poet, who incorporated them into a poem called “One Global Human Family.”
This poem is a great example of one of the most important developments of the 21st century—the turn toward a culture of vision. We are making the film What Can Be to help connect as many visionary artists as possible. Across LA. Across America. Across the world. We want to get the ball rolling NOW, not wait until the film comes out in the spring.
What’s at stake here?
We’re in the middle of a war and preparing to start new ones. Fifty million of us have no health care. Immigrants are hunted in the streets like animals. We just gave away $700 billion to the banks.
In the middle of all this, the American people are trying to find a way to dream. The majority oppose the war. The majority favor universal health care. The majority want to see immigrants left in peace. Everyone except Congress is against the bailout.
What’s missing is a vision, an overarching dream that can inspire the American people with the knowledge that the world they want is very possible, in fact it is within their reach as soon as they link up with each other.
This is where America’s millions of artists come in. It is up to the artists to give the American people a vision of a world without war, without borders; a world of healthy happy people who love and respect each other.
That’s what we’re here to explore tonight.
Labels: Ernie Perez, Lee Ballinger, Luis Rodriguez, Rock A Mole, Trini Rodriguez, What Can Be
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