Cultural Space Cafe: Artist Housing Across Generations

Be a part of the strategic conversations moving us towards community-led solutions.

Join us for our second Cultural Space Cafe!

What is a Cultural Space Cafe?  We’re bringing together folks who co-create cultural space (artists, cultural workers, residents, planners, policymakers, etc.) around timely dialogues and dynamics in our cities. By creating space to gather to dream, decompress, design, and strategize, our CSCs build cohesion and opportunities for exchange across silos of practice.

The goals for this series are to:

• Create space for peer learning across sectors and disciplines
• Build cohesion and equity in the work of creative placemaking & place-keeping
• Cultivate community wisdom around issues impacting Bay Area arts and culture

Through these points of strategic cross-pollination, we will apply community-led solutions to address the critical issues impacting arts & culture space needs.

How do we support and root artists in growing through the seasons of life and practice?

Our second CSC brings together a multigenerational constellation of artists contending with aging, disability, and desire to live in intergenerational communities in the context of place and practice.

Grounded in the luminary work of Bay Area artists amara tabor-smith, Keith Hennessy, Rashida Chase, KKINGBOO, and Joanna Haigood, this session explores what it could look like to prototype systems of care that allow artists to stay rooted where they create, in community across generations.

About the guests

amara tabor-smith (she/they) was born and raised in San Francisco, and is a long time resident of Oakland. She is a choreographer, performance maker, cultural worker, and the artistic director of Deep Waters Dance Theater. Her interdisciplinary site-responsive and community specific performance making practice utilizes Yoruba Lukumí spiritual technologies to address issues of social and environmental justice, race, gender identity, and belonging. amara’s work is rooted in Black, queer, feminist principles that insist on liberation, joy, home fullness and well-being. She is a 2024 recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and is a teaching artist in residence at Stanford University.

Since 1980 Joanna Haigood has been creating work that uses natural, architectural and cultural environments as points of departure for movement exploration and narrative. Her stages have included grain terminals, a clock tower, the pope’s palace, military forts, and a mile of urban neighborhood streets in the South Bronx. Her work has been commissioned by many arts institutions, including Dancing in the Streets, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Walker Arts Center, the Exploratorium Museum, the National Black Arts Festival, and Festival d’Avignon. She has also been honored with the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, the United States Artist Fellowship, and a New York Bessie Award. Haigood is also a recipient of the esteemed Doris Duke Artist Award. Joanna has had the privilege to mentor many extraordinary young artists internationally at the National École des Arts du Cirque in France, the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in England, Spelman College, the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University, the San Francisco Circus Center and at Zaccho Studio. 

Keith Hennessy, MFA, PhD, is a frolicker, imperfectionist, and witch working in dance, performance, improvisation, arts production, writing, teaching, affordable housing, and sexual healing. Raised in Canada, living in Ramaytush Ohlone territory (San Francisco) since 1982, he tours widely. Using improvisation, ritual, collaboration, and anarchism, Keith instigates queer embodied experiences that respond to political crises. Hennessy directs Circo Zero, co-founded the performance/culture spaces 848 and CounterPulse, and was a member of Sara Mann’s Contraband, 1985-1994. Awards include Guggenheim, NY Bessie, USArtist, Sui Generis, and Bay Area Izzies. 2024 touring includes small and large festivals in Oaxaca MX, Lviv Ukraine, Vienna and Innsbruck Austria, and Brussels Belgium. Keith lives in a Community Land Trust that he co-created in collaboration with his neighbors, SFCLT, and the City of SF. The focus of Keith’s housing activism is working with SFCLT to protect precarious renters, decommodify real estate, and create permanently affordable, community owned housing. 

A dedicated advocate for art, wellness, and culture with a wealth of community organizing experience, Rashida Chase is a versatile artist synthesizing creative expression with urban development. As a performing vocalist and director of AMP Oakland, a cultural placemaking initiative, she uplifts underrepresented artists and communities. Chase’s artistic vision extends beyond the stage into real estate, promoting cultural preservation and focusing on equitable growth for future generations. With connections to public officials and grassroots groups, she acts as a vital liaison, effectively bridging initiatives and government action.

Equipped with a Master’s in Real Estate Development + Design from UC Berkeley, Chase brings an interdisciplinary lens to building inclusive spaces, and her multifaceted work exemplifies how the arts can drive positive change and cultural preservation within the built environment. Whether curating performances, designing developments, or advocating for marginalized voices, Chase’s unwavering commitment to promoting equitable urban transformation resonates locally and globally.

As a DJ, a cultural curator and cofounder of indie label / sacred art house 7000COILS, KKINGBOO intuitively advocates for their community and is committed to creating sacred opportunities to uplift others, heal together in celebration and liberation.

KKINGBOO uplifts and offers healing support through creative, holistic experiences. Their whimsical, ancestral perspectives fosters connections across cultures and spaces. KKINGBOO champions safer spaces for the LGBTQ+ and Black communities, creating inclusive, celebratory dance floors and alternative healing opportunities.

*Please note: You must register for the event. Capacity is limited.

Questions?
Contact Shreya Shankar, CAST Community Engagement Manager, Oakland