Submitted by Woman in the Woods Productions.

Woman in the Woods Productions is pleased to bring back to Orcas Center Marc Bamuthi Joseph (“Bamuthi”) and Daniel Bernard Roumain (“DBR”), on April 8th, for our most ambitious production to date.

When they were here in June of 2018, that duo quickly won over a sold-out Orcas Center audience with a unique combination of music, stories, and movement artistry, in a performance entitled “Blackbird Fly.” Many who attended still talk about a very revealing Q&A session following the performance.

For April 8th, spoken word artist and arts activist Bamuthi has worked with his long-time collaborator, composer/violinist DBR, to bring us a performance they entitled The Just and the Blind. It was conceived and written by Bamuthi. DBR composed the musical score. These two very cool, world-class talents will be joined by movement artist Drew Dollaz, and Seattle-based vocalist Gail Pettis.

And YES, there will be food! To encourage the audience to come early, mingle and have fun, there will be a pre-party in the Madrona Room from 5 to 6:45 p.m. The Steve Alboucq & Oliver Groenewald Jazz Quintet will entertain us in the Madrona Room … and a special selection of Heather Stansbury’s Balinese appetizers will be available to ticket holders. Beer and wine will be available for purchase. The performance will begin at 7pm.

The Just and The Blind illuminates the unseen and under-heard experiences of incarcerated youth and the realities their families face. It was commissioned by Carnegie Hall, and produced by Rika Iino and Melissa Higgins of Sozo Artists, Inc., in partnership with Sozo Impact, and with support from the Ford Foundation. It premiered to a sold-out house at Carnegie in March 2019.

Bamuthi is a great storyteller, with a repertoire that ranges from slam poetry to opera. Since early 2019, he has been Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, in Washington, DC. He was a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. He was awarded the 2011 Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, and was the inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. His upcoming opera “Watch Night” is inspired by the forgiveness exhibited by the congregation of Emanuel AME church in Charleston, and will premiere later this year at the new Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York. A graduate of Morehouse College with an Honorary Doctorate from the California School of Fine Arts, Baumthi’s essays have been published in Harvard Education Press; he has lectured at more than 200 colleges, and has carried adjunct professorships at Stanford and Lehigh, among others.

Daniel Bernard Roumain is a classically trained composer, performer, violinist, and band leader, whose work combines classical music with jazz, hip-hop and rock. He has composed a wide variety of solo, chamber, orchestral, and operatic works, as well as film, theater, and dance scores. He is known for his signature violin sounds infused with myriad electronic and African-American music influences. A graduate of Vanderbilt with a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, DBR has been a tenured professor at Arizona State University since 2016.

Drew Dollaz is a pioneer of flexing, a Brooklyn-based genre of street dance also referred to as bone breaking, which is characterized by rhythmic contortionist movements. He blends flexing with other genres of movement, including ballet, to create a transcendent hybrid of movement artistry. Dollaz has performed and partnered with a broad range of artists and brands, including Rihanna, Skrillex, Red Bull, Sony, Aloft Hotels, and Billboard. His performances on Madonna’s MDNA tour in 2012 marked the first time flexing appeared on the world stage.

Gail Pettis is familiar to Orcas Island audiences, having appeared often with local jazz legend Martin Lund. She has also performed at the Gene Harris Jazz Festival in Boise, Idaho, the Amersfoort Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, and in Kobe, Japan, as winner of the Seattle-Kobe Sister City Association’s Female Jazz Vocal Audition in 2006.

You and YouTube can check out each of these world-class artists — just search for them by name.

Do not miss this spectacular evening at Orcas Center! The Just and The Blind will be the largest Woman in the Woods production to date. Roughly two-thirds of the production cost has been covered by donations, so ticket prices can be held at $45.

Tickets are available through Orcas Center at www.orcascenter.org.