Helga

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Helgainactive

Publisher |: Brown Arts Institute,; WNYC Studios

Media Type |: audio

Podknife tags |: Creativity,; Interview,; Music,; Personal Journals

Categories Via RSS |: Arts,; Performing Arts,; Personal Journals,; Society & Culture,; Visual Arts

Artist, performer, and host Helga Davis brings a soulful curiosity and love of people to the podcast Helga, where she talks about the intimate lives of creative people as they share the steps they’ve taken along their path. She draws listeners into these discussions with cultural change-makers, whether already famous or rising talents, whose sensibilities expand our imaginations as we explore what we think we know about each other. The new season of Helga is a co-production of WNYC Studios and the Brown Arts Institute at Brown University. WNYC Studios is a listener-supported producer of other leading podcasts including Radiolab, On the Media, and Death, Sex & Money. The Brown Arts Institute at Brown University is a new university-wide research enterprise and catalyst for the arts at Brown that creates new work and supports, amplifies, and adds new dimensions to the creative practices of Brown’s arts departments, faculty, students, and community.

People |: Helga Davis
Premiere Date |: 2016-11-10
Frequency |: Weekly
Explicit |: No

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52 Available Episodes (52 Total) / Average duration: 00:43:03

Date Duration Most Reviewed Highest Rated

52 Available Episodes (52 Total)Average duration: 00:43:03

Feb 07, 2023

00:33:47

Black people know this: There’s a difference between what you say and what you mean. It’s been a matter of survival for us.

For over 30 years, American visual artist and cinematographer Arthur Jafa has captured the histories and experiences of Black Americans with projects that exemplify both the universal and particular facets of Black life.

In the second part of this masterclass in Black thought, Jafa continues his free-from improvisation through his breadth of knowledge and understanding of visual culture — embedded with all the references, rhetorics, and personal reflections of someone who has spent a lifetime dedicated to centralizing the varied experiences of Black Being.

Jan 31, 2023

00:46:51

I don't want to be the prisoner in a box, even if it's a box I made.

In this masterclass in Black thought — the first episode in a two-part series — Jafa shares a free-from improvisation through his breadth of knowledge and understanding of visual culture — embedded with all the references, rhetorics, and personal reflections of someone who has spent a lifetime dedicated to centralizing the varied experiences of Black Being.

Hortense Spillers

Ultralight Beam - Kanye West

Love is the Message, The Message is Death - Arthur Jafa

John Henrik Clark

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jan 24, 2023

00:52:35

This [term] 'femme' becomes more possible to me as a figure for not just embodiment, but for thought, action, engagement, connection.

Macarena Goméz-Barris is Professor and Chair of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University, founder of the Global South Center at Pratt Institute, an organization which supports artists, activists, and scholars in their efforts to decolonialize local and global communities.

In this episode, Goméz-Barris talks about how one can and must find beauty in the most ambiguous of places, how she uses the word “femme” to escape the embattled histories of the word “female," and how she has—and hasn’t—moved on from a traumatic early swimming lesson with her father.

References:

Constantine Petrou Cavafy

Waiting for the Barbarians

Audre Lorde

Uses of the Erotic, The Erotic is Power

Saidiya Hartman

Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Talents

Jan 17, 2023

00:49:42

There are whole histories of African American artists wrestling with stereotypical depictions and minstrelsy - and it seemed worthy anyway to me as an artist to consider them as some kind of artwork.

American painter and silhouettist Kara Walker rose to international acclaim at the age of 28 as one of the youngest-ever recipients of a MacArthur Genius grant. Appearing in exhibitions, museums, and public collections worldwide, Walker’s work wrestles with the ongoing psychological injury caused by the legacy of slavery.

In this episode, Walker shares how she navigates her own inner conflicts, how a curiosity for history led her to the silhouette, and what happens when making use of symbols of Black servitude brings one acclaim.

References:

Buster Browns

RISD - Rhode Island School of Design

My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love

University of the Pacific

Robert Wilson

Einstein on the Beach

Stanley Whitney

Glen Ligon

Kehinde Wiley

Jan 10, 2023

00:55:52

I like to say we're living in a precedent time, not an unprecedented one. How do we understand that? Being at the museum or writing histories both in poetry and in non-fiction are ways of trying to understand that.

“Gatekeepers” hold an essential role in our culture as those in positions of power who determine what we see and hear — and therefore how we understand our world. The poet Kevin Young holds dual gatekeeping roles as both director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture as well as the poetry editor for The New Yorker magazine.

In this episode, Young talks about how he holds these responsibilities and likens reading a poem to entering into a museum. He also shares his belief in the power of unexpected transformations, which songs have brought him comfort, and how it’s always easiest to write about the place you’ve just left.

References:

Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

Public Enemy

Chuck D

Parliament Funkadelic

African American Vernacular English

Sister Sonya Sanchez

Langston Hughes

Gwendolyn Brooks

Harriet Tubman's shawl

David Hammonds’ African American Flag

Willie Nelson

Earth, Wind and Fire

John Coltrane's Love Supreme

I Want You - Marvin Gay

Mary Lou Williams

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Make Good the Promises

Ida B. Wells

of-hours.html">Book of Hours - Kevin Young

Stones - Kevin Young

Jan 03, 2023

00:57:19

It’s hard when you try to talk across racial groups about race ... I do believe that there's a better chance of them getting further if we can create spaces of both accountability and connection.

Tricia Rose is a pioneering scholar in the field of hip-hop, Chancellor's Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, co-host with Cornel West of “The Tight Rope” podcast, and Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America.

In this episode, Rose discusses how she balances her love of the early days of hip-hop with the global profit powerhouse it has become, the beauty of chaos, and how essential it is to build safe, stable communities at a time when everything is being done to isolate and separate.

References:

Fannie Lou Hamer

Clarence Thomas

Tightrope with Cornell West

Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America

Dec 27, 2022

00:50:07

Within seriousness, there's little room for play, but within play there's tremendous room for seriousness. It's through the act of serious play that wonderful ideas are born.

Carrie Mae Weems is one of today’s most influential and generous contemporary American artists, as devoted to her own craft as she is to introducing other artists into the world. Her photography and diverse visual media has won her numerous awards including the Rome Prize, a MacArthur genius grant, and four honorary doctorates, and she was even named one of the 100 most influential women of all time by Ebony magazine.

In this episode, Weems explores the struggles artists must maintain to find balance and reach an audience, how the field cannot advance without the deep and profound inclusion of Black artists, and what the concept of “grace” means to her and her mother.

References:

Dawoud Bey

The Black Photographers Annual

Langston Hughes's ‘Black Nativity’

Cassandra Myth

Dec 20, 2022

00:48:38

I knew that there was a power I had when I stripped off my shirt and looked you in the eye as I moved my hips. But I also knew the other side of that attraction to me was the impulse to kill me.

Legendary dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones has made a career of engaging his audience with brutal, unapologetic honesty. His seductive work has grappled with provocative political issues ranging from sexuality, race, and censorship to power and the AIDS epidemic — while also innovating in the expressive possibilities of movement itself.

In this episode, Jones talks about what it meant to grow up as a “Black Yankee” in the 1950s and 1960s and as one of 12 children. He also reflects on the adjacency of violence to the power of seduction, and how, after decades as a performing artist, the body may retire but the mind never will.

References:

welk.html">Lois Welk

roberts-85-director-of-modern-dance-center-dies.html">Louise Roberts

Dec 13, 2022

00:50:25

Once I could feel grounded in an East African context and value who I am in an American context - suddenly it was so apparent that music was where I was supposed to be.

The dynamic, ascendant jazz singer Somi has been celebrated for her artistry as much as her activism. She became the first African woman ever nominated in any of the Grammy’s Jazz categories last year, and she has performed at the United Nations’ General Assembly by invitation from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

Somi describes herself as a “East African Midwestern girl who loves family, poetry, and freedom” and yet hers is a story of survival, adversity, and transformation. In this episode, she discusses what happens when a teacher steals your joy, the power of a meditative practice that connects her to her ancestors, and how she is still finding her voice.

References:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon

Miriam Makeba

The Babiito and Bunyoro-Batooro people

Curtis Institute of Music

‘Dreaming Zenzile:’ Somi Kakoma and Miriam Makeba

Zap Mama

Dec 06, 2022

00:54:15

I was making it for the people who feel like they don't really get a shot or are not seen, talked about, or cared about at all.

Even with his surging popularity in indie and rock scenes, Bartees Strange strives to bring his music to unexpected audiences and to tease apart the racial boundaries between them. He reckons with the concept of what it means to write music for the kids who are not seen, heard, or cared about.

In this episode, Stange talks about growing up on a military base in England, working in the labor and climate movements in D.C., and how seeing an appearance by TV on the Radio on the Late Show with David Letterman was the cheat code for writing his own music.