Nigga-Roo by Dazié Grego-Sykes EXIT Stage Left, 156 Eddy St, SF April 5 - April 27, 2019 CLICK FOR TICKETS

Winner of Best of the 2017 San Francisco Fringe Festival, Nigga-Roo is a multidisciplinary solo performance by Dazié Grego-Sykes that explores blackness as a social construct. A daring deconstruction of the African-American experience, and the weight imposed upon it by language, history, and ever-evolving societal norms, Nigga-Roo is a work that challenges both artist and audience through video, movement, music, monologue, and an intentional usage of blackface. Named “fearless” by the San Francisco Chronicle, “densely-poetic” by the Mercury News, and “avant-garde,” “raw,” and “truthful,” by San Francisco Fringe Festival audiences, Nigga-Roo offers an unconventional and unapologetic commentary on racism and its impact on the Black individual.

Artist Statement: It was after being told by people who were darker than myself to stay out of the sun I first wondered, why wouldn’t a black person want to be blacker? My conclusion is that the closer ones complexion is to a minstrel show character the more likely they are to be dehumanized and stereotyped by society. Within this piece, I employ Black Face as a metaphor for Black performativity in a way that its potency can be manipulated to excite resistance surrounding colorism and internalized racism. Art is supposed to challenge our preconceived notions. It must change the artist and can change the audience. Ive been changed by this experience, and will be sharing how and why through the development of a follow-up piece, Decolorism.

	Dazié Grego-Sykes is an Oakland, California based performance artist. He is a graduate of The Experimental Performance Institute at New College of California. It was there he learned to transform spoken word into incendiary solo plays. He has been a member of several performance ensembles including Queer Identified Objects, The Deep Dickollective and has toured with Pomo Afro Homos for the remounting of "Fierce Love." Dazié is a regular feature at Bay Area spoken word venues and poetry slams which has led to him hosting and curating events including The Oakland Queer Open Mic, The News, and Brava Theaters "So Soul" salon. Dazié's first full-length solo performance AM I A MAN is a multidisciplinary work which focuses on the ways in which gay men of color claim and hold their masculinity. AM I A MAN has been a part of National Queer Arts Festival and the Murmuration Festival at Z-Space in San Francisco. Dazié will tour AM I A MAN nationally in 2019. Dazié's most recent performance work titled NIGGA-ROO was originally commissioned by the Queer Cultural Center and has been performed at The Marsh San Francisco, The Flight Deck in Oakland and The San Francisco Fringe Festival where he received the Best of Fringe Award in 2017. In Fall of 2018 Dazié graduated with an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing from The California Institute of Integral Studies. Currently, he is touring both AM I A MAN Man and NIGGA-ROO nationally while promoting his debut spoken-word album titled Make Me Black. Look for his upcoming collection of poetry and prose Black Faggotry and the Atmosphere of a Dream which will be published by Nomadic Press in 2019.
	Ramona “Mona” Laughing Brook (Director) is an Afro-Creek queer scholar-practitioner, teaching performance artist who currently serves as the Associate Artistic Director of The Queer Cultural Center. The QCC is a multiracial community-building organization that fosters the artistic, economic and cultural development of the LGBTQQAAI community and for 20 years has produced the annual National Queer Arts Festival in the Bay Area. In 1999, Mona co-founded The Baton Rouge Poetry Alliance with Chancelier “Xero” Skidmore and for seven years served as president of the Baton Rouge Poetry Alliance, an organization of performance poets who have been producing poetry events and programing for Baton Rouge for eighteen years. For 10 years Mona served as the poetry Slammaster of San Francisco. Mona is a conservatory-trained artist who writes and performs in “docu-ritual theater”.
	Miz Sequoia (Visual Collaborator) (née Derrick Miller-Handley) was born and raised in Berkeley, California and currently lives in New York City. Miz Sequoia believes in the power of critical examination and collective creative action to define the world on our own terms. Miz Sequoia’s work aspires to contribute to this enterprise. Miz Sequoia’s most recent work has been at the intersection of arts and youth development, creating public artworks in partnership with LGBTQ youth in New York and San Francisco that explore themes of health, gender, race, identity, and community. Miz Sequoia currently works as a senior visual designer in New York. As an artist and designer, Miz Sequoia’s work has been featured at San Francisco Fringe 2017, Celebrate! San Francisco, posterland.org, NYCxDesign, NY1 News, and Amazon Fashion. Derrick Miller-Handley (aka Miz Sequoia) was born and raised in Berkeley, California and currently lives in New York City. Derrick believes in the power of critical examination and collective creative action to define the world on our own terms. Derrick’s work aspires to contribute to this enterprise. Derrick’s most recent work has been at the intersection of arts and youth development, creating public artworks in partnership with LGBTQ youth in New York and San Francisco that explore themes of health, gender, race, identity, and community. Derrick currently works as a senior visual designer in New York. As an artist and designer, Derrick’s work has been featured at San Francisco Fringe 2017, Celebrate! San Francisco, posterland.org, NYCxDesign, NY1 News, and Amazon Fashion.
	curtis o. (lighting) is very excited to be a part of this production of niggaroo. Since seeing it in the 2017 sf fringe festival it has stuck with me. I feel it is very important in our current human condition today. Thank you to dazie' and ramona for sharing this piece of art with us. curtis o. has been with the exit theatreplex for 15 years. Next project will be the 28th annual san francisco fringe festival September 5th to september 14th 2019.