1534 Mound St
Sarasota
FL 34236
Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby Gardens
“Shariffa Ali: Roots, Routes, and Rhythm”
with Hermitage Fellow Shariffa Ali
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Presented in partnership with Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
The Hermitage Major Theater Award and Shariffa Ali’s residency is made possible with generous support from Flora Major and the Kutya Major Foundation
Thursday, January 26 at 5pm
Selby Gardens (entrance at 1534 Mound St, Sarasota, FL 34236)
Register for the waitlist here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.
2022 Hermitage Major Theater Award Winner Shariffa Ali shares her latest thinking on her new Hermitage commission in development. Inspired by her longtime friend and South African-born vocalist Vuyo Sotashe, her project centers on small-town South Africa where a middle school choir, their principal, and their parents conspire to disguise the town’s most beloved singer as a girl in order to have him sing as a female soloist in a national competition. Learn about the origin for this in-progress commission, hear text and songs influencing the story, and get to know the theater-makers behind it in this next exciting installment of the “Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby Gardens” series.
Shariffa Chelimo Ali, born in Kenya and raised in South Africa, is an international theater maker, creative leader, director, and academic committed to advancing radical change through the power of art and activism. As a filmmaker, Ali’s works have been featured at acclaimed film/VR festivals and institutions throughout the world, including Sundance Film Festival (USA); Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art (South Africa); Brooklyn Film Festival (USA); Pan African Film Festival (USA); Electric Africa VR festival (South Africa) and DOK Neuland (Germany). As a theater artist and academic, Ali has taught at NYU, Brooklyn College, Yale University, and Princeton University. Past theater productions include Eclipsed, Detroit ’67, Intimate Apparel, We Are Proud to Present, and an original new musical called We Were Everywhere. In 2022, Ali was named Elizabeth M. Swayzee Artist-in-Residence at Miami University, where she curated the inaugural Black Roots Festival in the spring of 2022. For more information: Shariffa.com