HOW TO BUILD A FIRE (JULY) @ OPEN SOURCE GALLERY
Thursday, July 27th, 7pm-9pm
Where:
Open Source Gallery
306 17th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215
What:
Theme: Evolution
4 x 15 min Stories
This month, the gallery is all about “Precipitate,” a project by SCOPE, and our HTBAF theme is “evolution.” How will the future unfold? The exhibit focuses on mico-organisms that have evolved to reclaim the contaminated sediment of the Gowanus Canal. What micro bits of our minds and hearts are reclaiming our time, reclaiming our capacity for gratitude, for love, for change? How are they propelling us in new directions? Come hear four storytellers share some of their personal evolution!
Takiyah Kai:
Takiyah Kai has been identifying as a writer for the past five years, ever since becoming a volunteer workshop facilitator with the New York Writers Coalition. After saying “We believe everyone is a writer” …and we all have stories to tell out loud regularly, she began to believe it for herself, though she’d been a writer ever since the potato head drawing and squiggle picture book she wrote in kindergarten. Takiyah is a Black girl from Brooklyn with a bunch of stories that she wants everybody to hear. She’s published poetry and is learning more about how to tend to her middle grade and early reader fiction , and creative non-fiction craft, so that she may share her stories, and her mother’s stories, and her mother’s mother’s stories with alla’ y’all who want to hear them. Her desire is to write and tell her stories in ways that make people laugh more than they cry. You can find her at home in LA impacting reading and wiring instruction for K-12 students in the South East LA region, missing the subway – the 4 train specifically – in the mirror dancing to Beyonce, or pool-side sunbathing and thinking to herself – look mama I made it! If you check out her Instagram @deedesmiddledaughter and Facebook @Takiyah Kai you must also hit “follow” instead of judging her for having less than three-hundred followers.
Nick Alexander:
Nick Alexander is making a mark as one of the more diverse, versatile comedians in comedy. Starting out as a teenager on the NYC stand-up scene, the Haitian Native from Queens combines honest, vulnerable humor with an endearing sensibility, Nick uses charm to get away with saying a lot onstage most would deem uncomfortable. He has also made guest appearances on Jamie Foxx’s The Foxxhole comedy and music channel on Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio. He booked his first stand-up TV gig on Fox’s Laughs and landed his first TV role on Amazon’s Red Oaks. After deciding to go bicoastal and branch out to Los Angeles he has expanded his repertoire with commercial campaigns for The Gametime App and Chase. Nick also diversified his comedy background by performing with Comedy Troupe Cornbread Kitchen whose shows combine sketch and improv and were seen regularly at Upright Citizens Brigade from 2018-202. Nick still performs stand-up, the way he sees it, he’s married to the game despite having several comedy wives. You can also catch his weekly podcast The No Name Podcast available on the Rollout Digital Network. With lots of projects in the works as well as his debut comedy album set to be released in 2022, you should be seeing a lot of the man with 2 first names in no time.
Diana Diaz:
A Gen X Nuyorican writer, Diana Diaz has had her creative nonfiction published in Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social Literary journal (2023), Latina Outsiders: Remaking Latina Identity (2021), Boricua en la Luna (2022), Red WheelBarrow (2014), and A Cup of Comfort for Mothers To Be (2006). She is a certified 500-hour yoga teacher and creates writing and yoga workshops throughout the United States. In 2021, she received a City Corp Artist grant for her “Writing Our Grief” workshop. Diana holds a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU and an MA in English Literature from la Universidad de Puerto Rico, recinto Rio Piedras. She is a three-time Voices of Our Nations Arts alum and currently serves on the Executive Board of VONA. She is an editor and writer for Hispanecdotes, a foodie, and mom to a Millennial daughter and a Gen Z son.
Lucie Pohl:
Lucie Pohl is a German-born-NYC-raised comedian, actress & voice of Mercy on Overwatch/2. On screen she can be seen in Hulu’s Welcome to Chippendales, TAR, Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them and Red Dwarf among others. She is the creator of 4 critically acclaimed solo comedies, was nominated for a NY Inmovative Theater Award & is the host of Immigrant Jam Podcast.
How to Build a Fire is a community storytelling series where a diverse group of individuals share real-life, personal narratives centered around a different theme each last Thursday of the month. At times funny, at times sad, their stories weave together a broad illustration of the human experience. How To Build A Fire will takes place at Open Source Gallery -a welcoming, nurturing, intimate, safe environment- where, monthly, one can see a new exhibition installed by an array of up-and-coming and established visual artists.
How To Build a Fire was founded by Terence Degnan. This year Stacie Evans and Lana Siebel will be co-curating and co-hosting.
Stacie Evans writes in long hand. With a fountain pen. Because she’s that girl: the wannabe homesteading, selectively Luddite girl who is addicted to her phone and regularly overshares online. She met James Baldwin in Paris … which will ever and always be the most glamorous and dramatic thing about her. Her writing has appeared in New South, After Ferguson, Bellingham Review, and The Rumpus.
Lana Siebel performs all over the US, including NYC, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, NJ, and Washington DC. She was selected as a featured comedian at The Connecticut Comedy Festival along with comedians such as Gilbert Gottfried, The Headliner Series in NY, The Punch Line Comedy Club in Philadelphia, as well as the Fairfield Comedy Club in Connecticut. As an actress, Lana is featured in numerous films and off Broadway plays. She studied acting at Lee Strasberg Institute and HB Studios with Austin Pendleton. Lana was also a competitive International Latin style Ballroom dancer ranked internationally and 7th in the US! She immigrated as a refugee from Kharkiv, Ukraine when she was seven years old with her family to Brooklyn, NY where she grew up and now resides.
This program is supported by the Puffin Foundation
