HTBAF – Harrowing Tales- April 2021

Friday April 30th, 8pm

April’s theme is Harrowing Tales:  Storytellers will share a series of improbable circumstances that could easily be considered acutely distressing.

STORYTELLERS:

Phylisha Villanueva ( Phylli V) is a mom, poet, author, and teaching artist out of Yonkers, New York. Phylli has been performing and teaching spoken word for over ten years. She also performs with a group called “Jazz and Poetry Choir Collective,” where the members bring experience, narrative and playfulness to the concert stage, taking the art of spoken word fused with jazz to a new level. Phylli is known for her involvement with Blue Door Art Center in Yonkers NY where she founded the first teen poetry open mic in downtown Yonkers in 2009.

Nakeisha Cantzlaar, originally from Guyana, is completing her final semester at Borough of Manhattan Community College as a Liberal Arts student. She has a growing interest in plants and poetry and looks forward to attending a school that provides a great Environmental Science program. Presently, she’s developing her writing skills through workshops and editorial internships. When asked about the development of her pursuit of art, she states, “I’m just a kid sharing experiences and lessons of the life I’ve lived so far, all through prose and poetry. If you want, you could tag along. Maybe you’ll find some sort of joy or newfound knowledge from a ‘lil chile like me.”

Lily White has been losing her mind lately, but before that…she played jazz saxophone in various groups over the years along with with teaching piano. She has composed 4 CDs worth of music  for her quintet and done numerous pieces for film and video. In 2013, she earned an MFA in Creative Writing from  Bennington Writers Seminars and has had essays published in Brevity, The Southampton Review and the New York Times.

TIGGER BENFORD is a percussionist, composer and educator, specializing in hand drumming, improvisation and music for dancers.  Over the years he has produced six full length CDs of original material, and two anthologies of dance scores.  He produced a number of body rhythm pieces in collaboration with Martha Partridge.  He also spent 12 summers on staff at Bates Dance Festival, in Lewiston, Maine, and 4 summers at American Dance Festival.  He is a Professor Emeritus at Mason Gross School of the Arts Dance Department at Rutgers University, where he directed music for the Department of Dance for 30 years, producing  numerous dance scores and teaching courses in music for dancers.  He is pleased to be a part of the Open Source community.