2024 Entertainment
PAcia Elaine ANderson
Pacia Elaine's poetic work is a charismatic blend of rhyme, layered imagery, and fantasy, all of which are used to explore a diversity of subject matter and co-create visceral, emotive experiences for readers and listeners alike. Pacia's visual work serves as a conduit for moving us to contemplation, and for channeling infinite possibilities of reshaping ideas, color, space, line, and the imagination to both remind and affirm the connectedness of and divinity in us all.
The written, spoken, visual, and teaching Word Artist’s professional work meets at the intersection of arts-learning and community development, with a focus on youth advocacy and the reclamation of the cultural practices, traditions, and customs of the African Diaspora.
Big Muddy Dance Company
Photo Credit: Kelly Pratt Photography
The Big Muddy Dance Company is a repertory dance company that showcases high caliber artistic experiences. By engaging both emerging and world-renowned choreographers, collaborating across the community through outreach, and training future performers through our educational programs, we constantly strive to invigorate life through dance.
Founded in 2010 and now under the artistic direction of Kirven Douthit-Boyd, The Big Muddy has grown into a nationally recognized organization with strong roots in its home of St. Louis, MO. In addition to providing meaningful residency experiences, the company presents versatile world-class repertoire on the stage, showcasing the grace and athleticism of our 16 company dancers.
2023 Entertainment
Bell Darris
Bell is a well rounded entrepreneur, violinist, promoter, artist/songwriter and host. Bell is not exaggerating when she proclaims herself to be a mogul. She is currently the Market Coordinator for Walgreens Expressions where through music she encourages teens to express themselves and make healthy choices. She is excited to be able to share her gift of music with youth. Playing violin has been one of her favorite outlets. She has played at venues including The Pageant, The America’s Center and Powell Symphony Hall. She also promotes for the Fox Theatre and Steve Littman presents. Bell was awarded for her outstanding contributions to the community in Arts & Entertainment 2016 (Harris Stowe) and 2018 (Made Moguls). In 2019 she was awarded with the Pursuing Purpose Award (My Secrets Purpose).
Bell started a summer program to teach children art, music, creative writing and Entrepreneurship in 2016. The Create Camp is her most esteemed accomplishment as it was well received and sponsored by Ameren and the City of St. Louis. She is an awesome creative who loves to share her gift and encourage others to do the same.
2022 Entertainment
Anita Jackson
with Phil Graves, keys; Jordan Brewer, bass; Demarious Hicks, drums
Anita Jackson is a native of St. Louis, Missouri who has performed extensively nationally and internationally in theater productions, concerts and workshops. She has recorded and performed as a background vocalist for several Grammy Awards winning artists in the music industry.
In St. Louis, Anita has been a featured player with the St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre. She has performed as a featured player in "Gospel at Colonus", "Ain't Misbehavin'", “Crowns”, as Caroline in "Caroline or Change" and as the Lady in "Blues in the Night” for which she was nominated for a St. Louis Kevin Kline Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Recently, she performed the role of Grandma Dorothy in the new film “A New Holiday”, a Christmas celebration based on the life of a young Thelma Steward, wife of Dave Steward of World Wide Technologies, directed by Brian Owens for Nine PBS.
Anita accepted a fellowship as a resident artist with the Kranzberg Arts Foundation (KAF) as a featured jazz performance and recording artist in 2018, releasing a jazz compilation EP with her fellow KAF artists-in-residence from the Dark Room series at the Grandel with her own original composition called “Your Time” written with Phillip Graves, Joshua Crump and Jeff Taylor.
CKDC
featuring a poem by Rachel Aaliyah Jackson
This company’s artists investigate many of the challenges we face in our society and use movement and performance to generate dialogue and action to address these systemic issues. Through their performances and through their organizational mission and vision, CKDC hopes to model how every person has the power to create change, even when it doesn’t seem possible. More importantly, they seek to continue using dance and performance arts as vehicles for community organizing, culture-shifting, and public activism. They believe that not only is dance a catalyst for life in motion, but that dance can cultivate change on a larger scale, impact business practices, and encourage community members of all backgrounds and experiences towards social action. Their performance piece “Division” centers themes of justice and power, and offers a vision for a more just and humane future.
Young poet Rachel Aaliyah Jackson’s poem “Division” examines the literal and figurative divides of race and class as symbolized by the Delmar divide. As a native St. Louisan, she states that she has grown up witnessing segregation and the poem is a call to embrace differences. Jackson is a student at Webster University majoring in Music and Audio Engineering. The recent graduate of Metro High School was a finalist in the Teen Talent Competition, held each year at the Fox Theatre. “I want people to hear my voice not just as a black woman, but as a daughter, a mental health advocate, a leader, and poet,” says Jackson.
2019 Entertainment
Feyza Eren
Internationally acclaimed jazz vocalist, Feyza Eren, returned to her hometown of St. Louis from Istanbul, in 2011, after spending 15 years singing jazz with Turkey’s finest musicians, including world-renowned saxophonist, Ricky Ford. In 2015, Feyza was featured in HEC-TV’s, I Love Jazz with Don Wolff. She performs at many notable venues, major jazz festivals and special events in and around St. Louis. She recently designed and performed a successful tribute project, “A Dozen Divas,” at the Sheldon Concert Hall. Since her return to St. Louis, Feyza celebrated the release of 7 CD’s with drummer/studio engineer, Steve Davis. As the Feyza Eren Quartet, she will be performing with Steve Davis on drums, Nick Schlueter on piano and Chris Turnbaugh on bass. This group is currently working on a new CD due for release by May 15th, 2019.
Ashley Tate
Ashley L. Tate is the founder, artistic director and lead choreographer of Ashleyliane Dance Company, based in St. Louis. Her work has been featured in choreographer’s showcases in New York City, Chicago,Illinois and Boulder, Colorado. She serves as a board member of the Missouri Dance Organization, and as a member of the National Dance Education Organization.
Ms. Tate is an adjunct instructor of dance at Washington University in St. Louis, and was previously chair of the dance department at Grand Center Arts Academy. She is currently pursuing a MFA in Dance at Washington University, and is a 2018 recipient of the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Fellowship for women in graduate study. She was recognized by the St. Louis Visionary Awards in 2008 in the Emerging Artist category.
2018 Entertainment
Kim Massie
Kim Massie is one of the most recognizable vocalists in the Midwest. Her ability to sing not only the blues but rock, pop, country, gospel and R&B has earned her two Best Female Vocalist of the Year Awards from the Riverfront Times as well as the Grand Center Visionary Award in 2005. Kim made her television debut in 2016 covering “I Finally Forgot Your Name” by Long Tall Deb during the season premiere of Good Behavior on TNT.
This proud grandmother of six has shared the stage with artists such as Cyndi Lauper, India Arie, Nelly, and Chuck Berry. Kim has performed for organizations such as Major League Baseball, Purina, Boeing, and at esteemed venues and events such as the Missouri History Museum, Big Muddy Blues Festival, Fenton Days Festival, Peacefest, Pride Fest, Davenport Blues Festival, Emerald City Blues Festival, and the Blues Rising Festival. When Kim is not on tour or playing premier events she can be found with her band, the Solid Senders, at her favorite venue and Saint Louis blues mainstay, Beale on Broadway.
Circus Harmony's St. Louis Arches
The St. Louis Arches are the premier youth performance troupe from Circus Harmony, St. Louis’ only complete circus school and social circus organization. Circus Harmony uses the teaching and performing of circus arts to motivate social change. The Arches are currently comprised of young people 13 to 22 years old from throughout the St. Louis area. These acclaimed and accomplished young people appear year-round in their ’home ring’ at City Museum as well as at events throughout St. Louis and beyond. The Arches perform a wide variety of circus arts including acrobatic, aerial, juggling, and balancing feats of skill and daring. In 2007, the Arches started their first Peace Through Pyramids partnership with a Jewish/Arab youth circus in Israel. This summer, the St. Louis Arches are excited to be forming a new partnership with the Social Circus Program of the National Circus School of Puerto Rico!
2017 Entertainment
CHRISTINE BREWER
Brewer, named one of the top 20 sopranos of all time (BBC Music), is highly regarded for her striking portrayal of the title role in Srauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, which she has performed with the Metropolitan Opera, Opera de Lyon, Theatre du Chatelet, Santa Fe Opera, English National Opera, and Opera Theatre of St. Louis. She created the role of Sister Aloysius in the world premier of Doug Cuomo’s opera Doubt with the Minnesota Opera in 2013, a role that was performed by Meryl Streep in the film version of the story. She reprised the role in August 2016 with the Union Avenue Opera in Louis.
Brewer has worked with many of today’s most notable conductors, including Sir Colin Davis, David Robertson, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Sir Charles Mackerras, and Sir Simon Rattle, to name a few, and has made over 25 recordings. She continues her work with the Marissa, Illinois 6th graders in a program called Opera-tunities, which is now in its 13th year. She also works with the voice students at Webster University, and will be doing a weeklong residency this month on African-American composers. The residency will culminate in a recital with the students and Brewer.
LINDA KENNEDY
Kennedy, an artistic associate with The Black Rep, has worked both on and off stage with the company for more than 30 years. She most recently appeared in the company’s Seven Guitars by August Wilson and the New Jewish Theatre’s production of Intimate Apparel. Other credits include The Glass Menagerie, Windmill Baby, Marijah’s Pictures, Helver’s Night and Blood Wedding (Upstream Theater), Agnes of God (Avalon Theatre), The Gin Game (Actor’s Studio).
Her directing credits include, Clybourne Park (Stephens College), Crumbs from the Table of Joy (Mustard Seed Theatre), I'm Not Rappaport (The New Jewish Theatre) and The Mountaintop (The Black Rep), to name a few. In addition, Kennedy has performed several historical vignettes for the Missouri History Museum, and has taught theatre and dance to youth and adults. Kennedy has received numerous accolades for her work including the Go List Best Actress Award, the Missouri Arts Individual Artist Award, the Griot Award from the Griot Museum and, in 2012, the Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award from the Arts and Education Council. Kennedy is also a former Visionary Award recipient.
2016 Entertainment
Karin Bliznik
Karin Bliznik, from Brockton, Massachusetts, joined the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra as Principal Trumpet in September 2013. Prior to joining the SLSO, Karin held the Associate Principal position in the Atlanta Symphony as well as Principal positions with the Santa Fe Opera, Charlotte Symphony, and the Charleston Symphony. Karin received her Master of Music degree from Northwestern University and her Bachelor of Music Degree from Boston University.
As a returning faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival, Karin spends several weeks of her summer teaching and performing in a number of the festival's orchestras. Continuing the classical music tradition by educating the next generation is a life-long goal. This summer, Karin is very excited to coach the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America through Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute in New York City. She also serves as a brass coach of the Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra and with St. Louis' El Sistema "Orchestrating Diversity" program. In the past few years, Karin has been a featured performer and given masterclasses in the National Brass Symposium, the National Trumpet Competition, and the International Trumpet Guild Conference.
Festival appearances include Spoleto Charleston, Aspen, Eastern Music Festival, Pacific Music Festival in Japan, and the Lucerne Music Festival in Switzerland under the direction of Pierre Boulez. She also spent two summers as a Fellow at the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Tanglewood Music Center.
Karin Bliznik's performance at the 2016 St. Louis Visionary Awards was generously sponsored by Phoebe Dent Weil.
Alicia Graf Mack
Alicia Graf Mack is a former lead dancer of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She has also been a principal ballerina with Dance Theater of Harlem and Complexions Contemporary Ballet. Alicia has danced as a guest performer with Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, Beyonce, John Legend, Andre 3000 and most recently, Alicia Keys on the 2013 Set the World on Fire World Tour. In addition, she's appeared at many galas and festivals including the Youth America Grand Prix and the International Stars of the 21st Century. She has made national television appearances as a featured guest on Live with Kelly and Michael and The Tavis Smiley Show. Mrs. Mack graduated magna cum laude with honors in History from Columbia University and holds a MA in Nonprofit Management from Washington University in St. Louis. In 2007, Smithsonian Magazine named Alicia an American Innovator of the Arts and Sciences. Mrs. Mack is a recipient of the Columbia University Medal of Excellence, an award given each year to one alumnus who has demonstrated excellence in their field of work. In 2008, she had the honor of delivering the keynote address to the graduates of Columbia University's School of General Studies. Alicia is a gifted writer. She has contributed to some of the most prestigious national magazines in her industry; Dance Magazine, Pointe Magazine and Dance Spirit. Recently she wrote the historic cover story, "Beyond Role Models" for Pointe Magazine's June/July 2014 diversity issue featuring Ashley Murphy, Ebony Williams and Misty Copeland. She has also authored the forward of American Dance: The Complete Illustrated History by Margaret Fuhrer. After returning to St. Louis in 2014, she is now an instructor at Webster University and Washington University in St. Louis. Alicia Graf Mack is the Co-Founder of D(n)A Arts Collective, an initiative she created with her sister, Daisha, to empower young dancers.
Alicia Graf Mack's performance at the 2016 St. Louis Visionary Awards was generously sponsored by Dr. Donald Suggs.