We are a hip hop theatrical group, composed primarily of young adults of color from urban neighborhoods of the San Francisco Bay Area. Our group was founded by graduates of the Brava Theater Academy (the educational wing of the non-profit theater institution Brava! For Women in the Arts.) By combining our theatrical skills with the hip hop culture, we began to create new forms of artistic expression in live performance.

OUR MISSION

Colored Ink's goal is to make outstanding, exciting, and innovative art from our own life experiences, celebrating our urban culture while challenging the inequalities we have witnessed and experienced. Some of our most important work takes place away from the typical theater stage. Colored Ink is deeply immersed in the Bay Area community, doing outreach performances, workshops, and other events in schools, shelters, jails, group homes, recreation centers, and right on the block. Colored Ink will be on tour for the 2007 performance season, showcasing our three popular programs: Two Generations One Heartbeat, Slamming The System, and Ressurrected.

We also collaborate regularly with other artistic and non-artistic community organizations, including Brava, Lovelife Foundation, Let's Get Free, Hardknock Radio, and ONE. Through this outreach work, we expose new audiences to our work, promote further discussion and action on the crucial issues in our community, and introduce a new generation of Bay Area youth to the power (and self-empowerment) of making art.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Colored Ink has set some clear boundaries around our organization and how the dynamics work to better inform those who wish to work with us in the future.
Colored Ink: This is base of the organization where everything starts.
Colored Ink Productions: This is where productions, co productions, & development of artists begin.
Community Ink: This is where our community based projects run through, including after school programs.

COLORED INK PRODUCTIONS

Colored Ink has created performance divisions within our organization. It has been our mistake in past in trying to encourage artists to wear one too many hats at once. For example, an artist would sign up for a Colored Ink Production, but then would want to do all of the outreach events and get burned out. So now when artists come in to the Colored Ink family, they will have a menu to choose from based on what they can bring to the table. Here are the following divisions:

Adult Company: This is the most seasoned and mature performance company of CI that consists of Artists 21-up. All artists in this collective will be multi-dimensional in their art forms. The adult company will be mostly focusing on in house productions. They are the "NO BS ZONE."

Youth Company: These are the young warriors in the training for CI. This group consists of our most talented young people ages 10-20 that have a serious gift and a serious mindset. This company will perform & create work that reflects the issues of their time. NOW.

Touring Company: These are the Navy Seals of the CI Camp; the best of the Youth & Adults combined. This group's mission is tour work that has been created in the CI Camp. This includes plays we've done or music we've created. They go here, there, & EVERYWHERE.

Farm League: Before any artist gets to enter any of our companies, they must participate in a serious of developmental workshops where CI Staff can monitor behavior and talent. If we feel they need to take a step up, they will. If not, the Farm League will be a place to hone their gift.

DAMI2T Youth Dance Company: One Friday out of the Month, Colored Ink will be hosting a Freestyle Jam session called "Jam on it" where dancers or beginners from all across the city will come to develop new routines, compete, or just freestyle dance. Through class, Colored Ink will scout out the best youth dancers and develop a Youth Drama Dance Company entitled "DAMI2T: Dance Art Music Intertwined In2 Theater." DAMI2T will be one of the new youth faces of Colored Ink in outreach performances.

COMMUNITY INK

Here are a few of the workshops that Colored Ink conducts in various high schools, colleges, group homes, and so forth. Pricing on workshops are available upon requests.

DO THE MATH: An outreach workshop that is done in after school programs for youth to add up all the ills in their community and reported back through Spoken Word, Hip-Hop, & Theater.

"I AM": A youth led workshop geared for young women of Color where CI youth use performance to raise self esteem by using the phrase "I AM" as a reminder of ones inner strength.

HIP-HOP THEATER THROUGH THE SPEAKERS: This workshop is for people who want to learn the fundamentals of hip hop theater, as well as community building and the creative and artistic exploration of bridging social issues with theatrical performance.

PEN 2 PAPER: Taught by Javier Reyes. This is a comprehensive writing workshop whose content deals with writing theater pieces based on relevant community social and political issues. The goal of this workshop is to write and create full-length plays that will be produced by Colored Ink in the Future. These plays will contain elements of Hip-Hop, Spoken Word, Dance, and Song.