"2 GENERATIONS 1 HEARTBEAT"

As the name implies, this series is a multi-generational collaboration, bringing together the members of Colored Ink with our elders in the Bay Area's progressive and highly diverse arts scene, including poets of SF's legendary Beat Generation. Each bi-monthly program in the series highlights a different issue affecting our community, such as homicides in our area, poverty, lack of opportunity, drugs and abuse.

The project also features one guest artist or activist of a generation before ours, who works with Colored Ink both onstage and behind the scenes. Our cabaret-style shows, which take place at the Brava Theatre Center, feature an original mix of hip hop theatre, poetry/spoken-word, call-and-response storytelling, dance, and singing with live music. Each event also includes a special "Open Insight" section, in which the audience members interact with the artists onstage-and in the process, become performers in their own right.

"RESURRECTED"

This is Colored Ink's 1 Act abbreviated version of its original play "The Streets have Spoken" entitled "Resurrected." The intent of this version is to do exactly what the name states "Waking Up The Living Dead." We are currently in talks to get a sponsored Bay Area High School tour of "Resurrected" dealing with the mental health issue of young people dealing with all of the violence that has been plaguing our Bay Area Communities.

Colored Ink is currently working with various arts & community based organizations across the nation to sponsor showings of Colored Ink's "The Streets Have Spoken" in their hometown theaters & community centers. Along with performing the play, we plan on coordinating smaller community events such as the ones we have done in the Bay Area like "Urban Healing."

"SLAMMING THE SYSTEM"

Imagine going to a poetry slam where the judges reflected the struggles in our communities, and the poets performing were competing to heal their hearts. Stop imagining and start being in the present. Colored Ink's latest project "Slamming the System" is a slam that is designed to do what most slams don't: which is to reach people.

With this event, people are not winning money for them-selves, but are winning $ for someone else. We are giving artists a chance to perform their work in front of the people they often refer to in their poems; families of murdered loved ones, men just getting out of prison, young women in group homes, Katrina Survivors, and so forth. So if you've been slammed by the system, then SLAM with us. TRUE POETRY 4 THE PEOPLE!