“Say It Loud” This Friday!

We are a week away from my interactive performance and songwriting session called “Say It Loud” at Bloombars and I am excited about all the great art we will make as a community!  For those of you 1819 L Street NW with me, my name is Bomani Armah and I am an artist and edu-tainer based in the DC Metropolitan area.  For years I have been a strident support of community art, performing several times at Bloombars including several Watermelon Day celebrations that were extremely successful.  When I am not on stage as a poet, emcee or event host, I spend my time as a creative writing teacher working with a myriad of organizations ) including the all the public school districts in Maryland and DC, as well as organizations like the United Methodist Church, the Washington National Cathedral, and Words Beats & Life.. My specialty is taking a room full of students (from k throughout graduate school) and have them synthesize a shared experience or lesson into a song.  That is what we are going to be doing at Bloombars on this Friday September 19th!

After weeks of leading discussions and interacting with myf fiends, family and fans on social media, we’ve decided that the art that we could make that is most pertinent to the times would be about EMPATHY:

empathy – n. the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Whether it’s understanding the conflict in Palestine, the police brutality and civil unrest in Ferguson, the plight of those dealing with sectarian violence in Iraq, Syria and Iran, understanding domestic violence and our public dialogue about this issues, what the world seems to need is more empathy.  A heightened ability to “put yourself in someone’s shoes”.  That is what we hope to accomplish at our interactive multi-media workshop at Bloombars this Frdiay.  I am confident that we are going to learn more about ourselves, our community and sen a little something about writing and performing.   If you are interested in participating please check out event page on Facebook.
We will use this Facebook event forum to decide what is most interesting/important to write and rap about, then create art together as a community on the spot! Feel free to join in the conversations lead up to the event, and please make sure to come to Bloombars on September 19th at 7pm.  Come ready to clap, stomp your feet, dance a little bit, hug your neighbor, have constructive conversations about how to make our community a better place, and most importantly have fun! Bloombars is a non-profit organization that does not charge for it’s events, but will do have a suggested donation of $7 (or more). Please support Bloombars and the artists it promotes by donating! Click the eventbrite link and you can join in on this incredible event!