Electronic music-based nonprofit Give a Beat launched the Prison Electronic Music Program in two California correctional facilities in July 2019 as part of a contract awarded by California Arts Council’s Arts in Corrections (AIC) program. The goal of Give a Beat’s year-long program—which focuses on the fundamentals of DJing and beat production—is to help students develop their own sound expressions and technical acumen while also learning business development and music history. It is designed to help students return to the workforce with valuable technical, social, and entrepreneurial skills. Led by passionate DJs and music producers, currently the course is being taught at California City Correctional Facility (CAC) and Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP). This first Prison Electronic Music Program will run through June 2020. It is Give a Beat’s most expansive and long-term music production offering/course to date.

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LOS ANGELES, CA – Coin & Ghost in association with Vs. Theatre Company present the World premiere of Love Is Another Country, a radical reimagining of Sophocles’s Antigone at Vs. Theatre in Los Angeles from Friday, February 1 through Saturday, March 2, 2019. The third production of Coin & Ghost’s inaugural season, Love Is Another Country is a new play written by the prolific Bay Area theatre artist Lisa Marie Rollins and her first full-length work to be produced in Los Angeles. Directed by Kendall Johnson, the production brings together the ancient tale of Antigone with the deaths of innumerable black men and women at the hands of police. Part ritual, part rage, part collective ask to the audience, the play follows three women of the Chapman family as they navigate living as black women in a country that claims to love them. Read the rest of this entry »

Give a Beat is proud to announce A Positive Spin: Remixed, the new non-profit organization’s global launch event in Downtown Los Angeles, on Saturday, October 24, 2015. The inspirational event starts with a daytime electronic music production/DJing workshop for youth from 3:00pm to 6:00pm at Impact HUB LA. Scratch DJ Academy will provide gear and instructors for the workshop. The main event will follow, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, featuring performances by Pleasuremaker (aka Joey McGuire) of Afrolicious with the legendary Sandra Izsadore (the Queen Mother of Afrobeat) and Gabriel ‘Gato’ Ferrer on percussion. Alex Simpson, the Associate Director of California Innocence Project, and exonerated football player Brian Banks will also make moving presentations. Moving to nearby Pattern Bar, A Positive Spin: Remixed will culminate with an after-party from 9:00pm to 2:00am, featuring DJ Garth, Wiseacre,Tamara, Sascha Lahti, and more. Read the rest of this entry »

Give a Beat is proud to announce A Positive Spin: Remixed, the new California-based 501c3 non-profit organization’s global launch event in Downtown Los Angeles, on Saturday, October 24, 2015. The inspirational event starts with a daytime electronic music production/DJing workshop for youth from 3:00pm to 6:00pm at Impact HUB LA. Scratch DJ Academy will provide gear and instructors for the workshop. The main event will follow, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, featuring performances by Joey McGuire of Afrolicious with the legendary Sandra Izsadore and Gato on percussion. Alex Simpson, the Associate Director of California Innocence Project, and exonerated football player Brian Banks will also make presentations. Moving to nearby Pattern Bar, A Positive Spin: Remixed will culminate with an after-party from 9:00pm to 2:00am, featuring DJ Garth, Wiseacre, and more.

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The Persian Arts Society is proud to present The Scarlet Stone, a multidisciplinary and collaborative music/dance/animation work that merges expressive modern aesthetics with Persian traditions at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Saturday, August 29, 2015. Created by Shahrokh Yadegari, in collaboration with Shahrokh Moshkin Ghalam, this profound cultural experience is based on the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi and the last work of Siavash Kasrai, Moher-ye Sorkh (The Scarlet Stone). The work uses a contemporary rendition of ancient Persian mythology by Ferdowsi and Kasrai to portray the current struggle of the people of Iran. Read the rest of this entry »

Whittier Time Bank has joined with Catalyst Network of Communities, a 501c3 nonprofit social impact organization. Both organizations share common goals in achieving positive change through social justice, sustainability, and community-building initiatives. In recent years, Whittier Time Bank has expanded into a variety of activities beyond its core neighborly skill-sharing time bank project. These projects, which include skill building workshops, local food projects, a community newsletter, leadership training, and the Whittier Free Store (coming Summer 2015), are now initiatives under the Catalyst umbrella. This move, where the two organizations have combined forces, is part of a bigger trend throughout the region, where small like-minded community initiatives are growing stronger by collaborating and connecting with each other.  Read the rest of this entry »

She served the Earth, and she was fun.  With great sadness, we announce the death of our beloved friend Rachel Rosenthal [1926-2015]. Based in Los Angeles since the 1950s, Rosenthal was an interdisciplinary art pioneer, performer, teacher, animal-rights activist, and cultural icon. She passed peacefully on Sunday night, May 10, 2015, at 7:00pm, due to complications from congestive heart failure, surrounded by her Rachel Rosenthal Company family. Read the rest of this entry »

As angry protestors across the country demand an end to police brutality, nationally syndicated African-American cartoonist Keith Knight has increasingly become a sought-after speaker on U.S. race relations, a frequent topic in his storytelling cartoons. Knight, the creator of three comic strips, The Knight Life, The K Chronicles, and (th)ink, is scheduled for a number of U.S. speaking engagements in 2015, including a special guest presentation on police brutality at the inaugural Black Comix Arts Festival in January and a civil rights panel discussion at the California School Library Association Conference in February. In his provocative speaking engagements, a unique blend of lecture, activism, and comedy, Knight addresses issues of race, politics, media, censorship, and the importance of social activism.  Read the rest of this entry »

Nationally syndicated African-American cartoonist Keith Knight has become a sought-after speaker on complex social and political situations through the perceptive and hilarious lens of his storytelling cartoons at college campuses, conventions, festivals, and fundraisers across the US and beyond. Knight has been tapped to tour five German universities, in November 2014, for a series of provocative comic strip slide show presentations, They Shoot Black People Don’t They?, on the topic of police brutality in the US. Knight is the creator of three comic strips, The Knight Life, The K Chronicles, and (th)ink. Read the rest of this entry »

Local creative organizer Wyatt Closs, visual street artist Patrick Martinez, and fashion photographer Colin Young-Wolff have joined forces in an artful call to action, Embrace Your Power, Embrace Our Communities, to promote voting in Los Angeles.  Particularly aimed at young people and disaffected communities who are apathetic about voting, the campaign centers on a neon artwork with text that urges passersby to “Embrace Your Power.” The sign, a whimsical play on neon palm reader signage, was positioned and documented in diverse communities around Los Angeles; the resulting images and videos are being distributed online through a variety of social media platforms to serve as a catalyst for political action.

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