Aretha Franklin Dance Tribute Opens BAAD!'s BlakTinX Festival

The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance kicks off its fall season with the BlakTinX Performance Series from October 19 to November 20, 2018. This annual multidisciplinary festival inaugurated in 2002 celebrates art and performance by Black, Latinx and artists of color. The festival's opening weekend features a dance tribute to the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. BAAD! is located in a neo gothic style building at 2474 Westchester Avenue. For tickets and information call 718-918-2110 or visit www.BAADBronx.org.

Friday & Saturday, October 19 & 20 at 8pm | $20, $15 (Students/Seniors)
RESPECT! A DANCE TRIBUTE TO Aretha Franklin
The Queen of Soul made us move, groove, and feel the spirit. We honor her legendary music career of more than six decades with a 2-day dance tribute featuring 16 choreographers. Each concert is presented like a gapless album with back to back music and performances.

Friday: Oluwadamilare Ayorinde, Italy Bianca, Cashel Campbell, Havanna Fisher, Gerard Minaya, Jason "Slim Ninja" Rodriguez, Mervin Acharo Smith, Janice Tomlinson and Miki Tuesday/International Affair.

Saturday: Jennifer Acosta, Megan Curet, Jessica Danser, Alfred Gallman, Jayden Higgs, Noele Philips, Kiran Rajagopalan and Vir-Amicus.

Sunday, October 21 at 7pm | Free
BLAQ & BAAD! SHOW
BLAQ and BAAD! is a new web show focused on queer culture of The Bronx. It's The View meets The Tonight Show with a (BAAD!) twist. A panel of LGBTQ members meet to discuss current events, culture, and creativity in our city with special performances by local QPOC in front of a live studio audience. Co-hosted by Rosaly Ruiz and Whitney Dav-Rho.

Friday, October 26 at 8pm | $20, $15 (students/seniors)

STRINGS AND THINGS
A music concert giving props to the strings section. Singer/songwriters, classical musicians, and rockers join the varied program covering genres of all types. Featuring The Dolly/Workman Project, Mel Greenwich, Ganessa James and Robin Tucker.

Saturday, October 27 at 7pm | Free
BAAD! HALLOWEEN: PARTY AND OPEN STAGE
BAAD! brings it on Halloween with costumes, dancing and artful fun. Doors open at 7pm, and everyone is invited to sing, dance, read or perform for the open stage beginning at 8:30pm, and MC'd by Appolonia Cruz. Come dance the night away.

Sunday, October 28 at 3pm | Free
PRESENTED BY BAAD! AND REIMAGINE
PERSISTENT VOICES/LAST GASP!
Persistent Voices takes its name from a poetry anthology highlighting work by writers lost to AIDS. Edited by Phillip Clark and David Groff, the book memorializes legendary poets of a generation. Prominent Bronx queer leaders from literature, social justice, and performing arts select and read works from the book and share personal stories and interpretations. Last Gasp!, created and performed by Laura Shapiro, uses mordant humor, talking as well as movement, video projections, and colorful costumes to consider personal end-of-life preparations within a perspective of possible planetary apocalypse and/or exhaustion. A discussion on end of life planning that affirms our lives and deaths are worthy of consideration will follow. BAAD! presents Persistent Voices as part of the Reimagine End of Life Event Series.

Thursday & Friday, November 1 & 2 at 8pm | $20, $15 (Students/Seniors)
PRESENTED BY PEPATIÁN & BAAD!
COLEMANCOLLECTIVE | FRUIT PUNCH
Live and recorded audio including the sounds of a school yard, recited statistics, dissonant statistics, and music by Outkast and Bambounou, incites Fruit Punch, a vibrant work depicting the ins and outs of bullying and how it translates to adulthood. The impetus for the work was a Bronx school stabbing in the fall of 2017. ColemanCollective is a multidisciplinary performing arts company, founded by Cain A. Coleman, Charisma Glasper and Matthew Perez.

Friday & Saturday, November 9 & 10 at 8pm | $20, $15 (Students/Seniors)
PRESENTED BY PEPATIÁN & BAAD!
KAYLA FARRISH | SPECTACLE
Spectacle is a film and live performance production imploding in the possibilities of love, and addressing torrential questions that can come with it. We follow a wild-spirited woman re-examining her sexuality, power, and trauma within society's placement of a female body, while challenging expectations that propel her to healing and freedom.

Friday & Saturday, November 16 & 17 at 8pm | $20, $15 (Students/Seniors)
PRESENTED BY PEPATIÁN & BAAD!
EBONY GOLDEN | wash'd//
A dance-based performance ritual, wash'd// explores both the violence of misogyny and the strength of sisterhood as they relate to women of color-past, present and future. The piece centers and celebrates the activism present during the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) that organized during the Civil Rights Movement. wash'd// is an embodied meditation on women's social and political power as a means to highlight sisterhood and its role in dismantling systems of patriarchy, heteronormativity, misogynoir as women and femmes unite and organize for social transformation.

BAAD!/AATT receive support from The Ford Foundation, The SHS Foundation, The NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, The Howard Gilman Foundation, The Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The New York State Council on the Arts, The Jerome Foundation, Councilmember Mark Gjonaj, Jody and John Arnhold, OVATION Stand for the Arts and private donations.