The Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI) and the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of the Arts welcomed writer, sociologist, poet, and professor Dr. Eve L. Ewing as Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence and featured performer for the 2023 Line Breaks Hip Hop Theater Festival.
The fourth and last in the academic year-long series, Ewing’s residency was from March 30–April 1, 2023 and included a public conversation with poet and UW–Madison faculty Paul Tran on Thursday, March 30, and feature and headline performances at the annual Line Breaks Hip Hop Theater Festival on Friday, March 31 and Saturday, April 1.
About the Artist
Dr. Eve L. Ewing is a sociologist of education and a writer from Chicago. She is the author of a book for young readers, Maya and the Robot, the poetry collection 1919, and the nonfiction work, Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side. Her first book, the poetry collection Electric Arches, received awards from the American Library Association and the Poetry Society of America, and was named one of the year’s best books by NPR and the Chicago Tribune. She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She also currently writes the Champions series for Marvel Comics, and previously wrote the acclaimed Ironheart series, as well as other projects. Ewing is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other venues. Currently she is working on her next book, Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism, which will be published by One World.
Guest Artists
Amanda Torres (AT) is a queer, Mexican-American writer, educator, and cultural organizer living in Massachusetts. AT has been performing and teaching writing for eighteen years throughout the Midwest and Northeast as well as the UK. The former program director of the Poetry Foundation’s National Incubator for Community Engaged Poets, as well as the co-founder and former director of MassLEAP, a youth literary organization in Boston, they are a designer and curator of justice-oriented, arts-based learning spaces. In the classroom, AT creates radical, imaginative, and care-centered labs for creativity, self-reflection, and the navigation of power with/in institutions & relationship. Their artistry is a lovingly made, and often collaborative, ofrenda to their ancestors and a belief in the strange and the tender. Their writing can be found in print in LatiNext, a Breakbeat Poetry Anthology and At Our Best: Building Youth-Adult Partnerships in Out-of-School Time Settings. AT received their M.Ed from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2021. They currently work as a freelance editor, curriculum developer, and teaching fellow at their alma mater and are working on a poetry manuscript in which they hope to write the people they love into the future.
Jamila Woods is a Chicago-bred singer-songwriter, educator, and award-winning poet whose inspirations include Gwendolyn Brooks and Toni Morrison. Following the 2016 release of her debut album HEAVN via Chicago label Closed Sessions, Jamila received critical acclaim for her singular genre-blending sound that is both rooted in soul and wholly modern. Her sophomore album LEGACY! LEGACY! was released via JagJaguwar Records in 2019. It features 12 tracks named after writers, thinkers, and visual artists who have influenced her life and work. As a touring artist, Jamila has shared stages with Corinne Bailey Rae, Rafael Saadiq, Common, Brittany Howard, and many others. A Pushcart Prize-winning poet, her work was featured in the Library of America anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song (2020). Jamila recently made her television debut, performing SULA (Paperback) on Colbert on January 6, 2021, and is currently conceptualizing her next album due out October 2023.
Nate Marshall is a writer, editor, and educator from Chicago. He is the award-winning author of two full-length books of poems, Finna and Wild Hundreds. He is an editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. He is also the author of the audio drama Bruh Rabbit & The Fantastic Telling of Remington Ellis, Esq. and co-author (with Eve L. Ewing) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. Marshall is an assistant professor in the creative writing program at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work has been published in Chicago Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere. Currently he is at work on a new book of poems and several other writing projects.
The March-April 2023 Interdisciplinary Arts Residencies was presented by the UW–Madison Division of the Arts with aryn kresol as program coordinator and by the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI) with Director Sofía Snow as residency lead.