Youth Speaks’ Brave New Voices College Tour features the brightest college-aged performance poets and Spoken Word artists from across the United States. Reflecting the changing demographics of the country as reflected on the tongues of diverse youth, this performance will feature works that blend the performers’ expertise in Spoken Word, and desire to create theater that impels social change.

Each performer brandishes Hip Hop sensibility and an innate capacity for critical race theory. Those elements blended with technically and conceptually advanced writing, as well as culturally relevant performance styles, create the opuses of the Brave New Voices College Tour.

These poets don’t just write. They push a burgeoning future aesthetic of performance as pedagogy. They will break the fourth wall with intent and verve, interrogating the audience, and ultimately themselves. Featuring the youth voices of HBO’s Def Poetry. www.youthspeaks.org

Join friends and colleagues and meet first-time NCORE attendees on San Francisco Belle for a bay cruise, enjoy food and good company while celebrating NCORE’s 20th Anniversary.

The beautifully renovated Belle is the crown jewel of San Francisco Bay. Her presence on the bay will capture your imagination with its grandeur and style that is uniquely San Francisco.

IMPORTANT RECEPTION REGISTRATION INFORMATION: This event requires pre-registration and is limited to the first 1700 NCORE Participants. Registration for the Welcoming Reception/San Francisco Bay Cruise requires a small Reservation Fee of $10 to be paid with your conference registration (see registration form).

The San Francisco Belle is docked at Pier 3 which is easily accessible by trolley or taxi. NCORE can arrange Bus Transportation for you to and from the event for an additional fee of $10.

Depending on Space Availability, Guest, Spouse, Children and other Family Member can purchase a ticket for $95. Tickets will be available for purchase on-site at NCORE Registration area.

This program will help education professionals deepen students' individual understanding of pressing social issues, spark collective action and coalition building around those issues, and strengthen students' commitment to a more equal society—one that works for everyone. The presentation includes extensive excerpts from the new film WHAT'S RACE GOT TO DO WITH IT? followed by a discussion with our key advisor. The presentation/discussion will focus on strategies and contexts for using the film effectively and audience members will be invited to pose questions, give feedback, and share their own ideas with the presenters and other participants during an open question and answer period.

What's Race Got To Do With It? is a documentary that follows a diverse group of college students as they awkwardly but honestly probe each other's belwsiefs and assumptions about race. The film reveals the students' underlying fears, frustrations, misconceptions and confusion and as a result will help users "cut through" myths and rhetoric and spark more open, productive dialogue across racial lines. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with key participants (including the two facilitators highlighted in the film and student alumni), and an open conversation with audience members about strategies and suggestions for using the film as a teaching tool.

Prexy Nesbitt, Ph.D., Founder, Making the Road (a national consultancy on race and diversity issues), Seasoned Educator and Trainer; former Senior Program Officer, MacArthur Foundation; Author of Apartheid in Our Living Rooms: U.S. Foreign Policy and South Africa; and Faculty, Columbia College—Chicago, Illinois
Dave Stark, Leader, the "Diversity Dialogue"
Student Alums who participated in the group to share first hand their experiences.
California Newsreel www.newsreel.org

As seen on over seventy campuses, this comedy with the controversial name tells the real-life stories of three young men from different ethnic backgrounds who deconstruct the notion of race in America. Drama, hip hop, slam poetry, and stand-up comedy are intermingled to communicate the show’s overall message: “There’s only one race: the human race.” Along the way, N*W*C also addresses various themes and issues inherently tied to racism such as ethnic identity, racial slander, media representation, race, stereotyping, immigration, and inter-group conflict. www.nwclive.com ((includes articles about the show and artists biographical information)

From the award winning director of The Color of Fear, comes Lee Mun Wah’s long awaited documentary about nine women and men who begin an electrifying conversation about the pain and anguish that racism and sexism has had on their lives and families. A must see film for anyone who has ever wondered what it will take to end the violence and hatred overwhelming our country and the world. After viewing the film, there will be time for group processing with an emphasis on authentic communication. This is a truly unique opportunity to have an honest, intimate conversation about racism. Participants often find StirFry Seminars to be a challenging, yet ultimately rewarding learning experience. www.stirfryseminars.com

Lee Mun Wah is an internationally acclaimed diversity lecturer and trainer, filmmaker, community therapist, poet and educator. His films have won national awards for their social and emotional impact. The Color of Fear has become a classic diversity film. Now ten years after its release, it continues to be used in classrooms and corporations around the world. In 1995, Oprah Winfrey televised a one hour special on his life which was seen by over 15 million viewers.

Enjoy an evening of music and dance sponsored by the John D. O’Bryant National Think Tank for Black Professionals in Higher Education on Predominantly White Campuses (JDOTT)

JDOTT is a national association that has developed through the efforts of members of NCORE’s African American Networking Group.

A turbaned Sikh man is murdered on Sept. 15, 2001 by a man who calls himself a patriot. In the aftermath of 9/11, as grief turns into rage on American city streets, temples are burned, homes vandalized, people assaulted. Barely broadcast on airwaves, these stories travel by word-of-mouth to the far reaches of a small California farming town, compelling a college student to step beyond the familiar threshold of her life. Armed with only a camera, Valarie Kaur, a 20 year old Stanford student takes time away from college and journeys across the country to find out who counts as one of us in a world divided into us and them. She captures hundreds of stories never before told—stories of fear and unspeakable loss, but also of resilience and hope—until she finally finds the heart of America, halfway around the world, in the words of a widow. Five years in the making, "Divided We Fall" weaves expert analysis into a cross-country road trip that confronts the forces dividing Americans in times of crises.
http://www.dwf-film.com http://valariekaur.blogspot.com

Valarie Kaur will join Tommy Lee Woon, Dean of Multicutlural Life at Macalester College, to lead a workshop "Divided We Fall: Deep Community Dialogue Through Somatic Experiencing" to debrief the film and to share a method for transformative dialogue on Saturday, June 2—9:00–11:45 a.m.

Valarie Kaur is a twenty-five year old, third generation Sikh American from Fresno, California who attended Stanford University. She is a film maker, writer, and a graduate student at the Harvard Divinity School. Valarie wrote a senior honor's thesis on post-9/11 prejudice that won Stanford's Golden Medal in the Humanities in June 2003. In 2004, Valarie joined Award winning Sharat Raju to create "Divided We Fall" and New Moon Productions, LLC to professionally produce this film. The production company is named after Valarie's grandfather's village in Punjab.

A brilliant documentary and a must-see for all people who are interested in justice, spiritual growth and community making. It features the experiences of white women and men who have worked to gain insight into what it means to challenge notions of racism and white supremacy in the United States.

Shakti Butler, Ph.D., Executive Director, Producer/Director, The Way Home and Light in the Shadows, World Trust Educational Services, Inc.—Oakland, California www.world-trust.org

Produced and Directed by
Raymond Telles and Rick Tejada-Flores

What does it mean to be a U.S. Citizen when you’re a Pacific Islander? A Native American? Or an African American, Latino or Asian American? Going beyond the buzzwords of “multiculturalism” and “diversity,” RACE IS THE PLACE is a hip-hop, fast-moving documentary jam, where the political becomes personal. Using spoken word, song and just plain rants, a diverse group of performers and visual artists take on the topic of race in America.

Funny, angry and profound, RACE IS THE PLACE offers the perspectives of a wide group of artists, poets, rappers, performance artists and stand-up comedians from different backgrounds—Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and many with mixed backgrounds—on the often unspoken issue that has defined our country since its inception and continues to separate us: race. RACE IS THE PLACE is a one-hour jam that combines racially-slanted clips from old movies with interviews and performances that dare to examine one of the most emotionally explosive issues in American life, busting stereotypes by using humor and poetry to say things traditionally left unsaid. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/raceistheplace/

Inspired by the life of Dr. James Cameron, the only known survivor of a lynching in U.S. history, Ten Perfect takes us on a journey into the life of Jimmy “The Salmon” Solomon. Born and raised in the heart of northern Ku Klux Klan territory, Solomon revisits his earliest memories as a child growing up with his best friend, Tommy, who is white. As the two youths age and society demands their innocence, their troubled friendship comes to a screeching halt on a fateful night in August, 1938. Ten Perfect, a study in character transformation, is a tale that demonstrates the triumph of the human spirit and the healing powers of storytelling.

The play will be followed by discussion with the Director and Patrick Sims. To learn more about the life of Dr. James Cameron, please visit http://www.blackholocaustmuseum.org/founder.html

Patrick Sims—an actor, director and scholar—is a man of many talents. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Acting and Director of the Theatre for Cultural and Social Awareness (TCSA) program in the Department of Theatre & Drama at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before joining the faculty, Patrick was a company member of the prestigious Oregon Shakespeare Festival where he portrayed Burgundy in KING LEAR and Balthazaar in COMEDY OF ERRORS. Prior to his time in Oregon, Patrick was a Faculty Associate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where he served as a founding member and Artistic Director of the Human Experience Theatre (HET). TCSA and HET are interactive theatre-based training models that dramatize sensitive subject matters for universities, corporate and non-profit organizations in the United States. Patrick has helped train employees at Miller Brewing Company, Harley Davidson, Wisconsin Energies, WI State Department of Workforce Development, in addition to several institutions of higher education throughout the state of Wisconsin. Under Sims’ leadership, HET received critical acclaim as a UW-Milwaukee Cultures & Communities program and was selected as a featured presentation at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NCORE) in and 2003. On the stage, Sims is also an accomplished actor and playwright. His most recent credits include Doc Gibbs in Madison Repertory’s OUR TOWN; Neal in THE STORY at the Goodman and Milwaukee Repertory Theatre; Hippolytus in PHAEDRA; Jorge in EL OLOR DE POPCORN, a bilingual production in Spanish and English with the Professional Theatre Training Program; and Priam in THE GREEKS with the Shanghai Theatre Academy.