Word
Performances
Performances
Word Performances is a series of poetry, fiction, comedy, memoir, and jazz..
Produced and Curated by
Cybele Zufolo Siegel & Todd Siegel
We have special array of talent with comedians Karinda Dobbins and Zahra Noorbakhsh, and writers Matthew James DeCoster, Zarina Zabrisky, Doug Cordell, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Andrew Dugas,
Cybele Zufolo Siegel and Todd Siegel
Special operatic jazz performance by
Nikola Printz
Suggested ticket price: $14
(to cover costs)
Karinda Dobbins
Motor City native Karinda Dobbins was born into a politically active family of gifted storytellers and sharp wits. Her worldview was shaped by their accounts of protest, civil rights and empowerment, weighty subjects that were always leavened with humor. Whenever she heard the grownups laughing long past her bedtime, she took that as her cue to sneak out of her room and eavesdrop while they entertained themselves with Richard Pryor records. She not only listened, she learned, developing a relaxed style for delivering pungent commentary.
Responding to a dare from a girlfriend who challenged her to try making the crowd laugh at an open mic, Karinda finally took the stage at Woody’s Café in Oakland, and killed. Sure, she tried to fill the seats with supportive family and friends, and true, she had no competition since nobody else had signed up for stage time, but everybody, from the show’s host to strangers in the audience, was amazed that she was able to do 15 funny minutes of stand-up material her first time onstage.
Doug Cordell is an Emmy-nominated writer and a radio essayist for NPR’s Snap Judgment and APM’s Marketplace. His work was recently published in Pieces of a Decade: Brooklyn Rail Nonfiction, 2000-2010. He has been a featured reader and solo performer on both coasts, including at the Berkeley Marsh Theater, the HERE Arts Center (NYC), and the Hotel Café (Hollywood). In April 2013 he will be performing at the San Francisco Marsh Theater.
Young Mezzo soprano Nikola Printz is an emerging singer-actress in the Bay Area. Upcoming engagements include Cherubino in Nozze di Figaro with opera on tap, Mistress Dame Quickly in Verdis Falstaff with BASOTI, and next spring she will be singing the title role of Carmen with Verismo opera. She has also been honored with the acceptance into the Hanyu Vocal academy's program "I Sing Beijing" where she will be singing with orchestras in China this coming summer. Recent productions include The Witch in Sondheim's Into the Woods and Polinesso in Handel’s Ariodante with the San Francisco Conservatory Baroque Orchestra in early spring of 2013. In June of 2013 She will be premiering the role Artemisia in Dante DeSilva's Castle Gesualdo with Opera Parallel under the baton of Nicole Paiement. She has recently appeared as Dorabella in Mozart's Cos í fan tutte at the Berkeley Piano Club, and La Ciesca in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. Nikola is also a cabaret singer, she performs regularly at jazz clubs such as Yoshi's and Viracocha lounge with duo partner Ramon Fermin. Nikola studies with Patricia Craig at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Matthew James DeCoster
Matthew James DeCoster has been published in sPARKLE & bLINK, fullofcrow.com and the SFWire. He's been a featured writer at: Quiet Lightning, Anger Management, Clattering Loom, Inside Storytime, Portuguese Artists Colony, BANG OUT and Litquake. Matthew is a Production Assistant at Literary Death Match and served on the editorial staff of Fourteen Hills. He currently serves on the Litquake Executive Board. Matthew curates and hosts Write On! which will return to Litquake in October 2013. He helped create Lit Camp, which will return in May 2014. Matthew lives in the Castro with his partner of 19 years, Matthew Carhart, and is working on his first novel, "The House of Worth."
Lorna Dee Cervantes
is an award-winning Chicana, Native American(Chumash), feminist, activist poet who is considered one of the major Chicana poets of the past 40 years. She has been described by Alurista as "probably the best Chicana poet active today." Lorna Dee Cervantes was an associate professor at the University of Coloradoat Boulder until 2007. She considers herself "a Chicana writer, a feminist writer, a political writer". Her collections ofpoetry, Emplumada, From the Cable of Genocide, Drive: The First Quartet and Ciento: 100, 100-Word Love Poems are held in high esteem and have attracted numerous nominations and awards. She is currently the Regents Lecturer at UC Berkeley, California for the 2011/12 year.
is an award-winning Chicana, Native American(Chumash), feminist, activist poet who is considered one of the major Chicana poets of the past 40 years. She has been described by Alurista as "probably the best Chicana poet active today." Lorna Dee Cervantes was an associate professor at the University of Coloradoat Boulder until 2007. She considers herself "a Chicana writer, a feminist writer, a political writer". Her collections ofpoetry, Emplumada, From the Cable of Genocide, Drive: The First Quartet and Ciento: 100, 100-Word Love Poems are held in high esteem and have attracted numerous nominations and awards. She is currently the Regents Lecturer at UC Berkeley, California for the 2011/12 year.
Cybele's poetry and writing was recently chosen for the Quiet Lightening Reading Series. Cybele was an Adjunct Instructor of Literature and Poetry at the City University of New York's Borough of Manhattan Community College since 2006, and Adjunct Instuctor of English at the New York Institute of Technology since 2007. Cybele is a grant recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her essay on teaching Shakespeare to college students "The Bard at BMCC" was published in the Borough of Manhattan Community College Faculty Journal Inquirer in 2009. Cybele has a Masters Degree in English Education from Columbia University Teachers College and a BA Degree in English/American Literature from UC Santa Cruz. Cybele grew up in Park Slope Booklyn and Manhattan. She studied ballet at the School of American Ballet. Cybele was a dancer with the New York City Ballet Co. for seven years as a youth. She danced in Japan and in off-Broadway plays. Cybele and her amazing husband Todd Siegel are the founders of the Word Performances reading series. Cybele is thrilled to be working with such a talented and accomplished group of writers.
Writer, performer and comedian—recently debuted her one-woman show, “All Athiests Are Muslim” to sold out audiences. She’s performed at the SF Theatre Festival, the Solo Performance Workshop Festival, and is one-third of the troupe DISoriented, a trio of Asian-American performers, touring, nationwide. She was a finalist in the Aspen National Rooftop College Comedy Competition and has performed with international acts, Maz Jobrani (Axis of Evil), and Shazia Mirza (Last Comic Standing).
Zarina Zabrisky
Zarina Zabrisky is the author of IRON (Epic Rites Press), a short story collection, and a novel We, Monsters (forthcoming in 2013 from Numina Press). Zabrisky's work appeared in over twenty literary magazines and anthologies in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Hong Kong and Nepal. She has received three Pushcart Prize nominations, editor nomination for the 2012 Million Writers Award, and honorable mention for the New Millennium Writings. She is a finalist in The Normal School's Prize in Fiction, 2012 (judge Amy Hempel), and a recipient of 2013 Acker Award.
Andrew O. Dugas
Andrew Dugas's fiction has appeared in Mixer, Fiction365, LITNIMAGE, Instant City, and many other places. His San Francisco novel "Sleepwalking in Paradise" is forthcoming from _____________ in late 2013. If you send him your address, he'll mail you an actual postcard with an original haiku. www.haikuandy.com.
Andrew Dugas's fiction has appeared in Mixer, Fiction365, LITNIMAGE, Instant City, and many other places. His San Francisco novel "Sleepwalking in Paradise" is forthcoming from _____________ in late 2013. If you send him your address, he'll mail you an actual postcard with an original haiku. www.haikuandy.com.
Todd Siegel
Todd is highly playful with language, writing live poetry within text messages and simply cannot stop himself from perpetual phrase turning while wandering with friends & his infinitely lovely wife, Cybele - with whom he co-produced this Word Performance series.. In perpendicular, he's been designing user experiences, most recently with Tempo AI, all while relentlessly endeavoring to innovate merch solutions to drive more revenue to music artists with Merchluv.
Performers from the February show