"Black love is complex, nuanced. Black love is- in some moments- the process of undoing many layers of harm, hate, and pain. It is also rooted in the comfort of the familiar, the movement of bodies. It is gestural. It is the thickness of our language, you can hear it. It is tastable, touchable, and loud yet it can also feel delicate and ephemeral." Eve Sanford is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and arts leader. Evelyn is a Chicago native whose connection to the city and memory drives much of the voice behind her work. She worked nearly 20 years teaching visual and performing arts for Chicago public and charter schools and various community centers, museums, and programs. Eve’s educational philosophy moves her to facilitate creative experiences that engage multi-generational students and viewers in the exploration of self, community, and purpose. As an artist, her work often takes the form of jewelry, photographs, paintings, curated experiences, events, set and costume design, and installations. She explores identity, vacancy, community, and healing through all its intersections with a primarily autobiographical lens. Eve is an alumna of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFAAE) and Seattle University (MFA). She currently serves as the Director of Programs for Pratt Fine Arts Center, Vice President of the Board of Directors for Shunpike. Eve is currently an artist in residence at the James and Janie Washington Foundation. Support Eve: Venmo: ejs246 cashapp $eveydoesit

"Black love looks like that photo of James Baldwin and Maya Angelou dancing; euphoric, delightful and free." Elisheba Johnson is a curator, public artist and administrator. Johnson, who has a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts, was the owner of Faire Gallery Café, a multi-use art space that held art exhibitions, music shows, poetry readings and creative gatherings. For six years Johnson worked at the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture on capacity building initiatives and racial equity in public art. Johnson is currently a member of the Americans for the Arts Emerging Leaders Network advisory council and has won four Americans for the Arts Public Art Year in Review Awards for her work. She currently co-manages Wa Na Wari, a Black art center in Seattle’s Central Area that uses the arts to build community and resist displacement. Cash App: $WaNaWari

"Black Love looks like radical inclusivity and radical non-judgmental." Arif Gursel is a serial and social entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience gained from a unique blend of professional experience. Gursel specializes in product development, technology strategy, and business model development equipped to lead initiatives & people toward common goals. He's most passionate about consumer behavior in the digital space and empowering resource poor communities through S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Arts and Media) education. His company VIBEHEAVY continues to serve as a startup lab where they create and spin out new brands, products, and services across multiple industry verticals with a specialty in entertainment, fashion, and hospitality. Similarly, his nonprofit Pan African Center for Empowerment, PACE follows an agile technology startup model focusing on improving the lives of people of African heritage across the globe.

Black love looks like: "Hope in the eyes of those who have been told they will never know love, yet experience it despite the world’s efforts." Brian J. Evans is a Citizen Artist, defined by the Aspen Institute Arts Program as: Individuals who reimagine the traditional notions of art-making, and who contribute to society either through the transformative power of their artistic abilities, or through proactive social engagement with the arts in realms including education, community building, diplomacy and healthcare. Mixing disciplines, mixing professions, and of mixed race, Brian J. Evans unpacks the “moments of suspension” that reside in the spaces between spaces. Convinced that connections exist between us all and it is the responsibility of the Arts to remind us to be holistically human, lest we forget. Courageous vulnerability and intentional equity keeps him aloft as he finds ways to give back and add to the communities, mentors, and ancestors who blazed trails and continue to do so! Evans is a recipient of a 2015 McKnight Dance Fellowship, administered by The Cowles Center and funded by The McKnight Foundation. A former decade long principal dancer and musical director for Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater, Evans believes it is the responsibility of the Arts to rediscover existing connections within humanity. He has a MFA from the University of Washington (UW) Seattle Campus and was awarded the Howard P. Dallas Endowed Fellowship for his service on the UW dance department’s newly founded diversity community and serves as a liaison on the Divisional Arts Diversity Committee. His next adventure includes a tenure-track professorship in the Theater and Dance department at Bates College in Lewiston, ME. www.brianjevans.org Watch Brian's latest work, LOPsided, on CD Forum TV.

"Black Love looks like loving yourself first.  Loving your spirit, your voice, your talents, your skin, your discernment, your strength, your vulnerability.  Black Love is seeing yourself as valuable and loveable." Shaunyce Omar is a film and stage actor based in Seattle, Wa. In addition to performing, Omar is a teaching artist and has taught in both public and private schools, arts organizations and overseas as a Master Sensei of Gospel Music in Japan.  She holds a B.A degree in Theatre from Southern University and A&M College. Support Shaunyce: Cashapp: $NyceSomar Venmo: @ShaunyceOmar

"Black love looks like Sunday dinner at mom's! Black love is the tightest hugs from your thicker older Black grandparents, parents, aunties and elder cousins! It looks and feels like family reunions with the old folx doin a little bit too much, and frankly, I'm them old folx now! It's smooth and buttery, is well seasoned, and doesn't ask me to make myself small for no one else to feel good. Black love looks like what it felt like to watch the Black aunties on the Verzuz battle- histories and togetherness and dancin when the jam comes on, and remembering what it was like to (fill in the blank) and somebody else gets it, sees it and feels it! And Black love is bigger and better than everything. Yeah, I said that!" Seattle soul singer, emcee, teacher, Rain City Rock Camp Adult Program Director, “Westminster Daddy” and Black auntie, Adra Boo, walks through walls. While some in the age look to construct boxes for others, Boo flouts these efforts, working to inspire through interconnectivity, sacrifice and, of course, a touch of sweetness. Adra performs as part of new wave noir band Hotels, Simone Pin Productions and Dark Diamonds Burlesque, indie-soul duo Fly Moon Royalty, and as a solo artist, sharing stages with internationally known musicians and burlesque performers across the country. A veteran performer on myriad stages, Boo has been compared to timeless musicians like Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner, unafraid to ruffle feathers or rouse would-be audiences. And while all of these efforts cause her to stand out in the city, it’s her work as an artistic liaison that has made her a local legend. The real question is what hasn't Adra Boo done?! Support Adra Boo: paypal.me/adraboo Venmo: @adraboo Cashapp: $adraboo

"Black Love looks like: Finding peace in yourself, knowing you don’t have to conform to fit a box someone else created of Black love or Blackness, loving all of yourself, self-acceptance,  being ok with what makes you different from your partner(s), and Anything a Black person wants and needs it to look like." In their conversation, Dani and Majinn cover the topics: University of Washington, Tacoma, street dance, and being creative. About the artist: “Majinn" Mike O'Neal (He/They). is a queer mixed Black movement artist and educator who utilizes their training in multiple dance forms to find and express their whole self. Majinn works to help guide people in  becoming more confident and connected in their bodies, express themselves and be able to speak their voices through Black social dance forms. Majiinn is always aiming to learn and grow and to give back to and support the communities they come from in any way they can. You can find Majinn on Instagram @majinn_mike and Youtube: youtube.com/MajinnMike.

Dani and guest Quynn Johnson talk Mom's creativity, Lucky's Tap Dancing Feet, and being a teaching artist. What does Black love look like? "This is a hard question to answer because for me it looks like many things. For me it looks like long walks in the city talking about life and God, it looks like cuddling on the couch watching reruns of A Different World, it looks like a focused meeting of minds to build an empire. Dancing to Earth, Wind, and Fire or a quick slap on the but as I walk across the room. It looks like transparent conversations while cooking. Walks with friends to discuss life and venting to a listening ear. Meetups with the homies to catch and crack jokes. This list could go on, but I hope it paints a picture of not only Black love in relationships but friendships as well." About Quynn Johnson: Quynn Johnson, a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., and native of Flint, Michigan, is an award-winning performing, teaching artist and author. She has toured as the tap soloist in the Tony Award-winning production After Midnight (NCL) and performed both nationally and internationally. Highlights include featured 2020 recipient of the Kennedy Center Local Dance Commissioning Project, soloist in the Washington Ballet production of The Great Gatsby, Cirque du Soleil’s Mosaic production, the Festival Folclórico del Pacífico and in Buenaventura and Cali, Colombia and has toured Peru as part of the Festival Internacional de Cajón Peruano. Quynn is the co-creator of the D.C.-based percussive dance company SOLE Defined with Ryan Johnson. A National Credential Residency Teaching Artist with Young Audiences and a Wolf Trap TA, in 2014 and 2017, she won the Individual Artist Award for Dance Choreography (MSAC). As a teaching artist, Quynn has reached over 9,500 youth from pre-k through 12th grade with assemblies, residencies, and workshops. Her arts-integrated residencies bridge tap dance with literacy, math, Social-Emotional Learning. In 2011, Quynn became a self-published author with her children’s book, Lucky’s Tap Dancing Feet. About CD Forum: The CD Forum is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to present and produce Black cultural programs that encourage thought and debate for the greater Seattle area. Our vision is to inspire new thoughts and challenge assumptions about Black Culture.

Skin I’m In LLC in partnership with CD Forum for Arts & Ideas present the second part of a two-part series of Intimate Conversations | Special Topic  The Whitening of African Dance, Part 2 Saturday, October 17, 2020 at 3PM PDT (6PM EDT) Conversation will be live streamed on CD Forum's Facebook, YouTube & Twitch pages  This panel discussion co-moderated by Dani Tirrell & Lakema Bell, is the second conversation looking into black women experiences in the African Dance community locally and globally. A conversation around the gradual to almost sudden take over of black spaces by the dominate culture. A time to acknowledge and begin healing from trauma induced experiences. A SOUL FILLED conversation for us by us.   Panelists include Muisi-kongo Malonga, Dr. Orisade I. Awodola, Makeda Ebube, and Sumayaa Diop.   For panelist bios and more information please visit:  https://www.cdforum.org/post/intimate-conversations-special-topic-the-whitening-of-african-dance-part-2 About CD Forum: The CD Forum is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to present and produce Black cultural programs that encourage thought and debate for the greater Seattle area. Our vision is to inspire new thoughts and challenge assumptions about Black Culture.

"Black love looks like family, in all its many guises. Ancestral, by blood, found family. It looks like embodied culture…. and discovered culture. Sometimes we find and find out about lineage later than expected or desired. It doesn’t make it any less real or desired. Black love FEELS like comfort. It’s in our food, our style, our language. It looks like self love, self acceptance, self possession. It looks like bonds not bondage." Educator and choreographer Melanie George is Dani Tirrell's guest on #IntimateConversations this week. The two talk about hair, Jazz and loving your 40s, and Dani asks Dani's favorite question, "What is your Joy?" Support Melanie through Venmo: @Melanie-George-7 About Melanie George: Melanie George is an educator, dramaturg, choreographer, and scholar. She is the founder of Jazz Is… Dance Project and an Associate Curator and Scholar-in-Residence at Jacob’s Pillow. As a dramaturg, she has contributed to projects by Urban Bush Women, Raja Feather Kelly, Susan Marshall & Company, and Ephrat Asherie Dance, among others. A highly sought after teacher and choreographer of the neo-jazz aesthetic, Melanie is a featured contributor and consultant for the documentary UpRooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance.  Publications include “Jazz Dance, Pop Culture, and the Music Video Era” in Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches (University Press of Florida) and “Imbed/In Bed: Two Perspectives on Dance and Collaboration” for Working Together in Qualitative Research (Sense Publishers). Melanie also works as an arts consultant, applying her expertise in scholarship and education to assist artists and arts organizations in articulating language and facilitating the development of creative work. In addition to her work with independent choreographers and dance educators, Melanie has provided professional services to The Joyce Theatre, The Guggenheim Museum, and BAM, among others. She is the former director of the dance program at American University, and has held teaching positions at Kent State University and Wilson College. Currently, she is a Visiting Professor at Cornish College of Arts in Seattle, Washington. About CD Forum: The CD Forum is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to present and produce Black cultural programs that encourage thought and debate for the greater Seattle area. Our vision is to inspire new thoughts and challenge assumptions about Black Culture.