Live Arts In Resistance
Ancestral Knowledge, Art and Resistance

We are excited to partner with Eastside Arts Alliance and NAKA Dance Theater on a new collaboration, Live Arts In Resistance (LAIR), to highlight five cultural artists and their social justice work.
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In this time of COVID and amidst powerful calls for racial justice, it is imperative to use art as a tool to fight historical and systemic injustice.

CK Ladzekpo​

CK Ladzekpo, PhD, is the director of the African Music Program at the University of California, Berkeley. His is a distinguished career as a performer, choreographer, composer, teacher, and published scholar in the African performing arts. He is a member of a renowned family of African musicians and dancers who traditionally serve as lead drummers and composers among the Anlo-Ewe people of southeastern Ghana in West Africa. He has been a lead drummer and instructor with the Ghana National Dance Ensemble, the University of Ghana’s Institute of African Studies, and the Arts Council of Ghana. He joined the music faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, in 1973 and continues to be an influential catalyst of the African perspective in the performing arts. Awards include two choreographers’ fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Irvine Choreographer's Fellowship, and the Ruth Beckford Extraordinary People in Dance Award. He has been a member of the faculty council of the East Bay Center for Performing Arts since 1974. CK served as the co-Artistic Director of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival for 12 seasons. ​
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Photo by Dave Golden
Episode aired on September 22, 2020.
Charya Burt

​Charya Burt is an acclaimed master dancer; choreographer, vocalist and teacher of Classical Cambodian Dance who has injected new life into the dance form by creating classically inspired, inventive new works. Among her many honors Charya is a 2019-2020 Dance/USA Fellow and a recipient of the prestigious Isadora Duncan Award for Individual Performance. She has a Certificate of Honor from the California State Senate, State Legislature and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. A 4 time master artist awardee from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, Charya’s work has been chronicled in KQED Arts, Cambodian’s Dark Past Behind Her, A Dancer Steps into the Light (2014), and in the US Department of State’s Living Legacy Preserving Intangible Heritage, Classical Cambodian Dance Thrives
in California (2010).
 
Charya’s mission is to continue to preserve and advance her art form, elevate the professionalism of community dance groups, and to create innovative new works that are firmly rooted in tradition. Charya is the founding artistic director of Charya Burt
Cambodian Dance, based in the San Francisco North Bay.
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Photo by RJ Muna
Episode aired on October 6, 2020.
Alleluia Panis
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Photo by Joe Ramos


​​Alleluia Panis is an American Pilipino director, choreographer, and non-profit arts leader. She has created over twenty full-length dance theater works that have been presented on stages in the United States, Europe, and Asia.  She has received numerous awards, including the inaugural Artistic Legacy Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission in 2017 and the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Commission for Choreographers for her 2019-2021 dance and film project,   ‘In the Belly of the Eagle’. Alleluia is a recipient of the 2021-23 Hewlett 50 Art Commission for Choreography

She is the Artistic and Executive Director of Kularts, the nation’s premiere presenter of contemporary and tribal Pilipino arts. Her dance film, ‘She, Who Can See’ was officially selected  and screened at the  2018 CAAMFest  formerly known as the SF Asian American  International Film Festival. She served as a member of National Performance Network’s Artists Committee, and as a board member of Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, Brava! For Women in the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and Dance Bay Area. She’s an active member of San Francisco’s SOMA Pilipinas, Filipino Cultural Heritage District.
Episode aired on October 20, 2020.

Kiazi Malonga​



​Kiazi Malonga is a second-generation Congolese American born into a family of artists. He was first introduced to the ngoma at the age of two by his father, Malonga Casquelourd, who was a world-renowned traditional artist from Congo Brazzaville. Casquelourd traveled to the US in 1972 and shortly after, began to build his empire in traditional arts in the US. It was in this setting that Kiazi was trained and learned about his Congolese cultural heritage.

Kiazi became the lead drummer of Fua Dia Congo at 16 and began teaching at that age as well. He has taught and performed in the US, Canada, Costa Rica, Europe and Africa. Kiazi currently teaches Congolese traditional music and dance in Oakland.
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Photo by Mood-ology
Episode aired on Novembre 03, 2020.

Victor Torres


​Dr. Victor Torres, Ph.D., is a full Professor in the Department of Chicano and Latin American Studies at California State University, Fresno. He is currently director of Fresno State’s Los Danzantes de Aztlán Mexican dance program, one of the Central Valley’s most established and accomplished programs. Under his direction, the program has earned top awards in Binational (US-Mexico) and national competitions. It has made three recent appearances in the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. Dr. Torres is also on the Board of Directors of the Asociación Nacional de Grupos Folklóricos (ANGF), serving as Vice-President and Parliamentarian. He is the founder of the annual Festival de Los Danzantes folklórico conference, the annual Cal State Folklórico show (which features various California State University groups), and the High School Folklórico Summit. Dr. Torres is also a member of the Danzantes del Valle Advisory Committee for Arte Americas–Fresno’s major Latino cultural center.
Episode aired on Novembre 17, 2020.