About Bashi
Baltimore City
Bashi Rose, founder of Konjur Collective is a theatre artist, musician, and filmmaker. He was raised in West Baltimore and was nurtured, inspired and trained in is his craft by the Baltimore Arts Community. He has performed and has had work produced in numerous venues including the High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music, Baltimore Rhythm Festival, San Francisco Black Film Festival, Black Femme Supremacy Film Fest, Black Panther Party Film festival, HipHop… more
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Love Deferred
A short silent film I shot and directed about a heartbroken yet determined poet who dreams and ponders as he leaves the U.S. and travels to European cities in pursuit of the woman he believes makes life worth living.
Congregate
This film was a collaborative project with Seventh Metro Church in Baltimore. It was commissioned by graduate students at the Maryland Institute College of Art as part of their Congregate exhibit that took place in September 2013. It's my impressionistic attempt utilizing spoken word, dance, music, and sermons to interpret how Pastor Ryan Palmer and Seventh Metro approach worship and community.
“CONGREGATE art + faith + community” is an exhibition and series of programs that creates shared experiences for faith-based congregations and artistic communities within the Station North Arts and Entertainment District. Curated by the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) Curatorial Practice MFA class of 2014, CONGREGATE establishes artist residencies within five places of worship and offers public programs in which members of each congregation can collaborate creatively. “CONGREGATE” creates a space in which artists and congregants can come together to develop a better understanding of one another—and allows spiritual sites to become active parts of the Station North arts community.
“CONGREGATE art + faith + community” is an exhibition and series of programs that creates shared experiences for faith-based congregations and artistic communities within the Station North Arts and Entertainment District. Curated by the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) Curatorial Practice MFA class of 2014, CONGREGATE establishes artist residencies within five places of worship and offers public programs in which members of each congregation can collaborate creatively. “CONGREGATE” creates a space in which artists and congregants can come together to develop a better understanding of one another—and allows spiritual sites to become active parts of the Station North arts community.
Together
I worked with students of Baltimore Talent Development High School to combine theatre, film, and dance to create their FLEX Arts project. It's a personalized and creative take on the potential of community from a youthful perspective. The students used group discussion, improvisation, and DSLR cameras with various lens to make their collective vision a reality.
Red Flags
A Baltimore Performance Kitchen Original Commission
created and performed by Bashi Rose, Vincent Thomas, and LOVE the poet
Red Flags explores signals of awareness that warn and awaken the human soul and mind. Political, personal, and spiritual themes are examined with a mixture of movement, poetry, film, music, and theater. Audience members had an opportunity to interact with the artists and one another for a vibrant and creative exchange on the themes explored in Red Flags.
created and performed by Bashi Rose, Vincent Thomas, and LOVE the poet
Red Flags explores signals of awareness that warn and awaken the human soul and mind. Political, personal, and spiritual themes are examined with a mixture of movement, poetry, film, music, and theater. Audience members had an opportunity to interact with the artists and one another for a vibrant and creative exchange on the themes explored in Red Flags.
Community Tribunal Anouncement
A short video blurb for the Friend of A Friend and Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle event, "Trial by the People".
On trial: Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Which took place at Pleasant Hope Baptist Church.
On trial: Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Which took place at Pleasant Hope Baptist Church.
Prison Theatre
Bashi Rose and Mitchell Ferguson work with a talented and hard-working group of men in the Maryland Correctional Training Center (M.C.T.C.) in Hagerstown, Maryland. In 2007 Bashi collaborated with the men to form the D.R.A.M.A. Group (Direct Responses Alleviate Misdirected Aggression).  Â
Most of the founding members of D.R.A.M.A. are also mentors in the Friends of a Friend Mentoring Program (F.O.F.) initiated by Dominque Stevenson of the American Friends Service Committee and Eddie Conway; helping to steer younger inmates in a positive direction.
Since then the men have developed and performed dynamic original theatre for the population at M.C.T.C. Their work has been produced at Creative Alliance, Theatre Project, and the American Visionary Art Museum under the title, Prison Shorts.
D.R.A.M.A. also now collaborates with WombWork Productions.
F.O.F. has also expanded to the Jessup Correctional Institution (J.C.I.) and the Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup (M.C.I.J.). We are still in the process of developing theatre programs at those institutions, but at J.C.I. the members of F.O.F. partnered with Nommo Theatre, WombWork Productions, and Nu World Art Ensemble (an off-shoot of WombWork) to perform WombWorkâ??s original play, The Birth of Peace.
Most of the founding members of D.R.A.M.A. are also mentors in the Friends of a Friend Mentoring Program (F.O.F.) initiated by Dominque Stevenson of the American Friends Service Committee and Eddie Conway; helping to steer younger inmates in a positive direction.
Since then the men have developed and performed dynamic original theatre for the population at M.C.T.C. Their work has been produced at Creative Alliance, Theatre Project, and the American Visionary Art Museum under the title, Prison Shorts.
D.R.A.M.A. also now collaborates with WombWork Productions.
F.O.F. has also expanded to the Jessup Correctional Institution (J.C.I.) and the Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup (M.C.I.J.). We are still in the process of developing theatre programs at those institutions, but at J.C.I. the members of F.O.F. partnered with Nommo Theatre, WombWork Productions, and Nu World Art Ensemble (an off-shoot of WombWork) to perform WombWorkâ??s original play, The Birth of Peace.
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Muse Annie II UnpackagedThis is Muse Annie "unpackaged." I want the experience of "opening" this chapbook to be like when one opens a package of construction paper, especially as it was packaged in the 70s when I was a child, the smells, the plastic crinkling, the pulp feel of the soft but rough paper, even the paste smell. And, oh, those colors! Although I added in, among the vintage, pieces I found from a package of "Multicultural Construction Paper"--every skin color possible! Each "bookpackage" is slightly different, unique, offers its own version of itself upon opening.
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D.R.A.M.A. Group
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D.R.A.M.A. Group
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D.R.A.M.A. Group
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red installationArtomatic is art event held in Washington D.C. The location they used to hold the event in was slated to be gutted or torn down so their was a lot of freedom to experiment with the space. I used this opportunity to experiment with installation ideas. I was able to do a wall covering treatment and use the whole space as a sculptural environment. A home for the sculptural elements that are also included in my space.
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D.R.A.M.A. GroupKay Lawal and Rashida Forman-Bey of WombWork Productions.
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D.R.A.M.A. Group
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TangledAcrylic on wall
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SpiralAcrylic on paper