Mixed Remixed Festival will present the annual Storyteller’s Prizes to television and film star Taye Diggs and award-winning illustrator Shane W. Evans on June 11, 2016 at 6:30pm at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles, 100 N. Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012. The prizes will be presented as part of a live event featuring music, comedy, and spoken word.
The Storyteller’s Prizes are awarded each year to artists, scholars and activists who have shown a dedication to celebrating and illuminating the Mixed and multiracial experience. Past Storyteller’s Prize honorees include Key & Peele, National Book Award finalist Susan Straight, The Daily Show’s Al Madrigal, and best-selling author Jamie Ford as well as Cheerios and Honey Maid.
A hosted dessert reception will immediately follow the prize presentation and performance. Please be sure to register for this event! FREE!
REGISTER HERE!HOST: Tehran Von Ghasri
One of the hottest entertainers in Hollywood, Tehran Von Ghasri, better known as simply Tehran is an international comedian, host, TV and radio personality. Born to an Iranian father and African-American mother, Tehran is rare in every sense of the word. With undergrad degrees in International Politics and Communications, a Masters in Economics, and a Law Degree his humor is made up of unique life experience, intriguing cultural perspective, academic intelligence, and pure charm. As seen on Shahs of Sunset, Summer Break, hosting Take Part Live you can see Tehran live Mondays and Thursdays 10PM at The World Famous Laugh Factory on Sunset or hear him weekly on Imperfect Gentlemen. Twitter: @iamtehran Instagram @iamtehran
FEATURING:
Trinidad-born, England-raised, California-matured, Lichelli Lazar-Lea‘s family history and upbringing is as diverse and complicated as it needs to be to make her completely and utterly dysfunctional – I mean original. Starting her career as an indie filmmaker, Lichelli now divides her time between working as the VP of Creative Advertising for Alcon Entertainment, storytelling, and writing screenplays and her memoir, “Trini Dad,” Lichelli’s fish-out-of-water tale about meeting her father for the first time when she was 19 and the subsequent aftermath. @IAmLichelli
Andrew J. Figueroa, better known by “Fig,” is an up-and-coming Hip-Hop artist, theatre maker, and arts educator from Southern California. With a Mexican father and British mother, he is the first U.S.-born member of his household and the younger of two. He is a recent graduate of Hampshire College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latino Studies, and Performance through Theatre and Hip-Hop. His art strives to challenge how society engages with traditional theatre spaces and to open dialogue around how we can re-imagine the stage to include historically marginalized communities through a critical Hip-Hop lens. His work aims to exist as an agent of educational and social change directed at youth (specifically youth of color) by tapping into the influence Hip-Hop has on U.S. culture and young people. Twitter: @tweetMRMT
Maya Azucena‘s LP, Unleash Me, is set for release later this year and is part of a collaboration with super-producer Sonix The Mad Scientist. Her eclectic brand of Progressive Soul mingles effortlessly with a nostalgic mix of Rock Fusion, creating a unique mélange that could be considered the future of fusion. Ms. Azucena was awarded a Grammy Certificate for her feature with Stephen Marley on his record, Mind Control, which won a Grammy for Best Reggae Album. MTV Made star, singer/ songwriter/ social activist, Maya’s work has been recognized across the globe, and she has performed on countless stages. Recently, she performed at the world-renowned TEDxWomen Conference in Washington DC, and participated in One Billion Rising, an international campaign to end domestic violence. Maya is on the executive board for CONNECT NYC, an organization that provides counseling and other services to families and communities healing from domestic violence. In 2013, she received the Innovator of Change Award. Twitter: @mayaazucena Instagram: @mayaazucena
Kayla Briët is a 19 year old award-winning filmmaker, composer, and musician. She first discovered music by tinkering with the piano at age 4 and taught herself to sing and produce tracks at age 10, often alone in the little cave of her bedroom. Her work in music, art, and film is personal and visceral, reflecting themes of self-discovery, fear, and strength, with inspiration from cultures around the world.
Her short films have taken her to the White House for the 2014 First-Ever White House Film Festival, where she was invited to meet President Barack Obama, as well as internationally for awards and film festival screenings. Recently, she was named a 2015 Future of Storytelling Fellow, 2016 National Young Arts Winner in Cinematic Arts, a 2016 MIT Chamber Scholar, and a 2016 Sundance Film Festival Ignite Fellow. She was also 2014 Film Artist of the Year in the OC Register, and her work in science/educational media has been awarded by organizations such as ProjectEd, American Chemical Society, and FASEB.
As a multi-instrumentalist and self-taught composer, Briët scores her own films and creates music in styles ranging from cinematic to alternative pop and electronic. You can catch her performing live on stage as a one-woman band, armed with a keyboard, guitar, guzheng zither, and loop pedal as she creates ethereal music with personal, empowering, and resonant lyrics. With a background in both art and science, Briët lives to empower and inspire through the many mediums of storytelling. http://kaylabriet.com Twitter: @kaylabriet Instagram: @kaylabriet Soundcloud: Kaylabriet Facebook: Kayla Briet
The 2016 Storyteller’s Prize recipients are:
Taye Diggs is an actor whose awards include the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. His performance credits include motion pictures (The Best Man Holiday, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Chicago), stage (Rent, Wicked), and television (The Good Wife, Murder in the First, Private Practice). He lives in Los Angeles and New York with his son, Walker.
Shane W. Evans in the illustrator of numerous aware-winning books for children, including Underground, winner of the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award, We March, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012, and Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper’s Daughter, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. He is also the illustrator of The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teens finalist. He lives with his wife and daughter in Kansas City, Missouri.
Taye Diggs and Shane W. Evans’s first book together, Chocolate Me!, was praised as “Sure to strike a chord with many young readers/listeners, and a variety of subjects, not just race,” by School Library Journal, and as “embracing a difficult topic with wide arms” by Essence magazine.