The Love Project at La MaMa Etc. in NYC, 2009, comes to San Francisco in February 2010 Photo credit: Hubert Williams

Cultural Odyssey wishes you the most blessed of Holidays! May all of your wishes come true for a prosperous and healthy New Year. As Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities " . . . It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." We believe this famous quotation is appropriate to describe our present situation in these United States of America. America will be glad to say goodbye to 2009. The financial crisis that continues to affect the country is the worst since the great depression. That is way it is ironic that during 2009 Cultural Odyssey had one of the most significant artistic years in our history! When times get tough the tough get going! And so we did. We returned to South Africa to continue working with incarcerated women sponsored by Urban Voices Festival and South African Correction Services during the month of October 2009. We traveled to Russia in September and performed and conducted residency activities through an invitation from the U.S. Department of State. And, we toured one of our latest productions, "The Love Project", throughout America and the Caribbean.

Serious Fun: Rhodessa and Idris returned to "Sun City" Prison, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2009
The Breach explores the issue of reparations through the eyes of artists, coming to San Francisco March 2010
Women of Calypso at NPN Annual Meeting, Knoxville, TN 2009

In addition, we toured to the National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in August, where we presented emerging and established artists through the series we curate entitled "New Performance in Black Theater". Finally, to end 2009 we traveled to the National Performance Network's Annual Meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee last week where we directed the exciting performance, "Women of Calypso", a pilot project of the newly conceived Performing Americas Program Creation Fund that aims to establish a model for the commissioning of international work within the National Performance Network.

To begin the new year, Cultural Odyssey embarks on one of our most ambitious projects to date. During February and March 2010 the company will celebrate our 30th Anniversary with a six-week theater run featuring two World Premieres including "The Breach" (featuring Joanna Haigood), and The Medea Project's "Dancing with the Clown of Love" (a collaboration with the Women's HIV Program at the University of San Francisco Medical Center), and the San Francisco Premiere of "The Love Project" (written in collaboration with the noted writers Pearl Cleage and her husband Zaron Burnett).

We need your help!! Due to the financial crisis many foundations and government agencies have severely cut back their giving to the performing arts. Can we depend on you? If you have ever been to one of Cultural Odyssey's innovative and engaging performances or care about the important work that our organization does with incarcerated women, disenfranchised communities, emerging and established performing artists, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Cultural Odyssey so that we may continue our "search of human culture" through "art as social activism".

You can direct your giving to two different components of Cultural Odyssey.

International collaborations and residencies - Support the ongoing work we conduct in South Africa working with female inmates in the Johannesburg Correctional Services prison system. Support our latest Caribbean project with "Women of Calypso" which will tour to America in 2010 - 2011 (A special to National Performance Network participants - Every dollar we raise is matched by the NPN for "Women of Calypso". So please help inaugurate a brand new international creation fund for all artists).

30th Anniversary Celebration of New Works - Support Cultural Odyssey to increase new and diverse audiences through nights of free theater, subsidized low cost tickets, and pay-what-you can performances reaching underserved audiences and expanding and increasing participation in activities at the Buriel Clay Theater. One of the goals of the project is to have many first time theatergoers attend the three-performance celebration.

Rhodessa Jones in "Big Butt Girls", Praktika Theatre, Moscow, Russia, 2009 Photo credit: Anton Belitsky

Idris Ackamoor in "Big Butt Girls", Praktika Theatre, Moscow, Russia, 2009 Photo credit: Anton Belitsky

Creating New Performances Workshop, Ryazan, Russia, 2009

Curtain Call, "Big Butt Girls", Praktika Theatre, Moscow, Russia, 2009 Photo credit: Anton Belitsky