Date Saturday, April 24th | 2-3:15pm PDT via ZOOM
If you weren’t able to join us, we’d love to host you for a remote viewing of “Celebrating Good Trouble” via our YouTube channel.
Another recent April event, Celebrating Good Trouble, lent us the opportunity to highlight some of our dear artists and friends who are committed to creating their own kinds of good trouble through their art, music, dance, and poetry.
From poet LaToya Jackson’s reading of "Angry Black Woman, A Letter to Women," to flautist Ray Furuta’s reminiscence of his cross-cultural collaboration, Primal Reboot, and beyond, we celebrate those who use their voice and creativity to create something utterly different and challenge the status quo.
Celebrating Good Trouble: A Mosaic of Artists and Performances, curated by Mosaic America, presents the voices and works of diverse poets, dancers, and musicians, featuring classical, folk, and contemporary cultural threads woven together to create a uniquely American mosaic. The program will conclude with a Q&A between artists and audience.
New Museum Los Gatos is proud to be partnering with Mosaic America in celebration of the ten year anniversary of ArtNow, our annual juried high school exhibition. Mosaic is a nonprofit org that strengthens communities, cultivates belonging, and catalyzes inclusion through inter-cultural and co-created art.
Featured Artists
LaToya Fernandez
@toya_p.y.t
Educator, Activist, and Community Leader, LaToya Fernandez, dedicates her career to teaching students equity and justice. As a Restorative Justice Coordinator, LaToya has served in local San Jose schools supporting students, educators and families through cultural responsiveness, restorative practices and community engagement. LaToya continues to serve the community in various roles : as the Dean Of Students at Downtown College Prep El Camino, District 3 Neighborhoods Commissioner and is a member for the Tech Museum's Educator Advisory Board and as Chair for the Youth Outreach Committee for Women's March- San Jose. Alongside these roles, Latoya continues to be a community advocate who is passionate about creating platforms for youth. Just one of these platforms is Youthhype, a community based organization that empowers youth in San Jose from marginalized communities to rise up. As its Founder, she facilitates workshops in self esteem, confidence, awareness and identity. Youthhype also actively participates in numerous community events, while pairing empowerment with activism, agency and leadership.
Lisa Rosenberg
@Lisa.Rosenberg.poetry
Trained as a scientist and poet, Lisa Rosenberg has a keen interest in the commonality between arts and sciences, and in accessibly framing that territory for exploration in many contexts and settings. Lisa holds degrees in physics and creative writing. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University, she worked for many years as an engineer in the space program, founded a marketing consulting practice, and was active in aviation as a private pilot.
Lisa served as the 2017-2018 Poet Laureate of San Mateo County, California, and is the author of A Different Physics, winner of the 2017 Red Mountain Poetry Prize. Her publication history spans literature and technology, including journals, anthologies, trade features, and research. She was recently named a MOSAIC Fellow with Sangam Arts, and awarded a 2020 Djerassi Residency for Scientist-Artists.
Urmila Vudali
@vudaliurmila
Urmila Vudali is a Senior at Saratoga High School. She began training in Bharatanatyam at age 5 and made her solo debut at age 9. Under the guidance of her guru, Navia Natarajan, Urmila has performed Bharartanatyam in collaboration with artists from other traditions including Contemporary, Arab music and Flamenco. She was fortunate to perform as a guest artist with NewGround Theatre Dance in Shekinah (2018) – choreographed and directed by Coleen Lorenz. Urmila co-founded Mosaic Saratoga High - a club to promote multicultural understanding through the arts.
Urmila serves as a commissioner on the Santa Clara County Youth Task Force and on the Student Board at The Tech Museum. She is passionate about protecting the environment and was instrumental in having Santa Clara County designate September 14th as Microplastics Awareness Day.
Ray Furuta
@rayfuruta
Hailed as “The Rockstar of the Flute” (Informador de Guadalajara) and “The protégé of the great flutist, Carol Wincenc [Professor of Flute at The Juilliard School]” (San Jose Mercury News), Ray Furuta has toured worldwide as a soloist and teacher in countries including Canada, Mexico, Japan, Czech-Republic, Poland, Spain, and throughout the Middle East. He has been a featured performer for Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, United Nations, and the Mainly Mozart, Okayama, Yellow Barn, and Banff Music Festivals to name only a few. He is the Artistic Director and founder of Chamber Music Silicon Valley and has professionally collaborated with renowned artists including Jon Nakamatsu and members of the Kronos, Juilliard, Brooklyn Rider, and Emerson String Quartets. He is a Music Professor at Santa Clara University and has also guest taught at Stanford University, New York University, and Lebanese American University of Beirut, among many others. Honored as a distinguished alumnus in 2016, Furuta earned a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from Stony Brook University.
Major Support for the ArtNow exhibition and program is provided by the Michael and Alyce Parsons Foundation.
Celebrating Good Trouble: A Mosaic of Artists and Performances
With additional support from The Town of Los Gatos, The Flick Family, Los Gatos Morning Rotary, The Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Badger Meter, University Art, The Cilker School of Art & Design, Saratoga Rotary, The Waitte Foundation, Ginger & Jon McDonald, The Linda Smythe Young Artists Fund, Jillian Troftgruben, John & Valerie Hopkins, Heritage Bank of Commerce, California College of the Arts and KCAT TV 15.
