freedom school
Presented by The TETRA
Think back to your time in school. Outside test scores & grades, can you honestly say it prepared you emotionally for an adulthood in the crosshairs of toxic systems? Did school walk you through that major loss in your life? Did your classes prepare you for seething anger or growing numbness? Where the hell are those classes?
Freedom School is a large-scale community performance ritual in Detroit. Combining ancestral spirit work with modern Black and Brown spiritual technologies, The TETRA leads participants to sing, conjure, stomp, write, and shout their way through a night of 20 rituals. Liberation is as much an energetic fight as a physical one. Oppression is designed to keep communities of color stuck in lower vibrations. Freedom School explores each emotion, from shame to enlightenment, to create methods for how to unstick, safely feel, and freely move between them. Freedom School weaves lyric poetry, rap as interactive spell work (shadow choir), Afro-Caribbean drumming, and visual art installations into an experience described by audiences as an "initiation."
Date: August 17, 2019
Partner: The Jam Handy
Location: 2900 E Grand Blvd, Detroit, MI 48202
Coordinates: 42.37314, -83.06662
Date: December 29, 2019
Partner: Detroit Fiber Works
Location: 19359 Livernois, Detroit, MI 48221
Coordinates: 42.43436, -83.14186
About the Artists
The TETRA is the Underground, an open secret for lion-hearted people looking to be free. Freedom is the art of becoming your highest self. This is a journey of rituals, ancestral technologies, and spirit work performed to activate a radical remembering that healing and wholeness are our birthrights. Here, we imagine a world beyond oppression and survival. Here, we not only thrive. We sing, dance, drum, and question into the storm until we become our own promised land.
Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe is a writer, editor, performer & educator from Detroit, MI. She is a 2018 MAP grant awardee, a 2017 Knight Arts Challenge awardee, a 2014 Cave Canem fellow, a 2013 Voices of Our Nations Authors alum, and executive director of Obsidian Blues. Sherina is a universe-bender. Her writing investigates and confronts the cultural intersections of class, gender, race, and religion.
Chace Morris (Mic Write) is a poet/emcee from Detroit. Chace is a recipient of a 2018 MAP Fund grant, two Knight Arts Challenge Awards, and a 2016 Alain Locke Award from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Chace is a Callaloo Fellow and was twice recognized as a Rustbelt Poetry Slam Champion. His poems have been published in The Offing, Wildness, Muzzle, and Radius and his music has been featured on NPR, The Village Voice, Detroit Free Press, Mother Jones & NBC's The Grio.
Chi Amen-Ra is a percussionist focusing on rhythms of the African Diaspora. He was born into the Ngoma Za Amen-Ra Dance Theatre of Detroit, which sparked a lifelong interest in various drums. Chi has performed at the Super Bowl XL and with renowned artists from both America (opened for Talib Kweli) and Africa (Sulley Imoro). Chi holds a BA in African Studies from the University of Michigan.