About this Event
Beyond Baroque presents the third season of the International Poetry Film Festival, Los Angeles. This year’s Opening Night features a special screening of Life is a Saxophone, a documentary that captures legendary poet Kamau Daáood as he considers survival as an oral poet in an electronic age. Filmed in 1984 and originally shot in 16 mm, the documentary includes a live concert at Watts Towers Arts Center in Los Angeles, with interpretations of his work by musicians Billy Higgins, Roberto Miguel Miranda, Dadisi Komolafe, and Nirankhar Singh Khalsa; dancer Lula Washington; martial artist Dadisi Sanyika; and portrait artist Gale Fulton Ross. The documentary was selected for the American Film Institute’s tour, which included screening in Southeast Asia, and was recognized by the Black American Cinema Society.
Since the making of the film, artists and members of the film crew have produced significant works as individual artists. They have worked in every part of the world and garnered multiple awards including Grammys, Emmys, and Oscars. Kamau Daáood and drummer Billy Higgins co-founded The World Stage, an internationally known performance space for the African American community in Leimert Park Village. The 40th anniversary of Life is a Saxophone is a timeless picture showing the role of poetry in the digital age and beyond. After the screening, hear from panelists S. Pearl Sharp, musician Roberto Miguel Miranda, and artist Gale Fulton Ross in a conversation and Q&A with the audience moderated by poet Benin Lemus.
In addition to the feature-length documentary, the Opening Night screening will include three of the Official Selection poem-based films accepted to this year’s festival. The full selection of films will be screened the next day of the festival, Saturday, April 27, 1 - 6 PM.
Enjoy a reception with light refreshments before and after the screenings.
Film Runtime: 1 hour
Reception: 7:00 PM I Screening: 7:30 PM
About the artists & filmmakers
S. Pearl Sharp instigates through art. Her films include The Healing Passage/ Voices From The Water (2004), Life Is A Saxophone (1984), the semi-animated short Picking Tribes, and merging poetry and film in Back Inside Herself, Channeled and her recent short, Blood Bank (2023). Sharp’s literary offerings include the poetry w/jazz CD Higher Ground, the documentary comic book Black Women For Beginners, an audio collection of short fiction, and her essays and commentaries broadcast on NPR and Pacifica Radio are collected in The Evening News. She is currently dodging digital stress by returning to her love for composing songs and playwriting. “Permission. The unseen force that offers us to see, to interpret, to play with the psyche of the eye/ear/tongue and call it word.”
Gale Fulton Ross speaks art with painting, portraiture, printmaking, and sculpture. Through commissions and artist residencies she has created work in Italy, France, Tanzania and China, and her many portrait subjects include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jackie Robinson and Toni Morrison. Gale offers a TEDx Talk on creativity (TEDxSarasota), and her work is included in S. Pearl’s poetry video Blood Bank.” She serves as art director on Beyond Borders, a forthcoming film elevating young artists of African descent. “Creativity exists when we desire to solve a problem with relevance and imagination.”
Roberto Miranda, bassist, has performed and recorded with jazz artists Kenny Burrell, Horace Tapscott, Bobby Bradford, Cecil Taylor, Charles Lloyd among many others. Miranda is a long-time member of Los Angeles’ renowned Pan Afrikan People’s Orchestra. His own group, Home Music Ensemble, blends African-American, Latin, and experimental jazz. A dedicated mentor, Prof. Miranda teaches Global Jazz Studies @UCLA’s Herb Albert School of Music. He and poet Kamau Daáood have created art together since the 1980s. “There are many careers, or many different ways for you to share this music. Be honest with yourself and figure out what it is you want to do.”
Benin Lemus (moderator) creates as poet, educator and librarian. Her work online and in print includes the poetry collection Dreaming in Mourning (World Stage Press), Márọkọ́: Journal of African Poetry and TORCH Literary Arts. She is a 2022 Inaugural Workshop Fellow with Obsidian Magazine’s O|Sessions: Black Listening–A Performance Master Class and she served as the 2024 Finalist Judge for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Intro to Journals competition for poetry. Benin is on the faculty of UCLA’s Extension Writer’s Program. “Even in our deepest moments of suffering and grief... dreaming can still be present in our mourning.”
Kamau Daáood, poet, resident griot and cultural worker in Los Angeles’ literary community for over sixty years, carved a niche as “the word musician.” Daáood’s published work includes The Language of Saxophones (City Lights ), a French-English collection, Notes D’un Griot de Los Angeles (Griot Notes from L.A.) (Le Castor Astral) and the critically acclaimed poetry with jazz CD Leimert Park. In 1989 he and master drummer Billy Higgins co-founded The World Stage Performance Gallery in Los Angeles with drummer Billy Higgans. In 2018 Kamau received Beyond Baroque’s George Drury Smith Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry.
Ticket purchase is required. Tickets will be available at the Beyond Baroque bookstore on the day of the event, but we recommend registering in advance through Eventbrite. Masks are required while inside our center.
Event attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, fellow attendees, or performers.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, 681 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 20.00