The “Anansi” Project
The “Anansi” project seeks to foster and support innovation, community-building, and the exploration of experimental storytelling in BIPOC, Queer, Immigrant, and Working Poor artists living in New York.
We encourage artists to think unconventionally; taking risks to find new, engaging, and empowering expressions of their craft. Collaborators may choose to create Performance Art, Experimental Films, Documentaries, or Community-Building Experiences that reflect the values of The Notice Foundation: “Always Question. Always Explore.”
The Notice Blog:
The Notice Foundation (aka The Notice Blog) produces and develops films, documentaries, and multimedia projects from BIPOC, Queer, Immigrant & Formerly-Incarcerated communities and narratives. It's led by the Emmy-Awarding Black Queer producer, Paul A. Notice II.
About Us
I’ve known Kelly Thomas for over 10 years not only as a friend but also as both an artist and community builder. Her brainchild, “Black Arts Retreat," gathers Black Artists around the exploration of Black Spaces both Diasporic and Local. Her skills as an educator, collective organizer, traveler, certified yoga instructor, and artist will be essential in the community-building experience of the “Anansi” project.
Katrina Reid is a dancer and choreographer that I met in 2019. During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, we began collaborating on experimental pieces like: “Snakes Dance Too,” “a good haunting,” and “Georgia Mud.” Reid’s work celebrates the history and contributions of Black improvisation and storytelling, utilizing contemporary dance, immersive theater, and site-specific art. TNB’s stellar history in helping artists produce live, experimental work in conjunction with Reid’s vision will bring this powerful work to the communities who need to see it most, at the highest level of quality. Additionally, TNB will coordinate, plan and produce the live multi-media performance of Reid’s untitled work, while partnering their workshops with educational institutions serving BIPOC students like Williamsburg Charter School, Success Academy, and Higher Vibrations Collective.
I met Jodi Savitz via the CRNY Database. After reviewing her experimental documentary Girl on Girl, along with a brief interview, it became clear that as a multifaceted Queer filmmaker, with a decade of experience in cinematography, producing, directing, editing, and storytelling; Jodi was perfect for our project. The Notice Blog’s full production services, developmental and logistical support, and nurturing community of creative peers, will provide everything needed to make this work a reality.
After connecting via the CRNY database, Zulu Padilla and I quickly realized we share the same vision. As a fellow queer artist of color, Padilla examines positions and practices around uprootedness, sexuality, and interconnectedness, rooting it all in the dynamics and fluidity of identities and non-dual experiences. It’s work that perfectly exemplifies The “Anansi” Project (see below). In addition to a full production structure that supports artistic exploration, TNB’s capacity to engage and unearth narratives within the artistic immigrant community signaled to Padilla that we offered fertile space to create his work.
Everton Melo and I met on the set of Jules Rosskman’s “Desire Lines,” in December 2021. Our shared use of queer aesthetics and body politic to tell stories that engage and empower the underrepresented formed an immediate friendship. This bond then evolved into mentorship and collaboration, as I guided Melo’s researching, screenwriting, and film development for his raucously clever racial-reckoning film, “The Cammers.” In addition to TNB’s producing, I’ll directly work alongside Melo as his cinematographer, with him as the screenwriter/director.
Courtney Smith is another welcomed collaborator that I met through the CRNY database. Smith, a burgeoning filmmaker with a gift for potent satire, brings an electrifying passion for her craft and her community. Our foundation’s years of filmmaking experience, film equipment, and existing relationships with BIPOC actors, producers, and production crew - will bring life and guidance to her vision.
What work do you plan to do together over the next two years, and how will it support your community?
Performance Art
Katrina Reid's multimedia performance piece will unpack the history of “Liming,” an improvisational, musical practice birthed from Jamaica. A digital Diasporic journey through sound, memory, and extended-reality visuals, this piece will mine Reid’s “1st-Generation” experience, deconstructing how they came to understand hip-hop culture through two distinct lighting rods; their Jamaican father’s oral history of the original MCs, and the LimeWire file-sharing program that taught a generation the cultural value of the underground economy. Reid will also spur community engagement through presentations, workshops, and/or in-process showings made free to the public.
Experimental Film
Through our support, Courtney Smith will write, produce and distribute her first feature film. With constant check-ins, workshopping, and planning, we’ll build a production crew and cast of entirely BIPOC/Queer community members. Her film unravels the stigma behind mental health in the Black community, exploring the power latent in sharing vulnerability. Along with a local premiere, we’ll partner her film with local wellness programs to further educate and empower residents about mental health.
Zulu Padilla’s “Warbler” Project, is a multimedia experimental film that repurposes neotropical bird migration as a narrative frame to examine human stories focused on the migration of our self-identification, from narcissistic to true, loving empathy. It evokes a poetic dimension to the migratory and imaginary, using birds as symbols of inspiration, sexual freedom, and courage to reimagine human migrations, forced and voluntary, as unfolding mysteries. Through unconventional, engaging screenings in key public spaces, we’ll conjure ways to craft new social practices that encourage more inclusivity community and participatory art.
Everton Melo’s initiative, “The Cammers,” involves producing both a short and feature film under the same name. A post-modern reimagining of Bertolucci's “The Dreamers,” “The Cammers” follows a Queer Black man teetering on the fringes of the BLM movement, coping with isolation by exploring his sexuality with a White couple, who moonlight as Onlyfans sex workers. “The Cammers” unearths the ghosts of racial covenants, performative activism, narcissism, and the vicissitudes of self-actualization. In addition to film festival submissions, we’ll host screenings partnering with cultural institutions like the Maysles Documentary Center; with panel discussions that offer fellow Queer Artists of Color a vehicle to interrogate these complex issues in a safe space.
Documentaries
Jodi Savitz’s documentary/docu-series will explore the intersection of religious and queer identities, focusing on the burgeoning secular Muslim communities within the greater New York area. This experimental work features Muslim-American comedian and disability activist Maysoon Zahid, founder of the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival. As the narrator, Zahid unearths the stories of these lesser-known Muslim communities, tying them together in a profoundly nuanced - and humorous - light. Accompanying panel discussions will invoke vital discourse about the silent revolution growing within Islam - where young Muslims, actively subverting traditional Islamic expressions of gender, identity, and sexuality; reimagine religiosity.
Community-Building
Meditation, fellowship, and healing are essential to Black life and creativity. Thus, Kelly Thomas’ “Black Arts Retreat” reflects TAP’s mission for community-building by providing classes and retreats that empower, educate and connect Black Artists living in the New York City area to Black Diaspora worldwide. We’ll support BAR’s 2022 Kenya Retreat and meditation classes by developing marketing materials, project coordination, fiscal sponsorship, and archival/documentary videos for not only class and retreat participants, but also those unable to attend. Furthermore, the funding TNB directly receives will help decrease the cost of attendance, thus building stronger participation amongst key stakeholders. This collaboration will further build a vital supportive space for Black Artists to foster their work, build stronger community bonds and heal from generational trauma.
What do you want to accomplish over the next two years, and how you will know if your work together has been successful?
Here’s what we hope to accomplish for each of our collaborators within two years:
With Kelly Thomas, we’ll logistically support, promote, and fund her meditation/yoga classes, as well as the Black Artist Retreat to Nairobi, Kenya in 2022. We’ll measure the impact of our work through the expected increase in retreat and class attendance, participant testimonies from both Kenyan artists and institutions collaborating with BAR and Retreat attendees. Furthermore, the subsequent art, Diasporic bonding, and healing fostered during these trips will prove exponentially influential, as all participants involved will inevitably take insight gleaned from their BAR experience back to their own communities. This expands our nonprofit’s impact internationally, connecting us with future collaborators and audiences.
For Katrina Reid’s “Liming” piece, TNB will produce a full run of their multimedia performance in partnership with the Black-owned Impact Theatre by Spring 2024. We’ll measure this project’s success through the completion of three main phases:
Extended Reality Research & Creation
Live Performance Run
Workshop Series
Reid’s performance art will mark the reemergence of our nonprofits’ live performance activities, which COVID safety concerns greatly diminished from 2020-2021.
In collaboration with TNB, Jodi Savitz will develop and produce her documentary, as well as host local screening(s) and talkbacks. Success would be marked by:
A Fully Produced Film
A Completed Film Festival run
A series of local and targeted community-based screenings.
By propelling these voices and stories beyond NYC, this documentary seeks to further expand the public’s understanding of Muslim identity, deconstructing Islamophobia within and outside New York.
Courtney Smith’s film further normalized the issue of mental health in the Black community, while also hiring all local BIPOC/Queer talent and production crews equipping them with resources, training, and collective support. This community-building effort is meant to expand access for filmmakers historically shut out from fair opportunities in film. For each shoot location, we’ll partner with local Black-owned businesses like Nicholas BK, reaffirming the value of these spaces to both the viewer and the community-at-large.
After fully producing and editing Zulu Padilla’s “Warbler,” we’ll also promote and host a public screening in Prospect Park, with a panel discussion by Summer 2024. Stakeholders’ participation and discourse will prove vital in the success of this initiative.
For Everton Melo, we’ll fully produce the short film version of “The Cammers,” as well as lay the groundwork for the feature film, and if possible, produce it. A successful project will have completed three major milestones:
Completing the short film’s principal photography by the end of Fall of 2022.
Completing Post-Production, Public Screening(s) w/ Talkback and Film Festival submissions by the start of Spring 2023.
Completing the feature film’s Script Development, Pre-Production, and Fiscally-Sponsored Fundraising by the end of 2023.
“The Cammers” subsequent influence in representing Queer Afro-Latinx people not only fosters a deeper sense of empowerment to community members but furthers TNB’s mission of supporting narratives from marginalized communities. Our practice would inevitably improve in terms of reach, variety, and impact.