Saria Idana returns to La Pena with her solo show HOMELESS IN HOMELAND and this time with a CD Release After Party!!! The night will be hosted by the legendary poet and cultural organizer Josh Healey with performances by fabulous bay area poets and performers including Hadeel Ramadan, D Scot Miller, Mark Gonzales and other radical Jewish performers Ariel Luckey, mia amir, and in from NYC fiddler/poet/activist Michael Gould-Wartofsky. Saria Idana will share a couple pieces from the HOMELESS IN HOMELAND album and her new neo-soul project. Artist bios below. Themes of the night's performances will include, migration, love, borders, resiliency and the search for home. DJ Leydis, will close the night spinning urban music from around the world including Cuba, USA, the Middle-East and more.

Album Release After Party!!! FREE with show ticket, $5 after 9:30pm-12:30am. In the Lounge.

Artist Bios:

SARIA IDANA an acclaimed writer, actor and music artist committed to the intersection of art and activism through the creation of new culture. The Hollywood progressive who compared her to documentary theater icon Anna Deveare Smith, called her solo show HOMELESS IN HOMELAND, “a dramatic tour de force”. As a lyricist, singer and songwriter, Idana is deeply rooted in the music traditions of her Jewish ancestry while being trained in and influenced by the urban American music cannon. The HOMELESS IN HOMELAND spoken word and music album will be released in 2012 and her neo-soul EP will be released in 2013. A New York native, she is currently based in Oakland and teaches acting and writing at Out of Site in San Francisco.

DJ LEYDIS, originally from Cuba, is a DJ, Spoken Word artist and has been a major organizer for the Cuban Hip Hop movement since it’s inception. She has been a featured subject of critically acclaimed and groundbreaking documentaries such as Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano, Jovenes Rebeldes y Mi Revolution, and continues to be a keynote speaker on the subject of Cuban Hip-Hop Culture. In the US she has worked with artists such as Erykah Badu and ?uest Love of The Roots. Presently she works with Los Rakas & Las Krudas. DJ Leydis combines contemporary hits with a distinct fusion of Latin flavors, R&B classics and Roots Reggae blends.

ARIEL LUCKEY is a nationally acclaimed poet, actor and playwright whose performance and community work dances in the crossroads of education, art and activism. Born and raised in Oakland, California, Luckey was named a “Visionary” by the Utne Reader for his first solo show Free Land. Luckey sees his creative work in the world as an extension of his most precious and important work as father to his two sons.

JOSH HEALEY is a writer, activist, and ninja. Poet, performer, and cultural organizer, Healey has been featured in the New York Times, Al-Jazeera, and is a regular contributor to NPR's Snap Judgment. He lives in Oakland, where he is currently the inaugural artist-in-residence for the progressive Jewish coalition, Bend the Arc.

MARK GONZALES- With a decade of experience spanning fifteen countries, Mark Gonzales is a poet and global innovator who uses culture to leverage social power. His events are exercises in encouraging people to imagine themselves in a healed world as he dances between the language of pain and possibility, weaving page, stage, and social media within a cultural therapy framework. His list of speaking engagements & residencies have included: TED talks, Stanford University, the United Nations, HBO Def Poetry, universities in London, foster homes in Portugal, & refugee camps in the Middle East. He joins Alice Walker as of the only living poets to trend worldwide on twitter.

HADEEL RAMADAN is a Palestinian American poet based in the SF Bay Area. She trained as a poet and performer with the pioneering organization Youth Speaks and received much praise as a young poet on Def Poetry.