Kay Ulanday Barrett

Kay Ulanday Barrett is a published poet, performer, educator, food blogger, cultural worker, and transgender, gender non-conforming, and disability advocate based in New York and New Jersey, whose work has been showcased nationally and internationally.[1][2] His writing and performance centers the experience of queer, transgender, people of color, mixed race people, Asian, and Filipino community. The focus of his artistic work navigates multiple systems of oppression in the context of the U.S. He has also served on committees, organizations, and collectives in attempts to serve communities that desire self-determination. His work and thoughts have been published in media such as Bitch magazine, POOR Magazine, Curve Magazine, and PBS News Hour.[3]

Early life and education

Ulanday Barrett was born in Mackinaw City, Michigan. They grew up in a low-income and working class household, his father a merchant marine and mother a migrant domestic worker. They have cited that he accompanied his mother and began writing and poetry as a task to help his her during her shifts cleaning motel rooms and other people's homes. After his parents divorce, he moved with his mother to Chicago, Il. where he lived in the Albany Park and Logan Square neighborhoods. He then attended undergraduate studies at DePaul University and studied Women's & Gender Studies along with Political Science. Their early work is informed by the 90's spoken word, community theater, hip-hop, and slam poetry movements that arose in Chicago among marginalized communities of that time. He frequented open-mics, poetry slams, and community theatre spaces as a means to create queer and people of color community that they desperately longed for.

Performance and Speaking work

He has been performing poetry, spoken word, and interdisciplinary theatre since 2002. His artistic influences were based on touring, teaching, and collaborative work with Mango Tribe, Women Outloud!, Young Chicago Authors, The Chicago Freedom School, and Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School. Trained by community poets and theater artists, much of their work was centered in the practices of Theatre of The Oppressed and Popular Education as shown by ensemble residencies he attended by the Hemispheric Institute, namely New World Theater and Asian Arts Initiative. Recent writing and poetry have centered on the praxis of disability justice,[4] specifically elaborating on intersectionality of multiple communities including transgender people of color and the chronically ill and disabled community.

As a spoken word artist, performer and speaker, his work has cited in various articles/essays/academic writing and featured on stages nationally and internationally. Venues include: Princeton University, University of Chicago, Swarthmore, Oberlin College, U Penn, Carleton College, Northwestern University, Barnard, NYU, Columbia University, University of California Los Angeles, University of California Berkeley, University of Michigan, Brown University, University of Washington, The School of The Art Institute Chicago, Bowery Poetry Club, The Chicago Historical Society, Queens Museum, The Asian American Writers Workshop, The Green Mill, The Guild Literary Complex, The Black Repertory Theatre, The Loft Literary Complex, and Brooklyn Museum to name a few. He has presented and served as a keynote speaker at conferences such as INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, The Hip-Hop Theater Festival, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, The Allied Media Conference, and The Philadelphia Transgender Health Conference.

Dedicated to community-driven cultural and movement building work, they have served on committees, led workshops, and featured with many organizations dedicated to the self-determination of Transgender, People of Color, and Queer People of Color such as FIERCE, The Audre Lorde Project, The Transgender Law Project, The Philadelphia Transgender Health Project, Queers for Economic Justice, The Disability Justice Collective, Civil Liberties and Public Policy Conference (CLPP), The National Queer Asian Pacific-Islander Alliance, The Allied Media Conference, CultureStrike, and Northeast Queer Trans People of Color Conference (NEQTPOCC)

Poetry

Ulanday Barrett is the author of one chapbook, "For^in" published in 2006. Their work has been widely anthologized and published in several sources including: PBS News Hour;[5] Trans Bodies, Trans Selves;[6] Plentitude Magazine;[7] The Advocate; and Third Woman Press[8] to name a few.

Sharon Bridgforth, Author of love conjure/blues and the Lambda Literary Award winning, the bull-jean stories, published by RedBone Press reviews Ulanday Barrett's work stating, “I believe that Kay is an artist of merit. Kay is all heart. All in… We need Kay’s stories, Kay’s stellar art, Kay’s warrior vision.”

Teaching

Ulanday Barrett has been an educator teaching poetry, spoken word, theatre, slam poetry, and cultural work at various high schools and youth arts organizations nationwide. His latest endeavors include workshops that center experiences of intersectionality, social justice, disability and chronic illness, and martial arts. Universities and organizations alike seek their work to address issues of marginalized identities and cultural work as movement building strategy.

Honors and awards

Barrett has received the following awards:[9]

References

  1. ↑ "Queer Memoir: LETTERS".
  2. ↑ "Kay Ulanday Barrett | New York". delete character in |title= at position 1 (help)
  3. ↑ "What racial, disability and LGBTQ justice have in common". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  4. ↑ headsetoptions. "Disability Justice – a working draft by Patty Berne | Sins Invalid". sinsinvalid.org. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  5. ↑ "What racial, disability and LGBTQ justice have in common". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  6. ↑ "Kay Ulanday Barrett". Trans Bodies, Trans Selves. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  7. ↑ "Kay Ulanday Barrett on Community, Art and Activism". Plenitude Magazine. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  8. ↑ "Kay Ulanday Barrett on Community, Art and Activism". Plenitude Magazine. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  9. ↑ "Kay Barrett CV & Recognition".

External links

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