Empowering Our Community Through Art and Culture

2013 MAYOR’S ART AWARD Goes to… Rhodessa Jones

On Friday, January 18, 2013 Ms. Rhodessa Jones was awarded the Mayor's Art Award. “I’m so honored to receive this award. Politics don’t work, religion is a bit too eclectic, but art could be that parachute that catches us all,” said Rhodessa Jones.

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Rhodessa Jones is Co-Artistic Director of the acclaimed performance company Cultural Odyssey with her talented partner Idris Ackamoor. An actress, teacher, singer, dancer, and writer, Jones is also the Founder and Director of the award-winning Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women, a performance workshop designed to achieve personal and social transformation for women in the prison system. The message of the Medea Project has taken her around the globe, including South Africa where she made history by directing a full-length theater production with female inmates inside “Sun City Prison”. Jones also collaborated with the Women’s HIV Program at UCSF Medical Center, conducting workshops and residency activities, which resulted in the world premiere of “Dancing with the Clown of Love” in 2010.

Buriel Clay Theater

theater seating Theater Performances

The Buriel Clay Theatre is named after Buriel Clay, a prominent African American playwright and poet from San Francisco. Clay was one of the first African Americans to establish a cultural center in the City of San Francisco in the 1960s. Due to his unceasing efforts, he was able to pull together an impressive proposal and conceptualize what we now have today, a dynamic cultural complex. He was co-founder and the first official Director of the Western Addition Cultural Center, which for years was housed in our present location.

With more than 200 seats, the theatre hosts must-see theatrical dramas, dance productions, musical concerts, film and video screenings, seminars and workshops. Prominent productions include the African-American Shakespeare Company's production of “Othello” as part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, a national initiative sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts in cooperation with Arts Midwest.

For information on renting space, please contact us at 415/922 2049 or email us at info@aaacc.org. For application for the Burial Clay rental, please click here (Adobe Reader required).