SIMONE IMMANUEL
MISSISSIPPI DELTA, 2022 - 2023
Simone Immanuel is a performing artist and writer. Their name, Immanuel, means “God is with us,” and they hope, through their work, to show that God is with us all. Immanuel is from New Orleans, Louisiana and attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. They graduated with their BFA in acting from Ball State University and are currently a Broadway Advocacy Coalition Artivism fellow. Immanuel has done social activism work with The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond in New Orleans, and has been an Artist for inclusion at Ball State University. Immanuel’s play I'm Gonna Let It Shine was a 2018 Kennedy Center John Cauble Award finalist. Immanuel grew up in the church, and faith will always work alongside their art. Their goal is for their unique experience, as a Black queer artist, to be a new voice for people who look and act like them.
Simone featured her amazing drag family in a drag review in collaboration with Ashé Cultural Arts Center. Simone also served on the team advancing the Alliance for Cultural Equity (A.C.E.), a cohort of 18 small museums and community-based archives preserving the culture and history of BIPOC and LGBTQ communities. Simone has plans to continue her partnership in the future with a podcast series, more drag shows, dance classes, and work with the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana to help preserve queer history.
CULTURE HUB
Located in New Orleans, LA, Ashé Cultural Arts Center’s charge, as issued by co-founder, Mama Carol Bebelle, is to “to fly in leaps and gusts of provocation, instigation, inspiration and aspiration...to call for and exhibit the higher standards of justice, integrity, and kindness for all...to be brilliant conductors of opportunity, creators of vision, navigators of bs, advocates of culture, and defenders of children...to make real the majesty of dreams, to make plain the magic of being, to manifest the difference between perceiving and seeing.”
The Center’s innovative programming is designed to utilize culture in fostering human development and civic engagement. The organization maintains 10,000 square feet of gallery space and 20,000 square feet of performance space to create and preserve opportunities for the curation, exhibition, and commission of fine, folk, and fine-folk art. Producing over 350 music, theater, dance, spoken word, drum circles, and multi-disciplinary events a year, Ashé believes in art as a paradigm-shifting call to action. Ashé makes place and keeps place on behalf of a community facing growing displacement, asserting a collective right to stay and return. As ecosystem builders, Ashé delivers programming and direct services that support, leverage, and celebrate the people, places, and philosophies of the African Diaspora. For more information, visit ashenola.org.
SOCIAL IMPACT INITIATIVE
More information on Simone’s partner Social Impact Initiative, The Alliance for Cultural Equity, coming soon.