ARTS, NO CHASER By Dwight Hobbes—Shá Cage: a renaissance woman of Twin Cities arts and letters

Twin Cities arts icon Shá Cage prevails. The internationally accomplished actor, playwright, performance artist and spoken-wordsmith, in June, accepted a McKnight Theater Artist Fellowship and, late July, completed a commission from the Women’s Foundation.

Cage’s artistry began as a force of consequence. In the late 1990s she co-founded historic but regrettably unsung entity MaMA mOsAiC, Minnesota’s first ensemble of color projecting women’s consciousness.

Cage recalls, “Signe Harriday, Jeany Park and I founded [it], which was the beginning of my professional career as one who creates theater for, by and about women and aimed at employing women behind the scenes.”

She slugged it out in the trenches, paying requisite dues, surfacing in a controversial turn featured in The Green Bird produced by Theater De La Jeune Lune at Penumbra Theatre Company. After which it was hard not to notice someone who commands the stage with such authority.

Cage’s gift is that she delivers subtly understated performance after performance, mining characters for nuanced depth. Resulting in such successes as now number, in a long list, Agnes Under the Big Top and Ruined (Mixed Blood Theatre), Venus, Eclipsed and F*cking A (Frank Theatre) and The Kirby Puckett Story (History Theater).

That’s just acting. Her 2007 spoken word album Amber People (Tru Ruts/Speakeasy Records) marked a high point. Which Cage has sustained, garnering acclaim in South Africa, England, France, the Netherlands, Croatia, Mali, and Canada, recently returning from a mini-tour of California.

There’s more, including print and television commercials, performance commissions and sharing the spotlight at the Media Reform Conference with Dan Rather and Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman. Cornel West extols Shá Cage as “inspiring and evocative.”

It’s all anchored at the bottom line, by the wellspring from which great things flow, the Minnesota Spoken Word Association. To mention MNSWA evokes a legend. Shá Cage founded MNSWA with e.g. bailey, no less seminal an icon who co-founded ’90s firebrand ensemble Sirius B. and recorded his 2008 masterwork CD Afrikan American. He’s also her husband.

Generally shy of the spotlight — in fact, it’s hard to get him out of the house — bailey is quite content to let his famous wife maintain MNSWA’s high profile with her public appearances.

“[Hers is] success well-deserved,” he readily states. “She is one of the hardest working artists in the Twin Cities, not only in terms of her own work, but also working with the youth in the community both in theater and spoken word. She truly is one of the best performance poets on the scene. Some could say I’m biased, but it’s something that’s readily recognized by many in the community, and was recently noted by The Root.com in their spotlight on the top Black performance poets, bringing her theater training to the forefront in her spoken-word performances.”

He sums up, “I’ve always been a fan of her work. I watch in awe as she captivates an audience.” He is, of course, not by himself.
Shá Cage (SC) gave MSR an email interview, reflecting on her craft and career.

MSR: MaMA mOsAiC — what has become of that?

SC: I was in a group called Sistahs in Struggle, with Sisonke Msimang, Simone Bramble, Rogene Hoosen and Natanya Stewart. We workshopped and performed works by well-known poets and theater artists we admired such as bell hooks, Sonja Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni and others. From there we [created] performance theater that spoke to human rights, political commentary and gender equity and spoken word theatre and poetry.

MSR: Was its purpose fulfilled?

SC: [It] is still in existence but moves in and out of a semi-dormant state. We have not produced a main-stage production in several years, but last year we kicked off the annual summer conservatory for girls, a two-week theater training intensive committed to helping girls of color interested in acting to reach their full potential.

Additionally, we have been conducting workshops, special performances and commissions, such as a recent event for which I was commissioned to write about sex trafficking in Minnesota for the Women’s Foundation. [MaMA mOsAiC] has moved from one that produces main-stage shows consecutively to one that is more community arts-based.

MSR: Would you say a little more about the Women’s Foundation commission?

SC: The Women’s Foundation asked me to create a piece around their $4 million campaign to raise awareness about sex trafficking in Minnesota, “MN Girls are not for Sale.” Through [MaMA mOsAiC], I created a script aimed at putting a human face on this issue. It was a project for their July 20 event, performed by Jayanthi Kyle, Eliza Rasheed, Michelle Erdman, Rachel Austin and myself, largely drawn from real stories of Minnesota girls.
Because of the overwhelmingly supportive response, I am excited about working on creating a full script from the material for a possible main-stage production in 2012.

MSR: How do you keep working, including right through pregnancy — during Agnes Under the Big Top, your husband called your belly a scud missile — and stay devoted to your family? Speaking of which, you have how many children now?

SC: I have two beautiful sons. One is two years old (Jordan Vaslekey Bliss Bailey) and the other is three months (Jalen Zaye Sia Bailey). I remember Mama saying that once you have kids, the universe makes a way. I’ve followed that wisdom, and it’s proven true. Of course at times it’s not as easy as others, finagling our hectic schedules, but for the most part it’s about planning and staying organized.

Plus, we pretty much take our kids almost everywhere we go, trips included. It keeps us together while instilling an early appreciation for art.

Dwight Hobbes welcomes reader responses to dhobbes@spokesman-recorder.com.