2018 - Nimbus Dance Works
The fourth season of In Full Color was the first presented by In Full Color (then known as Thinking In Full Color) as an independent company, in a new and exciting venue, Nimbus Dance Works, 165 Newark Ave., Jersey City. The show ran from June 21 to 24 and was a groundbreaker in more ways than one. It featured three trans women, the queerest cast in IFC history overall and the first performer from outside the Tristate area, who also happened to be our founder and director's teen sister. The production was sponsored by Mayor Steven M. Fulop, the Jersey City City Council, and the Office of Cultural Affairs. Concessions were provided by LITM.
A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR
We never thought we'd end up sharing stories by women of color from all over the country and we never pictured our words immortalized on bookstore shelves. But here we are today, growing bigger than ever as an independent company and enjoying our fourth season. I also never realized this show would create eternal bonds between over 50 women, 50 true soul sisters. We meet up for coffee, we go to each other's shows, we read each other's books. This year, we even said goodbye to one of our own, Purvi Patel, to whom we dedicate this season.
As Amanda, Nancy and I stood by her casket, we thought about Purvi's laugh, her bravery and the power of her story. And together there, as we cried on each other's shoulders, I realized that we truly were a family. We pulled each other up through our sorrows, proving once again that together, women can do powerful things.
This year's show is a little more serious than usual. A little more tired, a little more wistful, a little more fed up. This past year has made us so. But together, we will rise.
– Summer Dawn Reyes
THIS YEAR’S ART INSPIRATION
This year's posters and graphics featured "Inner Beauty" by Jersey City artist Theda Sandiford.
FEATURING
in order of appearance
I Am Mother to All by Tatiana Figueroa Ramirez
performed by Summer Dawn Reyes and Liliane Wolf
Born on the sofrito-infused island of Puerto Rico to a military family & raised amongst the hodgepodge culture of the U.S., Tatiana spent much of her childhood balancing overlapping worlds that would eventually join to become her own. Tatiana is a VONA/Voices Alumna having studied under award-winning poet Willie Perdomo. Tatiana has been published in Pool Poetry, Spillwords, The Acentos Review, A Gypsy's Library, and Here Comes Everyone: East & West Issue. She is currently working on her first collection of poetry Coconut Curls y Café con Leche.
Summer is the founder and director of Thinking In Full Color (TIFC). She is also a writer, actress and event coordinator/producer. She has won multiple awards including a commendation from the New Jersey State Assembly, the Permanent Career Award in Writing from the Society of Arts and Letters-NJ and the N.J. Governor’s Award in Arts Education. She is a proud Jersey City and Colorado Springs native. She is also wife to an awesome guy named Greg and stepmom to another awesome, smaller guy named Greg. Follow her on Instagram @thinkinginfullcolor
Liliane is the co-founder of 68 Productions, a Jersey City-based theater company. An alumna of the Jersey City Arts High School and the Governor’s School of the Arts, she made her Off-Broadway debut with "Things Fall (Meanwhile)" and "Conspicuous." She is honored to be back for this season’s Thinking in Full Color and thanks Summer for this impactful opportunity. Liliane was most recently seen in No Peeking Theatre‘s “Indigenous”; follow her on Instagram @LilianeWolf to keep up with her future events. She dedicates this performance to her son, León.
phone calls and codewords by Dena Igusti
performed by B Bastian
Dena is an Indonesian Muslim poet based in Queens, NYC. She is the co-founder of Short Line Review. She is a 2018 NYC Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador and 2017 Urban Word NYC Federal Hall Fellow. She has been featured in Write About Now, Thread, BOAAT Press, and more. You can find her at denaigusti.wordpress.com
B is an Indonesian-American actor. After growing up as TCK (Third-Culture Kid) in Colorado, Western Australia, and Singapore, she moved to New York in 2008 and has lived there ever since. When she's not in the theatre, you can
find her producing the work she wants to see with her production company (SMD Productions) or singing in the alto section of NAAP's Broadway Community Chorus. This performance marks the first time she gets to be someone who is just like her on the stage. She hopes it won't be the last.
***Woman by Glennifer Braker
Glennifer is happy to perform a piece that expresses her gratitude toward and love of her womanhood. She believes there is urgent need for more representation of trans women and trans WOC, in particular telling their stories and turning their pain, trauma and dehumanization into masterpieces. She is proud to step into her power, to share her story fiercely and unapologetically, and to empower trans women that need to hear that their womanhood is valid, no matter white cisgender patriarchy has told them what they are supposed to look like.
Love letters from dead sons by Samira Sadeque
Samira is a New York-based Bangladeshi journalist and poet focusing on migration, the refugee crisis, gender and mental health. She completed her M.S. in Journalism from Columbia Journalism School in 2017. She is a participant of the New York Foundation For the Arts 2018 Immigrant Artists Mentoring Program and a Winter Tangerine alumnus. Before moving to New York, she founded a spoken word platform in her hometown Dhaka, Bangladesh; she has performed in Nepal, San Francisco, London, Washington, D.C., among other places.
Walls by Alina Hortillosa
Alina is a teen poet and writer from Minneapolis. She loves the smell of strawberry and mint, swimming in the rain and when the sky is white after it snows. She is following in the footsteps of her father, a published chess author, and her sister, the founder of TIFC; both are extremely proud of her and love her very much. Her biggest fan, however, may be her loyal, adorable, giant German shepherd, Thunder.
I am Just a Fetish by Yasmine Tadross
performed by Angela Raine
Yasmine is an Afro Egyptian Black hairy trans woman writer from California. Recently, she graduated with a BA in Women and Gender Studies from Sonoma State University. She will start her Masters in Urban Planning and Policy and The University of Illinois Chicago in the Fall to start infiltrating the system with tiny houses! Her work has been seen at the North Jersey LGBTQIA Conference and the North Bay Women of Color Conference. She writes about how race, womanhood, class, and migration intersect in how she navigates public spaces as well as being desired. yasminet1996.blogspot.com
Angela was born and raised in Newark after her parents moved up from the South. The last of six children, she attended Central High School and worked in various agencies in Newark doing HIV prevention and establishing transgender support groups. She continues to do transgender outreach work, and volunteers at the Newark LGBTQ Community Center. Married to writer T.T. Wardell since 1998, she has published Newark’s first transgender-owned and –edited magazine La’Raine since 2006.
Ode to the Medusa in Me by Stephanie Dinsae
Steph is a poet and Black Classicist, splitting her time somewhere along the lines of the Bronx, N.Y., and Northampton, Mass., where she is a rising senior at Smith College. She is dedicated to finding the intersections of Greco-Roman mythology and Blackness through her poetry. Her favorite things to do are dance around to music in her room and obsess over astrology. In case you were wondering, Steph’s a Libra Sun, Scorpio Moon and Sagittarius Rising.
Thigh Gap (Or Lack Thereof) by Eloísa Pérez-Lozano
performed by Alicia Rivas
Eloísa writes poems and essays about Mexican-American identity, motherhood and women’s issues. She graduated from Iowa State University with a B.S. in psychology and an M.S. in journalism and mass communications. A 2016 Sundress Publications Best of the Net nominee, her work has been featured in The Texas Observer, Houston Chronicle, and Poets Reading the News, among others. She lives with her family in Houston, Texas.
Alicia was born and raised in Jersey City and is an In Full Color 2016 Alumni. She has worked with Luna Stage, Dreamcatcher Repertory Theatre, Writers Theatre of New Jersey, Art House Productions, Speranza Theatre Company, Passage Theatre, and recently with JCity Theater. She is thrilled to be joining In Full Color for another run!
Dear Future Partner by Eileen Ramos
Eileen is a bi(polar) Filipina American writer and a proud member of GABRIELA New York, a mass-based Filipina women's activist group. As a mental health advocate who had severe depression and three psychoses, she strives to break the stigma so that others can feel less isolated and more hopeful. A hoarding reader, she is a columnist for Bored to Death Book Club, where she abandons books, lit magazines, small gifts, and her own creative writing in public for strangers to keep. Next up is Jersey City. Follow along at
@abandonedB2DBC on Instagram. Website: vitalendeavor.wordpress.com
I Forgive You by Yarineth Peña Vargas
performed by Liliane Wolf
Yarineth is a Mexican-American writer.
See bio for Liliane Wolf under “I Am Mother to All”
Rage & Ruins by Dr. Jennifer Mullan
Jennifer is a writer, psychologist, coach, community organizer and spiritual practitioner. She works with people to create healing spaces within themselves, communities and organizations. Her work is rooted in the idea that people’s personal and collective healing are deeply intertwined with the process of Decolonizing the Self. She is currently working on creating a Conscious Consulting practice and a therapeutic rage retreat in the winter. She loves the ocean, the PEP program, her soul family, diving great emotional depths, dancing until sweaty, her Goddess Cat Isis and real-ass conversations.
Eternal Spring by Mercy Villa Copantitla
Mercy is a self-identifying queer-xicana-feminist-womxn whose work is rooted in the art of love, healing and community. She is dedicated to creating inclusive safe-spaces in support of mental health awareness and LGBTQ+ youth.
THE CREW
in alphabetical order
Summer Dawn (Director)
Alicia Ruth (Board Member, Set Designer)
Venida Rodman Jenkins (Board Member)
Lance A. Michel (Technical Director)
Daniel Guiducci (Photographer)
Crystal Davis (Press)
Doug Stoveken (Video)
Samille Ganges, Gregory A. Reyes (Box Office)
Susannah Goya-Pack, Gina Bruno, Nerissa Tutiven (Concessions)
Theda Sandiford (Visual Artist)
SPECIAL THANKS
Mayor Steven M. Fulop, the Jersey City Municipal Council and the Office of Cultural Affairs, Christine Goodman, Nimbus Dance Works, Samuel Pott, Catriona Rubenis Stevens, Fractured Atlas, Gregory A. Reyes, LITM
