Maia
Multi-dimensional expressionist
* composer
* bandleader
* multi-instrumentalist
* vocalist
* dancer
* writer
* poet
* storyteller,
* photographer
* actress
* educator
As composer, bandleader, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist...
She is gaining a healthy reputation as composer having received a Meet the Composer's Grant for "Key Vibrations, Symphony #1." This piece embodies several music styles and is written in four movements. Her band, Samana, (all women's ensemble of the AACM-Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) was named "fest favorite" at the Women of the New Jazz Festival '94 by Chicago Sun-Times music critic, Lloyd Sachs. She gained notoriety as an outstanding dancer and musician while performing with Phil Cohran. She has also performed with notable AACM artists such as Jazz Master Mwata Bowden, Edward Wilkerson's Shadow Vignettes, Ameen Muhammad's Chicago 3D and Earnest Dawkin's New Horizons + 5 in tribute to Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
As writer, poet, story teller...
As writer and producer, Dreams, Chance and Choices, an original multi-media production created and directed by Maia for the Calumet High School performing arts departments, was presented at the DuSable Museum, April, 1994. She presented River Soul, a pageant for the female Orisha based in the Yoruban philosophy, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1991. Mother Gone, which investigates the effect that the absence of mothering has had on the contemporary African-American family, was presented at the Women Healing the Planet Conference in 1990.
As dancer...
Maia credits Darlene Blackburn with broadening her horizons as a dancer and exposing her to many African traditions in dance. Ballet, Flamenco, Southeastern Asian dance styles, Tai Chi, Yoga, and Kung Fu are a few of the movement disciplines that she has studied and incorporate into her own creative dance style.
As actress...
She appeared as"Chi-Town Girl" in the first run of 'The Steppers' Ball by Phyllis Curtwright, at the ETA Theatre, Chicago, Il., 1994, and also starred as Yetunde, in the MPAACT production, Continuum: Visions from Yetunde at the Body Politic Theater, Chicago 1993. Maia can be seen as "The Dance Teacher" in independent filmmaker, Dalida M. Benfield's Potential Pictures .Maia is director and one of the featured musician on Light Worker, CD recording by nationally renowned story teller, Shanta; Storywiz Records. She also teaches voice and flute at the AACM School of Music, and Creative Writing sponsored by Mostly Music, Inc. in the Chicago Public Schools. Maia has made several television and radio appearances, recipient of several grants and is a 1991 graduate of the School Art Institute of Chicago with focus in graphic design and illustration.
