Nikki Patin
Naydja Bruton
Fred Jackson
We’re so proud to be featuring our first in-house performance from the 2024 Dark Matter Residency cohort with with Nikki Patín’s BlackLit: Working On Me!
BlackLit: Working on Me features a live reading of Nikki Patín’s debut memoir, Working On Me, backed by legendary Black musicians Naydja Bruton and Fred Jackson Jr.
Described as "world-splitting," "Illuminating," "fierce and deeply real," Working on Me is the ideal collection of pages to be steeped in the essence of Black music and the voice of its author, Nikki Patín.
Performance begins at 8:00 pm.
$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Nikki Patín
Featured in The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Reader, on WBEZ, WTTW, and on international television and radio, multidisciplinary artist Nikki Patin has been writing since she was 7. In 2014, Patin addressed the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland on behalf of Black women and girl survivors of sexual violence. Nikki Patin holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Main. She is the Founder and Executive Producer of Surviving the Mic, an Elastic Arts Dark Matter Arts Resident, and the recipient of the 2024 Leadership Award from The Network . Patin’s debut memoir, Working on Me, was recently released on Vine Leaves Press.
Naydja Bruton AKA Rhythm Ninja Drums is a session drummer, teacher and composer living in Chicago who helps her students externalize emotion through music. Naydja has held the Dark Matter Residency at Elastic Arts and was the curator of the monthly Timbre Tribe series and jam session at Elastic.
Fred Jackson, Jr.’s life has been a dedication to music. He began playing the saxophone in 7th grade and has been following the path of jazz ever since. This path has mirrored the great jazz migration—beginning with a move from Texas to Baton Rouge, where he studied with world-renowned jazz clarinetist Alvin Batiste and became the first graduate of Batiste’s A.A. in Jazz Studies, meanwhile sharing the stage with greats including Kafele Bandele, The Mike Foster Project, Troy Davis, Mark Whitfield, Lashawn Gary, Roland Guerin, Donald Edwards, Nicholas Payton, Brice Winston, Alvin Batiste, Doja Composure, Quamon Fowler, and Wes Anderson.
The Dark Matter Residency is supported by generous funding from The Joyce Foundation, the Reva and David Logan Foundation, and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.
A HEPA filter will also be onsite to make this event COVID-safer, thanks to Clean Air Club