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| DJ Avotcja at Jazz at Pearl's  Popular Bay Area DJ, poet, actor and musician, the dynamic Avotcja (ah-va-cha) is a one-woman furnace of creativity. With her large ensemble Modupue (moe-do-pwe), featuring the stunning pianist Jon Jang, Francis Wong on sax and flute, Yancie Taylor on vibes and a stageful of passionate, pulsing musicians, playing blues, jazz and Latin rhythms, Avotcja gives audiences a gumbo of sounds and fury that few groups can match. This weekend (Friday-Sunday, December 1-3), Ajotca brings her band, and her energy, to Jazz at Pearl's in San Francisco.An accomplished poet, Avotcja has been published in English & Spanish in the USA, Mexico & Europe. She's a multi-instrumentalist who has opened for Betty Carter in New York City and for Peru's Susana Baca at San Francisco's Encuentro Popular, played with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Bobi and Luis Cespedes, John Handy, Sonido Afro Latina, Dimensions Dance Theater, Black Poets With Attitudes, Nikki Giovanni, the Diamano Coura West African Dance Company and Terry Garthwaite. And that's the short list. Her poetry and music has been recorded by Piri Thomas, Famadou Don Moyeand Bobby Matos Latin Jazz Ensamble, and performed by The Purple Moon Dance Project. In addition to all this, Avotcja is popular Bay Area DJ, heard on KPFA and KPOO, and the founder/director of "The Clean Scene Theater Project/Proyecto Teatral De La Escena Sobria". She teaches poetry, creative writing and drama in the public school system and, thanks to the California Arts Council, she is an Artist in Residence at the Milestones Project and the Penal System. Talk about a Renaissance Woman! As Elaine Cohen, poet and author of Unfinished Dream: the Musical World of Red Calendar, has said, "Poet, musician and DJ, Avotcja is on intimate terms with the blues, grounded in their power and unafraid to speak the pain, the pride and the truth. Her words can make you laugh, cry, pray, get up and dance or vow to make your life a better thing." write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |