Editor’s note: Use the code REDCAT2990 for 20% off tickets at checkout: https://www.redcat.org/event/sola-bamis-tutorial
Actor and CalArts alum Sola Bamis (Theater MFA 11) melds performance, installation, and theater in The Tutorial, an original “irreverent and heartfelt” work running Thursday, April 21 to Saturday, April 23 at REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles.
Described as a deconstructed reimagination of author Toni Morrison’s first novel The Bluest Eye (1970), Bamis shares her secrets for a four-week skincare regimen—a critique of colorism and Western beauty standards.
From REDCAT:
The work explores the idea of the self and the other while providing a digital litany for Black women’s survival in the face of Neoliberalism, Big Tech, Hollywood colorism, xenophobia, and cultural genocide. Sola’s multistep skincare tutorial serves as an allegory to the processes of dehumanization that Black and Third World Women have faced, with the third and fourth steps exploring the effects of Jim Crow on our psyche and the implications of forced sterilization on our sexuality.
Sola Bamis’ The Tutorial | Photo credit: Vanessa Crocini 
Sola Bamis’ The Tutorial | Photo credit: Vanessa Crocini 
Sola Bamis’ The Tutorial | Image courtesy of the artist 
Sola Bamis’ The Tutorial | Photo credit: Vanessa Crocini 
Sola Bamis’ The Tutorial | Image courtesy of the artist
An earlier iteration of the work, titled The Tutorial Part II: The White Tears Tea Steam, premiered to acclaim during REDCAT’s 2019 New Original Works (NOW) Festival. Celine Kiner of the LA Dance Chronicle noted that The Tutorial Part II was “brilliantly crafted, it required that she slip effortlessly in and out of several characters. Bamis’ characters each brought a new light to the disparity between white and Black problems.”
A special virtual livestream option for at-home audiences is available for the Saturday, April 23 show. Please note that ticket sales for virtual events end two hours before the event begins.
As digital content and social media producer, Taya enjoys lifting up the stories and accomplishments of CalArts' students, alums, and faculty. She fancies herself a visual artist but is really more of an overzealous collector of art supplies.
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