headliners & Originals |
Global Gala has been honored to welcome headliners to open up the evening's festivities. Support those who support us by checking out their websites and checking out their videos. Global Gala II featured the one and only Bria Kelly and Global Gala VI welcomed songwriter and fingerstyle guitarist Yasmin Williams.
Global Gala has also been honored to have original artist perform pieces for the first time on Tallwood's stage, including original songs by Tallwood students, poetry specifically written for the evening (in multiple languages), and special arrangements and collaborations of already produced songs. Finally, thanks to permission from international artists, the evening's opening credits featured sit down music from original work from bands across the globe. |
featured original artist
Global Gala VI and VII, Opening Credits
GreyT |
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GreyT, a Polish band from Bielsko-Biała featured in 2019 Opening Credits, with the song Zostan ("Stay")
The 2020 event featured two additional originals, namely Wspomnienie Lata ("Summer Flashback") and Bzu ("Lilac").
The 2020 event featured two additional originals, namely Wspomnienie Lata ("Summer Flashback") and Bzu ("Lilac").
Global Gala VI Headliner, Global Gala VII World Premier Video
Yasmin Williams |
Go to Yasmin Williams' website at www.yasminwilliamsmusic.com
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Yasmin Williams opened up Global Gala VI with original work and a collaboration with THS orchestra where she specially arranged the music. Featured here are videos I Wonder, Sunflower (cover), and Guitka, Both NPR's Night Owl and Greenpeace (Reasons for Hope) featured Yasmin Williams' original music "Guitka". Williams has performed in concerts on both coasts and continues to receive critical acclaim.
Her albums include Unwind and her 2020 sophomore album Urban Driftwood.
Her albums include Unwind and her 2020 sophomore album Urban Driftwood.
"Speak Up" a Spoken Word
Global Gala VII, Original Verse
Mahesha Ekanayake
Mahesha Ekanayake
Ode to Solitude
Global Gala VI, Original Verse
Ava Sailey
Ava Sailey
stonewall butch blues
(the importance of implication)- conspiracy theorists are all out of their minds completely, absolutely, insane but sometimes they get me talking, have me run my mouth until my mouth is dry and my jaw is locking, and ive been talking for so long but nobody hears me my haircut is like a tinfoil hat to them they like people like me if they're not like me if they have been put into that sweet place of fear the eternal purgatory of the waiting room where you introduce your partner as your friend and the world knows youre gay but you cant hold their hand or wear the clothes you want to wear for if you arent straight enough, you are obsessed with it It, the skeleton in your closet, if your shirts are too bright or buttoned all the way up it paints a red target on your back, and red seems dignified for whats happening, has happened, will happen while we sit divided and have corporations call us Queer like theyve known us and what we’ve gone through walking one foot in front of one another down the street we have seen but will never be seen on i do not know any old people like me because they all died in the 1980’s if he were still alive would he be my teacher, if he were still alive would he be eating dinner, if he were still alive would he tell me it will all be okay, if he were still alive would he have found true love, if she were still alive would she tell me she likes my shoes, if he were still alive would he be checking me out at the store if they hadnt been forced to die in the streets and wither like roses eternally 22 years old, favorite foods and all of their smiles and custom jackets imprinted on the brains of every single person who lost them what could they offer us what did America take from us the quilt memorializing them has patches with art from my favorite show, imagery from the flags i wave i didnt learn about it in school 22 million people died and i wasnt allowed to mourn them and we aren’t the first generation to be massacred by silence before we burned a red ribbon into our chests they would take us we didn’t learn in school that they put us in camps too pink triangles for immoral men, caught as moving shadows by a windowsill forever inhabiting their homes and bodies and black triangles for asocial women who wear men’s clothes and whisper, softly, they stood marked by colored patches, a triangle on a triangle is a star in the liberation, those pink and black patches were left to finish their sentences until german officials legalized human nature in 1968 as you forced us to wear our uniform uniforms a country made of stars and stripes isn’t always on the right side of history they died inhuman and those who didn’t die weren’t released in the liberation i think we'll be sad forever i guess the conspiracy theorists were right about me, if the truth is conspiracy, because i speak the truth when i say in 1969, the stonewall riots throw the first brick that bashes back in the 1980’s 22 million dead by governmental negligence and lets not forget about laramie wyoming’s “special” project in january of 2019, chechnya resumed its mass killing of gay men i wonder who will write of them when it's all said and done i wonder who will mourn them in quiet rooms i hope they will not be forgotten, their names learned and remembered i wonder who will mourn them in quiet rooms i wonder who will mourn them in quiet rooms i wonder who will mourn them in quiet rooms -Ava Sailey, 2019 ed. Earl C. De Mott |
Appearing in the sixth Global Gala, Ava Sailey performed on the Tallwood stage as a freshman GSWLA student.
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Global Gala V and VI, Original Songs
Tyler Cole Tumminelli |
Visit Tyler's youtube channel here.
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GSWLA graduate and singer-songwriter Tyler Tumminelli performed multiple originals (including the one featured here) on stage during Global Gala V and VI, changing his style from pure acoustic in his first year to a bluesier feel in his second. Tumminelli's 2019 performance included a song with lyrics by Isabella Parziale and Earl C. De Mott.
Global Gala V, Original Verse
Vincent Garcia
Vincent Garcia
Ambahan Poetry
Those bountiful lanzones I had seen in Palawan, that milky harvest of an enduring spring, reminded me of our antiquated youth when we played in the fields -- much to my mother’s chagrin. As I lay here in the gorge, relinquish the fortified twigs who float on the left-brained downstream from their suffering, and relinquish them to me. Vincent Garcia, 2018 (Trans. V. Garcia) dVincent Garcia, a graduate of Tallwood, and a student at Old Dominion University, created this specific genre of poem (the Ambahan) for the 2018 event, reciting in both English and Tagalog.
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Global Gala V, Original Verse
Marcus Slade
Marcus Slade
, The Song the Owl God Sang Himself,
an original poem inspired by an Ainu folktale "Shirokanipe ranran pishkan," So I sang floating over river's flow. "Konkanipe ranran pishkan," So I sang high above human homes. And as I look down below, I see paupers of old now rich, While rich men of old Are now paupers it seems. And by the shore I see Ainu children at play. Gripping akshinotponku, Wooden bows and arrows, they say, "Behold! Coming this way A bird with divine wings!" The children of paupers of old Fire their arrows of gold But strike only clouds it seems. "Shirokanipe ranran pishkan," So I sang floating over river's flow. "Konkanipe ranran pishkan," So I sang high above human homes. I spot, down on river's shore, A boy dressed in tatters. A modest child of poverty born Clutching his ramshackle bow. The children of paupers of old, Evil eyes sunken in twisted faces, Spitting as they asked him, "What inspires such filth, achikara, to be so bold?" He knocks an arrow Swiftly as a fox Fleeing into the undergrowth And just as swiftly lets it go. In his eyes, shiktumorke, I see Apehuchi's fire. I extend my hand, ashke a uk, And invite his arrow into my breast. "Shirokanipe ranran pishkan," So I sang as I fell from the sky. "Konkanipe ranran pishkan," So I sang as I did die. -Marcus Slade, 2018 |
Marcus Slade took the stage in Global Gala 5, offering the audience a mixed language poem from English to Ainu.
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Global Gala IV and V, Original Verse
Jaida Donnerstag
Jaida Donnerstag
Self Portrait of Aftermath
A Rose you allotted me -knife edged thorns kissed my skin, tongued my deep oak roots Lapped like a thirsty dog at a silent spring, drenched in the blushing aftermath of our sword fight ember light Glowing, making ghostly our faces, highlighting the hollow, Unhollowing the sacredness of the moment barking flesh ablaze, unquenchable fire behind your eyes, and in my head, a spark, a thought, a farewell note to loneliness: “I never knew you were this warm hearted.” my body stemming forth, my back arching, my lips aching, no match for the pain of the Inferno, sparking as you muse. Luminosity Scalds my flesh Your honey hair glistening under the sun spotlight, dancing momentarily in a Kidnapper’s darkened dance, blinding envisionings. day bloomed to night, budding into the eternal twilight between here and now, there and then, and branching arms enshroud me in this timeless forever Lips uniting, beneath this mistletoe infesting oak I became Famined at the feast, I paused at the parasite you left, You left me uprooted hollowed drained my vivacity Suffocated my prosperity. How breathtaking! I am trapped in this winter, filled with you and barren, infected with your colour, forlorned in your blackened white... Your ocean eyes whirlpools, my passion crash against the rocks A riptide pulled me away from shore, your tidal force takes me to new horizons, drags me under, bloats me, and at once I am the colour of your eyes...i am your pupil too well learnt in your ways, like harmless hickies lapping against the stiffness of my neck... 3am skylines, hour hand chasing minute hand, minute hand too fast for her own good, hour hand too persistent, both shackled in the same dull face of round and round racing thoughts shackled around my inner peace, like waiting for the alarm to ring, unwilling to breath until that moment never comes Sometimes I wonder if you remember giving Me this rose I salvaged from our red remembrance, I look at it each mourning, wilting spine, head unable to lift up, lifeless drooping face, petal lips frayed, too brittle too un- Touch- able, once perky leaves now facing down--but not completely, almost as if to ask “why?” and I stare into the blank... -Jaida Donnerstag, 2016 (ed. E. De Mott) Jaida Donnerstag's work emerged from the English classroom, and she took the stage two year's in a row with her final products, a "Rainbow Poem" in the first year, and a free verse in the second.
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At Times When the Weight of the World
at times when the weight of the world becomes unbearable my body mimics a punching bag, unable to find equilibrium every punch pulls me closer to unconsciousness and fear digs a grave that doubt forces me into eventually, there comes a point where I no longer fight back, instead, cope with the numbness, attempt to play dead; either through the incapacity to struggle, or belief I would rather endure the torture than prolong the battle but managing does not win and time outs do not occur in real life and when do punching bags lead to body bags? and how long until playing dead becomes dying? life embodies a game, a gamble and I should have known I can lose a lack of draws, solely rivalry, not playing, but merely surviving losses result in pain, and winning appears unfamiliar Life at times exists as a game in which I no longer desire to play In all attempts I stop abiding: If my illness surrounds me traps me shackles me like a cage, a snare does that make me an animal? I sleep and I sleep and I sleep until I grow tired or sleeping because resting does not quench my body’s weariness I think I just need a time out Despite the lack of energy and present dissociation Or that I long to no longer belong this game continues on with or without me but then I reminisce; if life encompasses uncertainty why forfeit now? -Jaida Donnerstag, 2017 (ed. EDM, M. Denvir) |
*The Rainbow poem was invented as a creative writing activity at THS. It consist of seven parts (often reduced to seven lines) in which images are heavily used to connect to the emotions associated with the colors of the rainbow. The first section (or first line) is attached to red, the second to orange, the third to yellow, the fourth the green, the fifth to blue, the sixth to indigo, and the seventh to violet. The color are not allowed be mentioned in the poem, as the image produced by the color's emotive value is the key to this genre.
A variation of the rainbow is the Reverse Rainbow Poem in which the images move from violet to red. The images from each section ultimately are to create a cohesive whole and/or singular message.
A variation of the rainbow is the Reverse Rainbow Poem in which the images move from violet to red. The images from each section ultimately are to create a cohesive whole and/or singular message.
Global Gala III, Original Verse
Taya Dennis
Taya Dennis
As a theatre student at Tallwood, Taya Dennis offered her talents as a consummate techie, a graceful performer, and a poet in her own right. When Global Gala learned that two Ball Room dancer performers had just gotten married before the 2016 event, Dennis insisted on writing this poem as our wedding present to the two. She read it to them after they danced to Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud"
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Dance
(In Honor of the Newlyweds, Kate and Chip Delashmitt, Performers, Global Gala II and III) The dance starts off simply A girl and a boy Stretching, Hoping they don't trip over each other's feet. They walk towards each other After a courteous nod The music starts She softly places her hand on his shoulder He, a bit bolder, tenderly grips her waist A chant of 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 begins as they float around the room Basic figures and Ball changes slowly form into Natural Turns and Chasses Whisks, Reverse Turns, Closed Changes, Their dance grows more intricate, quicker as they continue on Three Steps, Progressive Rocks, Promenades Until they get to the most difficult move The Jump The Girl glides across the room Their heated gazes never parting He holds his breath as she bounds towards him She smoothly shuts her eyes and leaps Applause drowns out the music as it fades Her feet delicately meet the stage Their eyes meet yet again with a love they can barely contain And from that moment They know that they'll never need a new dance partner again -Taya Dennis, 2016 |
Global Gala II and III, Original Verse
Ahkei Togun |
Check out Ahkei Togun's projects at: https://www.bandlab.com/kingkei
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A Tallwood graduate, 2016 National Poetry Out Loud winner, poet, writer, and actor, Ahkei Togun continues to create words and music, while making his mark on the L.A. theatre scene.
Global Gala II HEADLINER
Bria Kelly |
Visit Bria Kelly's youtube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/user/BriaKelly
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Smithfield native Bria Kelly took the Tallwood Stage during Global Gala II. Above is audition highlights from the Voice, as well as videos of original work by Bria Kelly Music.
International Gala (Global Gala I), Original Verse
Global Gala, multi-annual Editor
Earl C. De Mott (EDM)
Global Gala, multi-annual Editor
Earl C. De Mott (EDM)
The World Journeys On
Walk past the killing fields, the oil spills, the famished, the residents of the streets, the unemployed, the smallpox patients, the corporate scandals, the greed, the human rights violations, the court battles, the domestic abuse, the racial inequality, the prejudice and bias, the nuclear weapons buildups, the arsons and rapes and abductions and media blitzes, the jihads and crusades, the cold war, and the hot war, and the war without words that sucks the soul out of the living... Walk past it all, and you have a beautiful world. -EDM, 2003 |
The World Journeys On
Recited by Reyna Smith, International Gala, 2014 De Mott continues to write poetry on the side, teaching creative writing and has been a presenter at Old Dominion University's Annual Teaching of Writing Conference as well as the Virginia Beach Symposium.
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