By Polina Smith
Hosted by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the YBCA 100 is the recognition of 100 multidisciplinary creators, artists, political activists, and organizers and celebrates the collective impact of these public figures on community building efforts with a focus on equity, innovation, and longevity. First started in 2014, the YBCA 100 has been highlighting the crucial work of thought leaders across the country.
On Saturday, April 3, 2021, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts hosts the YBCA 100 Summit. The event will be held on OhYay, a brand-new virtual platform with immersive capabilities, ideal for replicating the intimacy and communal spirit of live performance.
This year, for the first time, the YBCA 100 put the selection of its nominees up to a public vote. This democratization of the selection process has created a list that spans various disciplines, communities, and backgrounds with a true representation of diversity in the voting body and the greater Bay Area community.
The April 3rd summit will commence with a performance of a new song by Meklit Hadero, a San Francisco-based singer-songwriter whose style is shaped by her musical background in jazz, folk, soul, and East African music traditions. The event will also feature a conversation between Bay Area local and Tony and Grammy Award-winning actor Daveed Diggs and YBCA CEO Deborah Cullinan. This conversation will revolve around the role of and the need for artists to lead our country out of this national crisis and toward localized, community-building practices. As the event continues, YBCA honorees, which includes Ijeoma Oluo, SOMA Pilipinas, and Youth versus Apocalypse will be presented through the interactive, immersive format of the OhYay application. This audience-led design will allow viewers the agency to explore different “rooms” on the platform at their own pace, thereby creating a “choose your own adventure” experience. This innovation attempts to bring the spirit and spontaneity of live performance to the night’s proceedings, with a format that encourages maximum audience engagement throughout the program. This will also allow audiences to familiarize themselves with honorees from the YBCA 100 list.
Meet three of this year’s YBCA 100 honorees.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, Courtesy YBCA
Nikole Hannah-Jones. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who became a household name for her reporting on the 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones emerged as a leading voice of the racial justice movement throughout the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020. She is a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, a Peabody Award winner, and the founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, the mission of which is to provide young journalists of color with mentorship opportunities.
Deanna Van Buren, Courtesy YBCA
Deanna Van Buren. Executive Director and Co-Founder of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces. Her work in architecture has been at the forefront of the cultural discourse surrounding racial equality in restorative justice.
My-Lihn Le, Courtesy YBCA
My-Lihn Le. Director, choreographer, and dancer. She is known for creating long-form works addressing themes of environmental destruction, racial justice, and the cross-currents of colonialism and capitalism on modern life.
Founded in 1993, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has been providing San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Gardens community with access to high-quality arts and live entertainment, from interactive visual arts exhibits to theatre, music, and dance performances. Though the COVID-19 pandemic has cut short and greatly limited the variety and scope of the programming offered by the Yerba Buena Center, this event promises to shine a spotlight on the important work that has still been created and facilitated by the honorees of this year’s YBCA 100 list. Though the performances have been virtual, and the impact has been diluted through computer screens and Zoom backgrounds across the country, the critical output of these honorees has been no less consequential, and the YBCA 100 Summit will seek to uphold and affirm that output through a lively and interactive celebration of all of the noble, heroic efforts to bring communities together throughout a year and amidst a pandemic that kept us so far apart.
Sign up for the YBCA 100 Summit on April 3 for a unique, once-in-a-lifetime event highlighting the vital work of artists, creators, and organizers serving communities of the Bay Area and beyond.