Florinda Bryant
My art is how I pray. The war against Black bodies is real, the war against Black women is real. I want to tell our story, my story. I represent a specific class, I tell our story to save us.
Inspiration comes from a deep love, admiration and respect for the women around me. We talking Black girls, women you see around the way and most don’t even notice.
I think about the strong black women I know and how most of them have passed in part because they were strong black women. Music and visual images also provide inspiration.
I write for performance to see characters I know on stage, so I could hear our stories. The freedom to perform my own truth is one of the greatest privileges of being an artist.
ABOUT
Florinda Bryant is an award winning interdisciplinary artist, activist and educator – a Texas gurl who calls Austin home. As a performer and director, she has worked with Salvage Vanguard Theater, the Rude Mechs, the Vortex, Paper Chairs, Theater en Bloc and Teatro Vivo in Austin, TX and the Ensemble Theater in Houston, Texas.
Having trained for over 20 years in performance Jazz Aesthetics, Florinda has worked extensively with Sharon Bridgeforth, most recently performing the Blues in "dat Black Mermaid Man Lady" at Pilsbury House in Minneapolis, MN. Some of her favorite more recent performances include "Pork Chop Wars" written and directed by Laurie Carlos in Austin (Performing Blackness Series) and Minneapolis (Pangea World Theater), the regional premiere of "Until the Flood" by Dael Orlandersmith, and "Your Healing is Killing Me" by Virginia Grise (Playmakers in NC and Cara Mia Theater in Dallas Texas).
As a writer Florinda engages audiences in explorations around identity, body and community. Her award-winning one-woman show "Half Breed Southern Fried”, produced as part of the Performing Blackness Series at the University of Texas, was directed by Laurie Carlos. In Fall 2019 Ms. Bryant was named the inaugural "Omi Osun Joni L. Jones Visiting Performing Artist" for the African & African Diaspora Studies Department at UT Austin.
Most recently, the regional premiere of her one woman show "Black do Crack" at Ground Floor Theater in Austin, Texas was nominated for five B. Iden Payne Awards including Outstanding Production of a Drama, Original Script, Direction of a Drama, Dramaturgy, and Lead Actress in a Drama, which she won. Florinda has worked with at risk communities, young men and women and adults – using performance as social justice tool for empowerment and change for over 18 years. Having recently retired from arts administration with Creative Action and Salvage Vanguard Theater, Bryant is proud to be a full-time artist.
