Mixed Taste: At Home is where even the most mismatched subjects find common ground in an interactive lecture series that can go pretty much anywhere. On Wednesday nights at 7PM, two speakers get twenty minutes each to enlighten participants on unrelated topics, without making any connections to the other. It is only as participants begin to ask questions that these talented, sometimes hilarious, speakers start to take our highly engaged audience on an adventure of words with twists and turns that eventually bring the two together in extraordinary ways. 

 Co-curated by MCA Denver and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Mixed Taste: At Home will bring together favorite speakers from years past live from their living rooms to yours.

This week:

• 8/19: Zeno's Paradox & Artivism  |  Featuring Elisabeth Stade & Suzi Q. Smith

Each evening will conclude with an original poem inspired by the topics performed by some of Denver’s best poets, including Suzi Q. Smith, Brenton Weyi, Mahogany, and James Brunt.

This six-week series will be free with registration, and accessible via YouTube live on Wednesdays. Please join us for laughs, intellectual gymnastics, and community-building through a fun, fascinating cultural discourse.

Elisabeth Stade is an artist and mathematician. Her work in both fields looks for hidden patterns beyond perception. The artistic work explores the connection within these abstract worlds and transforms them into tactile experiences. As an educator, she aims to reveal mathematics as pattern. Previous Mixed Taste lecture topic: The Golden Ratio in 2018.

Suzi Q. Smith is an award-winning artist, activist, and educator who lives in Denver, Colorado. Performing across the U.S. for over a decade, she has shared stages with Nikki Giovanni, the late Gil Scott Heron, and many more. Her poems have appeared in Union Station Magazine, Suspect Press, La Palabra, Muzzle Magazine, Malpais Review, The Pedestal, The Los Angeles Journal, Denver Syntax, Word is Bond, The Peralta Press, Yellow Chair Review, and in the anthologies The Mutiny Info Reader, Diverse-City, His Rib: Anthology of Women, and In Our Own Words. Her chapbook collection of poems, Thirteen Descansos, was published by Penmanship Books. She co-wrote the dramatic productions How I Got Over: Journeys in Verse (produced by DCPA Off-Center in the 2015/16 season) and Where We Are From: Freedom is a Constant Struggle. Suzi Q. has also worked extensively as an activist with civil rights organizations, victims advocate organizations, arts organizations, peace organizations, hospitals, prisons, and more. She was the founding Slammaster of Denver’s Slam Nuba, and she spent 12 years in the poetry slam arena as a coach, organizer, and performer. In addition, she has worked extensively with youth, serving as a Teaching Artist with Youth On Record, and as a coach of Denver Minor Disturbance Youth Poetry Slam, resulting in two international championships. Currently, Suzi Q. is at work on her next collection while she continues to teach Creative Writing, and she serves as the co-Chair of the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs. Previous Mixed Taste poet.

James Brunt is an actor born and raised in Denver, Colorado most known for pushing the boundaries of what we know about theater with immersive productions in obscure settings and hard hitting concepts that make his audience truly reflect on their views of the world. Playing roles from a cleaver wielding beet butcher, to a zany detective on the hunt for answers, he loves to create anything that will make his heart beat faster and blood boil up. He recently received the 2019 True West award for breakout actors for his challenging portrayal of taxi driver, Bobby, in Mosque with The Black Actors Guild. Other works recognized were his productions with The Band of Toughs and Control Group Productions. When Brunt isn’t taking the stage, he still finds ways to enlighten his audiences by performing original slam poetry or creating magical moments as the beloved Santa Claus. He is also an educator of the arts, teaching improv to the youth of Denver with the Black Actors Guild.