Risk-Taking Women in the Arts Panel Discussion

Online ticket reservations are now sold out! Walk-up seating in the BMA Auditorium will be limited.

Don’t miss Joyce J. Scott in conversation with longtime performance and comedy collaborator Kay Lawal-Muhammad, who is also a founding director of Actors Against Drugs, Kuumba Women’s Theatre Company, and WombWork Productions Inc. Moderated by Tracey Beale, BMA Director of Public Programs. This is the third and final installment of the Risk-Taking Women in the Arts series.

Check out Joyce J. Scott’s official music video, Ya Know, featuring Kay Lawal-Muhammad.

Schedule

10 a.m.–9 p.m. – Free admission to Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams. Timed tickets required!
6 p.m. – Auditorium doors open
6:30 p.m. – Conversation begins
7:30–8:30 p.m. – Open reception in Fox Court

About the Artists

Kay Lawal-Muhammad

For over five decades, Kay Lawal-Muhammad has performed around on the world on stages in New York City, Edinburgh, Scotland, Amsterdam and Kenya. Blending artistry with activism, Ms. Lawal-Muhammad is a founding director of Actors against Drugs, Kuumba Women’s Theatre Company, and WombWork Productions Inc.

Ms. Lawal-Muhammad has appeared in the Emmy award-winning episode of the television series Homicide. Other television appearances include America’s Most Wanted, The Corner and The Wire. One of Ms. Lawal-Muhammad’s most acclaimed productions was her long running comic partnership with the provocative comedy team The Thunder Thigh Revue starring artist Joyce Scott, which toured in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Through her “Kayotic Komedy,” she takes the title of “Laugh Therapist.” Tapping universal themes, she invites audiences in on a healing process. Spoken from the depths of her heart, Kay influences audiences everywhere how to laugh through hardships and how to celebrate everyday joy. Her newest character, “Hip Hop Granny the Virtues Queen,” uses Hip Hop and the use of the 5 strategies of the Virtues Project International and African Centered Rites of Passage to elevate youth. A good laugh never hurts anyone. In fact, humor actually helps promote healing and productivity.

Known as “Mama Kay” to the thousands of youth and families who have had life-changing experiences through the work of WombWork Productions, Ms. Lawal-Muhammad serves as Artistic Director of the production company. Pioneering a three-tier mentoring process through the production company’s three performance ensembles, Nu World Art Ensemble (ages 18 and up), Nu Generation Art Ensemble (13-17), and Next Generation Art Ensemble (5-12). Mama Kay now has a film director credit added to her resume. She is an official Rites of Passage Facilitator and a Master Virtues Facilitator (Virtues Project™).

Joyce J. Scott

Joyce J. Scott (b. 1948, Baltimore, MD) earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Master of Fine Arts from the Instituto Allende in Mexico. In 2018, she was awarded an honorary fellowship from NYU, as well as honorary doctorates from both MICA and the California College of the Arts. In 2022, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. Her work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions, with major solo shows such as Joyce J. Scott: Harriet Tubman and Other Truths at Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ (2018); Joyce J. Scott: Truths and Visions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland (2015); Maryland to Murano: The Neckpieces & Sculpture of Joyce J. Scott at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2014-15); and Joyce J. Scott: Kickin’ It with the Old Masters at the BMA (2000). She has received commissions, grants, awards, residencies, and honors, including from MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2016), Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for the Arts, Anonymous Was a Woman, and Smithsonian Visionary Artist Award, among others. Scott’s work is also included in many public collections, including the BMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Seattle Art Museum, and many others.

This program is sponsored by the Deborah Buck Foundation, an organization supporting institutions that are actively working to reverse the marginalization of women in the Fine Arts. The evening is dedicated to the loving memory of Sue Dalsemer, Deborah Buck’s mother.