| Past Events
When VBB hosted our first literary reading in 2000, we never anticipated that we would go on to becoming a nationally celebrated alternative arts organization. Back in 1998, Sehba Sarwar had written a poem and was looking for a place to perform it. In 1999, she phoned 4 women writer/poet friends (Marcela Descalzi, Jacsun Shah, Donna Perkins and Christine Choi) and invited them to join her to set up a single reading.
After numerous meetings in coffee shops around the city, the women decided on Voices Breaking Boundaries as the right name for the kind of gathering we wanted to host. Sehba went on to apply for a Artist Project Grant through the Houston Arts Alliance (then known as the Cultural Arts Council of Houston/ Harris County grant to fund the reading—and she received $4,500. With money in their pocket, the Core Group, as the women referred to themselves, decided to host a series rather than just one event. A bookstore in southwest Houston donated a space, and VBB began producing readings, open mics at which the Core Group also performed their own work. By Fall 2000, after Sehba received her second CACHH grant to run the series, the lineup included music and the voices of young artists. Through the grant money received, the VBB Core Group paid honoraria to all everyone on the lineup. Sehba’s then-high school student Eric Hester designed the flyers and the group kept adding on to its mailing list.
After February 2001, when VBB closed out on its first film festival, a collaboration with Himal South Asia in Nepal and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Core Group decided to file for non-profit status so VBB could apply for more funding.
Since its inception, VBB has received donated office, exhibition and performance space from DiverseWorks Artspace and Project Row Houses. Through 2006-Summer 2010, VBB was housed at the Houston Arts Alliance as an Incubator organization. It has now moved into its own office space in central Houston.
After completing its Strategic Plan in 2008, VBB has streamlined its production and has begun a new series called East End Live Art that takes place at a cafe each month, and researches and develops larger annual productions that are presented to the community as living room art productions (in people's homes that are opened out as gallery shows).
Always challenged by funding demands, VBB continues to find innovative
solutions to our problems and relies on local, national and international
community networking to host and present our events.
|
