Chachi Carvalho Will Host Collaborative Residency with Brown Arts Institute

This July, artist, educator, and activist Chachi Carvalho will host a collaborative residency with the Brown Arts Institute (BAI) continuing its IGNITE Series and contributing to his ongoing project Local Traffic. The residency will highlight Carvalho’s impactful work as an arts leader in Rhode Island, a multitude of talented local artists, and provide space for pro“fresh”ional development within the local music community. By bringing a local cohort of artists together to perform with and learn from celebrated global artists in the new Lindemann Performing Arts Center, Carvalho and BAI endeavor to establish connections between students, faculty, a global network of artists and producers, and the local community. The residency takes place from July 10–13, featuring community workshops and culminating with Global C.A.F.E., a concert experience “Celebrating Art From Everywhere” with performances from June Freedom, Chachi Carvalho and The International Players, and other musical collaborators. Brown Arts Institute is part of the Perelman Arts District.

“As an artist, it is an empowering feeling to be able to perform in beautiful facilities, be supported with state of the art technology and professional staff, and more importantly, to be able to bravely share ideas through art, have those ideas treated with care, and the art be seen as having high value.” said Chachi Carvalho.“Through Cypher Academy and Global C.A.F.E., I am looking forward to gathering an amazing cohort of both local and International Artists, and showing our little state how small the world really is. I hope that staff, students, and community members take some time out of their day and enjoy a celebration of art like no other!”

The residency builds on Carvalho’s multidisciplinary practice as a musician, community and youth advocate, and educator. It will include two major components: Cypher Academy, a three-day pro”fresh”ional development workshop geared towards local arts practitioners from the New England community, and Global C.A.F.E., a concert experience “Celebrating Art From Everywhere” in collaboration with musicians, dancers, and DJs celebrating hip-hop, Afro house, Cape Verdean, and Brazilian music. These events culminate Carvalho’s year-long project with BAI, Local Traffic, aiming to connect local community members with a network of artists and producers in both the local and the global community. Beyond his work in music, Carvalho has done extensive work with the youth community, volunteering as a football coach for over fourteen years at his alma mater Shea High School, and serving as a brand ambassador for the Transform Rhode Island Scholarships. In 2018, Carvalho founded Culture Shock, an annual music festival and community celebration, hosted annually in downtown Pawtucket. In 2023, Carvalho was hired as the first Chief Equity Officer for the city of Pawtucket.

“Chachi is an incredible artist with a distinct vision whose ongoing projects here at Brown exhibit the type of meaningful and longstanding creative relationships we seek to cultivate in our academic and artistic programming,” said BAI Artistic Director Avery Willis Hoffman. “We are thrilled to host this summer gathering in collaboration with an artist whose work is so deeply rooted in community, and who joins us in a shared commitment to productive engagement and partnership here in Providence and in the region.”

Carvalho is supported as part of BAI’s Artistic Innovators Collective, a fluid group of over 40 artists across disciplines who convene regularly on campus and work closely with campus communities through various teaching opportunities, research support and grants, and the presentation of a range of work from early ideas to full-scale commissions. Rooted in a practice of rigorous arts research and BAI’s mission to support, amplify, and add new dimensions to the creative practices of Brown’s arts departments, faculty, students, and surrounding communities, the Artistic Innovators Collective informs the development of BAI’s integrated artistic and academic programming.

Brown Arts Institute’s IGNITE Series provides opportunity and space for interdisciplinary, collaborative, and impactful projects centered around the possibilities of art as a vehicle for societal change. IGNITE launched its inaugural programs in fall 2023 and will run through fall 2024 and is anchored by six large-scale imaginings and collaborative residencies: Carrie Mae Weems (fall 2023); William Kentridge and The Centre for the Less Good Idea (spring 2024); Tanya Tagaq (spring 2024); Chachi Carvalho (summer 2024); Kym Moore, Professor of Theatre Arts & Performance Studies at Brown (fall 2024); and Caridad “La Bruja” de la Luz (fall 2024). These boundary-pushing projects activate The Lindemann Performing Arts Center, a new arts venue located in the heart of Brown’s Perelman Arts District and designed by REX/Joshua Ramus that takes a radical approach to spatial, acoustic, and technical flexibility to enable new forms of artistic research and creation, which opened in October 2023.

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