Avotcja has been published in English & Spanish in the USA, Mexico & Europe, and in more Anthologies than she remembers. She is an award winning Poet & multi-instrumentalist who has opened for Betty Carter in New York City, Peru's Susana Bacaat San Francisco’s Encuentro Popular & Cuba’s Gema y Pável, played with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Bobi & Luis Cespedes, John Handy, Sonido Afro Latina, Dimensions Dance Theater, Black Poets With Attitudes, Bombarengue, Nikki Giovanni, Los Angeles' Build An Ark, Dwight Trible, Diamano Coura West African Dance Co., Terry Garthwaite, Big Black, The Bay Area Blues Society & Caribeana Etc. Shared stages with Sonia Sanchez, Piri Thomas, Janice Mirikitani, Diane DiPrima, Michael Franti, Jayne Cortez, & with Jose Montoya's Royal Chicano Air Force & is a Bay Area icon with her group Avotcja & Modúpue. Avotcja was the opening act for the legendary Poet Pat Parker the last three years of her life. She both composed & performed the film score for the Danish documentary MuNu. Her Poetry &/or music has been recorded by Piri Thomas, Famoudou Don Moyé (of The Art Ensemble Of Chicago), Bobby Matos Latin Jazz Ensemble, & performed by The Purple Moon Dance Project, and was the 1st Poetry performed by New York's Dance Mobile. She's appeared at The Lorraine Hansberry Theater in S. F., The Asian-American Jazz Festival in Chicago, as well as The Asian-American Jazz Festival in San Francisco. She's been featured 5 times at Afro-Solo, twice at San Francisco's Carnival, The Scottish Rite Temple & Yoshi's in Oakland & San Francisco, Jose Castellar's play "Man From San Juan", Club Le Monmartre in Copenhagen Denmark, Stanford University, at San Francisco’s Brava Theater For The Arts with Cine Acción, New York's Henry Street Settlement Theater and The Women On The Way Festival in San Francisco. Avotcja a is popular Bay Area DeeJay & Radio Personality, and the founder/Director of "The Clean Scene Theater Project (AKA) Proyecto Teatral De La Escena Sobria". She continues to teach Creative Writing, Storytelling & Drama in Public Schools & thanks to the California Arts Council she was also an Artist in Residence at the Milestones Project & San Francisco Penal System. Avotcja is a proud member of DAMO (Disability Advocates Of Minorities Organization), PEN Oakland, California Poets In The Schools, IWWG & is an ASCAP recording artist.
CHELLE! and Friends commemorates the music of Mardi Gras, New Orleans, and celebrates it’s Creole people and their remarkable music. Michelle Jacques was born in New Orleans and raised in Oakland, CA.. She began this journey to find out what it means to be Creole, to understand her culture, her language and her history...and after the devastation of Katrina in 2005, her mission has evolved into her determination to keep the history and the music of New Orleans alive through concerts, children's performances, workshops and residencies.
Ask 20 people how to define the music of New Orleans and you’ll get 30 answers. It could be jazz, funk, soul, Creole, Cajun, or gospel, Caribbean, African, Zydeco, rock or the chants and stirring rhythms of Mardi Gras Indians.
New Orleans native, MICHELLE JACQUES along some "very special friends" take all of these influences and a few more, and stir it into this stewpot of musical gumbo that is sweet, spicy, aromatic and definitely intoxicating.
CHELLE! and Friends is made up of some of the most distinguished and accomplished musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area. CHELLE! And Friends perform music that is vibrant and alive with the driving voices of artistic director and founder MCHELLE JACQUES, RHONDA CRANE, JAY LAMONT AND BRYAN DYER, DONNA VISCUSO on woodwinds, ERIC SWINDERMAN on guitar, KEVIN SCOTT on bass and BOB SCOTT on drums.
