From our soul to yours
In a world where inauthenticity sells through filters and unreal expectations of everyone, Speak to My Soul encourages everyone to stand in their truth for healing, understanding and ultimately, liberation. Centered in Blackness and the Black experience, we dig deep into our culture, ancestry and history to connect with ourselves and others through creativity and community in our world today. Through creativity, we bare our soul to heal ourselves with hopes it heals another and evoked them to pay that experience forward. This movement is more than a one time event, it is a lifestyle we share with everyone we meet.
Who We Are
Empower | Educate | Elevate
Speak to My Soul was created by Evita Colon in 2014 after successfully debuting her theatrical production, Speak to My Soul: A Montage of Voices at Shippensburg University. Speak to My Soul: A Montage of Voices uses song, dance and spoken word to voice the stories of the Black experience over the span of many generations. Inspired by the great reviews, Evita decided to use the title and embody the topics of the play into a community outreach group of the arts. Shortly after Evita graduated from Shippensburg University in May 2014, Speak to My Soul was rebranded and born again.
MISSION
Speak to My Soul hosts events, creates productions and incorporates programs in the community that use various mediums of art to empower, educate and elevate. We raise awareness of pressing issues in the community such as poverty, injustice, unemployment, education or lack thereof, etc. People of all ages and backgrounds have been inspired after our programs have spoken to their soul through empowering messages, presentations, acting and spoken word. These features continue to speak across generations and socioeconomic statuses impacting and changing lives.
OBJECTIVES
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Create art to evoke dialogue that will push people towards awareness and action
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Use creativity to tell the stories of the silenced, unheard and disenfranchised
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Stand as a platform and safe space for artists of color to create and showcase their work
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Provide financial support and opportunities for artists of color
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Incorporate programs and curriculum into schools that use the arts to assist with the progression of the community
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Radiate love and positivity
About the owner
Evita Colon
Evita Colon is a published, award winning multi-hyphenate creative. During her senior year at Shippensburg University, Evita gave birth to her son, Dominic, and felt she needed to leave a legacy of the excellence she wanted to instill in her son. During her senior year, Evita wrote and directed, "Speak to My Soul: A Montage of Voices," a theatrical choreopoem using song, dance and spoken word to voice the stories of the black experience. After great reviews, she went on to brand the title of the show, Speak to My Soul, into a community organization and facilitated workshops, organized a Hip Hop Youth Summit for the School District of Lancaster and curated many arts showcases that uplifted her culture using the themes from her original production.
In 2016, she successfully debuted "Speak to My Soul: A Montage of Voices" at Millersville University's Ware Center with an all black cast of 25 dancers, singers, poets and musicians, in front of two sold out audiences. In 2017, she took a leap of faith and produced the show for a third time at the Philadelphia African American History Museum in front of another sold out audience. She has dominated her directing skills by stepping into film and producing, writing, and directing "Low Frequencies" and "Adjustin' My Crown" a cinematographic choreopoem collaboration with Solise Kharisma. Continuing her mission to use the arts to bring awareness to issues in the community, Evita and co-director and choreographer, Solise Kharisma, tackled Domestic Violence in her 2017 production, "Purple Cries for Blue Skies." Following the format of her previous show, Evita wrote the script of "Purple Cries for Blue Skies" using only spoken word and dance and the show became a featured event for the 2017 PA Governor's Arts Awards Week in Lancaster, PA.
Evita has succeeded in bringing her art and sense of awareness to larger platforms and different spaces. She has been blessed to perform for well-known artists such as Spike Lee, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Marsha Ambrosius, Eric Benet and worked with many other artists as a writer, director or performer. She has writing credits on songs with world renowned performers such as Common, Dj Jazzy Jeff and DJ Aktive. Among many accolades, she was awarded the Presidential Social Justice award by the NAACP in 2017 for her work with Speak to My Soul in the community. She was featured in Huffington Post, LancasterOnline, a Times Square Express billboard and her poetry was published on BET.com by Black Girls Rock! She currently stands as a member of International FLO poets, a spoken word collective created by Natalie Stewart of Floetry.
Evita continues to expand her entrepreneurial reach as she has successfully launched BLK Voices magazine amid a pandemic in 2020. With intentions to continue to provide the Black community with a platform to express themselves into healing, she packaged the themes of Speak to My Soul into a printed publication. She also re-launched The Soul Tribe, a mentorship program for Black creatives to develop their artistry and entrepreneurial skills while utilizing the Speak to My Soul platform for amplification and resources. She welcomed a cohort of 10 creatives in the first round of enrollment. Another passion project business, A Concrete Rose, a Black bookstore, micro-winery and intimate performance venue, was launched in 2020 with her wife, Solise.
Evita is humbled to have made it so far at such a young age. She is proud of the self-sustainability of Speak to My Soul; each production was self-funded with only the assistance of community donations, Tribe dues, merchandise sales and bartering. Evita knows Speak to My Soul has the potential to be an international platform for melanated artists to use their talents to tell the stories of the silenced, bring awareness and empower others to live their best lives.