“AVOTCJA’s poetry is music and Avotcja’s music is poetry. Both are as hot as fire and as soothing as snow flakes. And in both she brings the best of her talent in Spanish and English. Listen to her. Read her. Enjoy her. Celebrate her.”
• Camincha – Peruvian Poet/Novelist;
& Pacifica Poet Laureate, 2017-2021.

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Poet/Playwright/Essayist/Fiction Writer/Multi-Percussionist/Photographer/Teacher, Avotcja is a Bay Area icon with her group Modúpue. At Bird & Beckett tonight, Modúpue will be a sextet with Avotcja joined by pianist Rudi Mwongozi, violinist Sandi Poindexter, saxophonist Francis Wong, bassist Heshima Mark Williams and drummer Myron Cohen.

Modúpue was named best jazz group of the year twice, in 2005 and again in 2010, by the Bay Area Blues Hall of Fame. Avotcja herself was named a “Jazz Hero” by the Jazz Journalists Association. Her radio shows on KPFA – Bebop, Cubop & the Musical Truth (Tuesdays, 8-10pm), and KPOO – La Verdad Musical (Fridays, noon-3pm), have been soul satisfying for decades, expressing the boundless joy she always finds in the music. As for her poetry, no one taps deeper wells of humanity than Avotcja! We love her more than we can express.

Read here what Linda Tillery, Chuy Varela, Camincha, Greg Landau, Leslie Simon, Ishmael Reed, Lady Bianca, Elaine Cohen, Julian Carroll and Melanie Berzon have had to say in praise of Avotcja!

The cover charge for the sextet tonight is $30 cash or venmo, payable at the door. College and high school students – $10. Grade school and younger, free. No one turned away for lack of funds. Wheelchair accessible. Bring your own beverages, but please eat, out or home, before or after the show. Lots of good restaurants in the neighborhood and GPS is open again after the flooding that closed them down for a few months!

Doors open at 7:15. Call the shop at 415-586-3733 for reservations — reservations are honored until 7:20, ten minutes before the performance, so please don’t be late!

Avotcja has been published in English & Spanish in the USA, Mexico & Europe, and in more anthologies than she remembers. She’s an award winning poet & multi-instrumentalist who has opened for Betty Carter in New York City and for Peru’s Susana Baca at San Francisco’s Encuentro Popular & Cuba’s Gema y Pável. She’s worked 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 and the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, and at the Bay Area Blues Society & Caribeana Etc. And she’s shared stages with Sonia Sanchez, Piri Thomas, Janice Mirikitani, Diane DiPrima, Michael Franti, Jayne Cortez, & with Jose Montoya’s Royal Chicano Air Force.

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, & has been performed by The Purple Moon Dance Project. Hers was the first set of poetry performed by New York’s Dance Mobile. She’s appeared at The Lorraine Hansberry Theater in San Francisco and The Asian-American Jazz Festival in Chicago, as well as at The Asian-American Jazz Festival in San Francisco. She’s been featured five times at Afro-Solo and twice at San Francisco’s Carnival, and has performed at The Scottish Rite Temple and at Yoshi’s in both Oakland & San and 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 is a popular Bay Area DJ & radio personality, and is 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.