Jéhan

Òsanyìn

Artist. Educator. Activist. Facilitator.

ABOUT

ME!

Jéhan Òsanyìn is and does a lot of things. Here are some of those things: Performing Artist, Playwright, Director, Visual Artist, Educator, and Arts Administrator, Outdoor and Environmental Educator, Activist, and Facilitator.

Jéhan is a member of the Actor's Equity Association, a certifed Wilderness First Responder (WFR) through RMI, and most recently, Jéhan was certified in Psychological First Aid and Cultural Somatics by Resmaa Menakem.

From October 1, 2019 until January 2020 Jéhan will be conducting artistic research while in Residency in Blanca Murcia Spain AADK Spain. They are investigating how to use theatre to explore inherited intergenerational trauma. How to pursue Oppression Comprehension through understanding the stories our bodies tell both onstage and offstage. How can we use the way that we read story onstage to more deeply understand the ways in which we perform our racial identities?

We perform our socially constructed identities all the time. Let's investigate those identities more critically and shift the way we show up. For more information visit: www.earthseedseattle.org.

Other Performing Credits Include:

Dido in ArtsWest's, An Octoroon, Clarice in Seattle Public Theatre's The Liar, Jenny in Seattle Repertory Theatre's Other Season's staged reading of Dry Powder. Lillian Hellman in Intiman Theatre's Emerging Artist's Program's Production of Are You Now? Botard in Strawberry Theatre Workshop's Rhinoceros, Knock Knock Nicky in Balagan Theatre's King Arthur and the Knight's of the Playground, Kalonike in Gamut Theatre Group's production of Lysistrata, Lori Jones/Mrs. Price/Kay in Open Stage of Harrisburg's production of WELL, Kathy in Speaking Ring Theatre's production of The Past's Present Donna in Smoke and Mirror's production of The Imminent Dangers of Love and the Afterlife, as a Featured Poet at Rain City Poetry slam, storytelling with Ampersand Live! at The Moore.

Directing Credits Include: Seattle Repertory Theatre's Public Works production of THE ODYSSEY (Associate Director), One Act at a Time's production of Keiko Green's Those Left Behind (Director), Semester at Sea's production of CHECKMATE (Director).

In March of 2017, they were the playwright, and solo performer in the World Premier of Yankee Pickney at Theater Schmeater. Yankee Pickney was subsequently nominated for a 2017 Gregory Award.

Playwrighting Credits Include:

During a September 2018 Artist Residency at Centrum in Port Townsend Jéhan wrote the play HWHITE SILENCE. Obeahmxn (A commissioned story of West Indian sorcery, grief, and what lies beneath the misguided lies of previous generations), A Prisoner (a play loosely based on Alexander Pushkin's narrative poem A Prisoner in the Caucasus), The Theatre of Race: Performing Blackness which is a collaborative project based on the life of Joseph Bologne Le Chevalier de St. Georges, and finally a daily project of being an artist and human who leaves the house. Sometimes it's a struggle. But that's ok.

In 2013, Jéhan founded Earthseed a community development cooperative that uses theatre in Wild spaces to decolonize those spaces and the bodies that pass through them. For more information check out

In 2017 Jéhan was awarded GAP funding from the Artist Trust in order prepare Yankee Pickney for it's 2020 National tour of the US (Seattle, WA; Minneapolis, MN; Chicago, IL; Pittsburgh, PA; Harrisburg, PA; and Edinburgh Scotland).

Jéhan was also awarded the 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Creativity Connects Artist Fellowship for Seattle. During the 2-week Artist Residency that is a part of that award Jéhan will develop a theatrical work that facilitates difficult conversations between families and their young children in community over a meal. Performances August 22nd, 23rd, and 24th.

If you'd like to support Jéhan, any of their projects, or help to pay the artists supporting Jéhan's work you can do so through these links:

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