ShaVunda Brown's Work Sparks Empowerment in a New Generation

ShaVunda Brown is a Minneapolis-based, internationally award-winning spoken word artist, actress, activist and spirit-guided writer. She uses her knowledge of African and African-American spirituality, history, myths and the Southern folklore of her upbringing to weave together stories and new visions of liberation, and to shed light on raw truths with a sharp social consciousness.

ShaVunda is a 2017 cohort member of the Bush Foundation’s Change Network. She is the recipient of a 2016 Many Voices Mentorship at The Playwrights Center,
2015 Verve Grant for Spoken Word, 2015 Finalist of the Beyond the Pure Writers’ Fellowship, Poetry Slam Winner of The Farrago Fresher Slam at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and one half of the duo that won the 2010 Whut it Do? Hip-Hop Competition and Peace-fest in Dallas. And she placed second in her first oratorical contest in 5th grade with an original poem.

The spark for her interest in writing began when she was 9 years old. While watching her mother sort through old files and papers, she discovered a copy of Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou, and has been creatively expressing herself through the written word and performance ever since.

She joins Erykah Badu and Roy Hargrove in being an alumni of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas and is also an alumnus of The Guthrie Theater B.F.A Actor Training Program at the University of Minnesota.

She works not to glorify victimization, but to name oppression and to tell her story of healing as a sexual assault survivor. Her mission is to inspire audiences to fiercely embrace their power.

ShuVunda Brown was part of the February 2018 event Art Is...Black Light! curated by PaviElle French.

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