Building Stages. Building Community. Building Culture.
Building Stages. Building Community. Building Culture.
Kaylah Marin, Founder of KAJE, reflects on serving as Stage Manager for Soul of Pride—celebrating Black LGBTQ+ excellence while inviting artists, filmmakers, and creative professionals.
Some stages are built with lights and sound.
Others are built with intention.
This Pride Weekend, I had the honor of serving as Stage Manager for Soul of Pride, the annual celebration of Black LGBTQ+ excellence within San Francisco Pride, under the visionary leadership of Executive Producer Lisa L. Williams.
For two incredible days, Civic Center became a living expression of community—filled with music, dance, drag, activism, storytelling, healing, and joy. Every performer, volunteer, technician, producer, and audience member helped create something much bigger than a show.
They helped create belonging.
In a time when our communities continue to fight to be seen, protected, and celebrated, spaces like Soul of Pride remind us that Black queer joy is not only beautiful—it is essential.
As a producer, moments like these reaffirm why I do this work. Production isn't simply managing a schedule or calling cues. It's creating the conditions where artists can shine, audiences can connect, and communities can experience themselves reflected with dignity and pride.
I'm grateful to everyone who trusted me with this role and to every artist who stepped onto that stage with courage, authenticity, and brilliance.
Now, we're building what's next.
KAJE is actively developing our Fall 2026 and Winter 2027 slate of productions, events, film projects, installations, and community activations.
We're looking to collaborate with creatives across disciplines, including:
✨ Performers, dancers, musicians, vocalists, DJs & spoken word artists
🎬 Film crew, production assistants, editors, photographers & sound professionals
🎭 Stage managers, technical directors, set designers & creative producers
🎨 Visual artists, installation artists, designers & makers
🍽️ Culinary creatives & hospitality collaborators
📈 Creative entrepreneurs seeking business support, merchandising, branding, legal, copyright, trademark, accounting, and production consulting
Whether you're looking for your next opportunity, your next collaborator, or a team to help bring your vision to life, we'd love to hear from you.
Share your work. Tell us what you're building. Let's create something extraordinary together.
Because culture doesn't happen by accident.
We produce it.
#SoulOfPride #SanFranciscoPride #BlackPride #BlackQueerJoy #CommunityThroughCulture #StageManagement #EventProduction #FilmProduction #CreativeProducer #KAJE #BayAreaArtists #PerformingArts #CreativeCommunity #ProductionLife #ArtistsSupportingArtists #Fall2026 #Winter2027
Culture Connects Us - A Global Impact Snapshot
CULTURE CONNECTS US - One Love One Heart!
Culture Connects Us is the internationally acclaimed, award-winning debut feature directed and produced by KAJE Creative's Jalila Bell. As a first-time Director, Bell brings a fresh and powerful lens to the interwoven stories of community, culture, and resilience. KAJE Artist Wanda K. Whitaker serves as Producer and Art Director, with vision and artistry that shaped the creative framework of the project. KAJE's Founder Kaylah Marin served as Editor, Producer, and Composer of the original musical score, including original songs that anchor the film’s spirit. Executive Producers Kwame Osageyefo and Village-Connect, Inc. provided the culture-based transformative coaching framework for the film.
Currently on the international film festival circuit and courting distributors, Culture Connects Us is seeking strategic partners, collaborators, and platforms to expand its impact and bring its message of unity and creative resistance to audiences worldwide.
Synopsis
Culture Connects Us is an animated arthouse documentary exploring cultural identity, belonging, and community regeneration through storytelling, movement, and intergenerational dialogue. Centered on diaspora experience and culture-based healing, the film examines how creative expression fosters resilience, connection, and social transformation across communities.
Blending visual arts with documentary storytelling, the film invites audiences to consider new paradigms for collective well-being, cultural continuity, and inclusive futures.
Suitable for secondary, post-secondary, and community audiences, supporting discussion in social justice, cultural studies, women’s studies, performing arts, and community development.
Primary Subjects & Course Relevance
Primary Subjects:
Social Justice | Performing Arts | Diaspora & Cultural Identity | Community Regeneration | Women’s Studies
Course Relevance:
Sociology | Anthropology | Cultural Studies | Africana/Black Studies | Dance & Performance Studies | Gender Studies | Urban & Community Development | Global Studies
Cast & Crew
- Director: Jalila Bell
- Producers: Jalila Bell, Kaylah Marin (Editor), Kwame Osagyefo (Gaylon Logan, Jr.), Aldane Walters, Wanda Whitaker (Art Director)
- Cast: Camila Chavez, Piper Dellums, Daljit Soni, Esq.
Production Companies
KAJE, LLC | Village-Connect, Inc.
Awards & Festival Highlights
15 Official Selections |
28% Festival Selection Rate — exceptionally strong for a micro-budget cultural documentary
The film continues to outperform industry averages with multiple wins, Silver Awards, a Jury Award, and several Honorable Mentions across international and U.S. festivals.
With 61 total submissions to date and 5 decisions still pending, the project shows consistent upward momentum and delivers a high return on every dollar spent on the festival circuit—an important signal of value and audience resonance for distributors.
📩 For partnership and distribution inquiries, please contact KAJE, LLC.
THE BLACK WOMAN IS GOD: DEIDRE WASHINGTON-MARIN AT THE MARLOWE GALLERY IN SAN FRANCISCO
The Black Woman is God: United States, God Damn
KAJE Creative was honored to present the work of Deirdre Washington-Marin as part of The Black Woman Is God: United States, God Damn at The Marlowe Gallery.
Washington-Marin’s featured works—Woman in Bloom 3 and Untitled – Woman—center Black womanhood as sacred, resilient, and generative. Grounded in spiritual authority and reflection, these paintings stand as visual affirmations of Black women as truth-holders, culture-bearers, and architects of liberation. Her work embodies resistance—not only to systemic violence and erasure, but to silence itself—transforming pain into purpose and courage into creation.
Inspired by the enduring urgency of Mississippi Goddam by Nina Simone, the exhibition brought together 43 artists whose works confronted tyranny with boldness and clarity. Within this powerful collective, Washington-Marin’s contributions offered both reverence and resolve—an insistence on beauty, growth, and sovereignty amid struggle.
As the exhibition closes, KAJE Creative invites collectors, curators, and institutions to inquire about available works by Deirdre Washington-Marin and opportunities to support and acquire pieces from this body of work.
For sales inquiries, private viewings, or further information, please contact KAJE Creative directly.
Lady in Red - A New Series
Deidre Washington-Marin is a published author, educator, mixed media artist, minister, and lifelong community builder. She began her creative path in San Francisco’s beauty world under master hair designer Mr. Crosby, later partnering with the John Robert Powers Modeling Agency to lead fashion and empowerment workshops for youth.
Blending artistry with activism, Deidre has organized food drives, mentorship programs, and wellness seminars through local churches and nonprofits. Her studies in spiritual science and holistic therapies inspired OSP by All Naturals, her 12-year movement uniting natural health, beauty, and community care.
As a minister, she supports families through life’s transitions, and as Executive Director of KAJE’s Creative Media Solutions, she works to amplify unheard voices and ignite creative change.
SEJFEST '26
SEJFEST '26 - Procession for the People, A Ritual of sound and movement
KAJE Creative presents a special opening act at the Social and Economic Justice Music Festival (SEJFEST 2026)
At SEJFEST ’26, KAJE’s Creative Team had the honor of opening the festival’s evening concert with Procession for the People: A Ritual of Sound and Movement, a new work developed through our year-long Arts & Culture Residency at the Diego Sardaneta School of Music.
Staged throughout the main hall of Mission High School in San Francisco, the piece united artists Kaylah Marin, Jalila Bell, Jolie Wu and Jamil Watkins, as a single chorus of movement, sound, and collective resistance.
Presented in celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the performance marked the full expression of our residency’s creative investigations—including the debut of “There Will Be Music,” Kaylah Marin’s new protest anthem, conceived, composed, and first recorded during our residency.
For the Procession, Jalila Bell conceptualized, sourced, and built the costuming elements, which included:
• a hand-crafted papier-mâché mask (painted by Deidre Washington-Marin);
• a sculpted Elizabethan ruff collar;
• a hand-stitched “kitchen-table world-map” hoop skirt;
• a ceremonial cane/broom constructed from switches and cloth swatches; and
• Jolie Wu’s militant Americana attire, featuring a cowboy hat, GI flight suit, U.S. flag memorabilia, and black Nike Air Force 1s.
The piece is grounded in the Afro-Haitian Yanvalou rhythm, carried forward through the lineage of Katherine Dunham. Onstage, Kaylah’s vocals lifted the hall; Jalila kept time on the claves with a rhythm older than any one of us; and Jolie held the throughline of resistance with every step. The performance unfolded as a living ritual—affirming that protest is performance, resistance is collective, and art is a vessel for memory, healing, and power.
Hearing “There Will Be Music” performed live—first with dancers, then accompanied by Jamil Hawkins on electric guitar—expanded the work into a new dimension. The house shook. The ancestors answered.
Our visual world was built with equal intention. The images, shown throughout the space, called forward the past while stitching together a speculative future—fusing inherited stories with emerging mythologies. Together, we moved through the lobby, courtyard, aisles, and finally the stage itself, rewriting narratives in motion.
KAJE Creative extends deep gratitude to ASEJ for convening this transformative festival, and to the community of artists and organizers who continue to put justice at the center of culture.
There will be music. We will continue to resist and thrive.
MORE KAJE ADVENTURES 13th Annual Autumn Lights Festival
13th Annual Autumn Lights festival
SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 1780
KAJE presented works by visual artists Jalila Bell and Deirdre Marin at the 13th Annual Autumn Lights Festival, held at the Gardens at Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA, from October 17–19, 2024. The vibrant city of Oakland came alive with magic as art and nature merged during this renowned festival, inviting art lovers and nature enthusiasts from across the region to experience a spectacular fusion of illuminated art displays and the breathtaking beauty of the Gardens.
During the festival, KAJE showcased a selection of immersive and visually striking works, including the outdoor installation SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 1780, created by KAJE, LLC and Friends. This experiential installation combined visual elements with light and sound to invite observers into a reflective and participatory experience, sparking conversation, inspiring change through intentional pivots and blank spaces, and evoking deep emotional responses.
In addition to our festival presence, KAJE continued to make its mark in the broader Art Market, presenting original works and collaborative projects that highlight innovation, community engagement, and the transformative power of art.
KAJE Creative Team Presents at 13th Annual Autumn Lights Festival
