First Voice Apprenticeship is an apprenticeship program at KPFA 94.1 FM in Berkeley and is designed to provide comprehensive broadcast, technical, and administrative skills training in radio. First Voice also aims to build and strengthen community and empower our participants to find their voice and tell their stories.
The First Voice program is based on community building, a collaborative work environment and passing on our skills and stories. We focus on bringing women and people of color into media and work in partnership with Pacifica community radio station KPFA and other community media outlets, both locally and nationally.
First Voice Apprenticeship Mission
To fulfill the missions established by the Pacifica Foundation in 1949 by fostering & promoting media access, opportunity and equity to women, people of color and underserved communities.
These can be summarized as community building and working to build peace.
First Voice has 2 options for Group 45 participants, a 12 month basic curriculum and an advanced curriculum of 18 months [which incorporates full participation in Full Circle, the apprenticeship's weekly broadcast program.]
Basic Curriculum:
GROUP AGREEMENTS/GROUP DYNAMICS - 6-8 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS:
- TO BUILD INTER GROUP BONDS AND COHESIVENESS
SOUND FORGE BASICS – 8-10 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS:
- TO LEARN HOW TO USE THE SOUND FORGE APPLICATION TO PROPERLY RECORD, SAVE, EDIT AND PLAYBACK SOUND FILES.
PRODUCTION CONSOLE BASICS – 2 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVE/GOALS
- TO LEARN THE BASIC OPERATION & USE OF THE AUDIOTRONICS 210 PRODUCTION CONSOLE TO PLAYBACK, RECORD & SAVE STANDARD AUDIO SIGNALS
COMMENTARIES - 4 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS
- TO UNDERSTAND THE NATURE & OBJECTIVE OF COMMENTARIES
- TO WRITE & RECORD A PERSONAL COMMENTARY
ADOBE AUDITION BASICS – 8 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS
- TO LEARN HOW TO USE ADOBE AUDITION FOR MULTI TRACK SOUND MIXING
- TO CREATE AN ADOBE AUDITION PROJECT USING NARRATION, SOUND EFFECTS
AND MUSIC
PSA PRODUCTION - 4 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS
- UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT & SIGNIFICANCE OF A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
- LEARN THE KPFA PSA GUIDELINES
- WRITE AND PRODUCE A PSA WITH A MUSIC BED
WRITING BASICS - 4 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS:
- TO LEARN THE BASICS OF RADIO WRITING, INCLUDING AN UNDERSTANDING OF
THE DIFFERENT TYPES [SCRIPT, COMMENTARY, FEATURES, NEWS]
- TO UNDERSTAND AND STRENGTHEN YOUR PERSONAL VOICE
-TO COMPLETE A SCRIPTING ASSIGNMENT
VOX POP PRODUCTION – 4 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS
- TO LEARN THE NATURE OF A VOX POP
- TO PRODUCE AN AIRABLE VOX POP, INCLUDING GATHERING & ASSEMBLING AUDIO FILES
FULL CIRCLE TECH ASSISTANCE – 24-26 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS
- TO PROVIDE TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR THE FULL CIRCLE SHOW BY HELPING TO BURN CD'S FOR ON AIR PLAYBACK, CUEING CD'S AS NEEDED DURING THE SHOW, ENTERING INFORMATION IN THE CONFESSOR REPORTING SYSTEM, POSTING DATA TO KPFAAPPRENTICE.ORG WEBSITE
INTERVIEWS – BASIC – 4-6 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS
- TO LEARN THE COMPONENTS TO PRODUCE AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW, INCLUDING
INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES, AUDIO QUALITY, AND EDITING.
- TO PRODUCE AN INTERVIEW [15-20 MINUTES] THAT IS SUITABLE FOR BROADCAST
AND PLAYBACK ON FULL CIRCLE.
NEWS PRODUCTION BASICS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS
- TO LEARN THE COMPONENTS NEEDED FOR COMPREHENSIVE BROADCAST NEWS STORIES.
- TO LEARN THE TECHNIQUES FOR RECORDING NEWS STORY COMPONENTS OUTSIDE OF A STUDIO SETTING
- TO PRODUCE AN AIRABLE NEWS STORY.
FIELD/REMOTE PRODUCTION – 2 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS
– TO PARTICIPANT IN & LEARN THE BASICS OF A FIELD/REMOTE LOCATION PRODUCTION
FULL CIRCLE SHADOWING – 14 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVE/GOALS
- TO GAIN A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF HOW A WEEKLY BROADCAST PROGRAM IS
PRODUCED BY ATTENDING & OBSERVING EDITORIAL MEETINGS.
USING SOCIAL MEDIA - 2 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS:
- TO GAIN FAMILIARITY WITH THE CURRENT POPULAR SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS, HOW TO ACCESS THEM AND HOW TO POST TO THOSE SITES.
- FORMULATE A GROUP PLAN FOR ONGOING POSTING DURING THE GROUP'S FIRST VOICE PARTICIPATION.
Advanced Curriculum:
FULL CIRCLE PRODUCTION - 24-26 SESSIONS
OBJECTIVES/GOALS
-TO PRODUCE, HOST, AND ENGINEER A WEEKLY LIVE RADIO BROADCAST
FIELD/REMOTE PRODUCTION – Additional Opportunities as they occur
The First Voice Apprenticeship Program has a 12 months basic skills option and an 18 month graduate level option during which participants produce, engineer & host Full Circle. Everyone is required to spend one business day each week working at KPFA, as well as two class nights. The dayshift is a three hour shift and apprentices do administrative and production tasks. The dayshift runs on an intergenerational group learning model, with each phase teaching the next, and integrates service to the station, skills acquired in classes, motivation and leadership.
Greetings Full Circle listeners. Our crew wants to express our apologies for the technical difficulties we experienced during our last show on KPFA Radio. It was Friday the 13th in full effect. We have made the corrections to the archive on the KPFA website. And although our post is late and some of the events have passed, we want to be sure and share this great show produced by First Voice Graduate, Sharon Peterson, uninterrupted by nefarious computer technology… So.. ICYMI. Last Friday on Full Circle, we featured some great classical music from not-the-usual suspects, but from composers and musicians of African descent…Also be sure and tune in tomorrow night Friday May 20th, 7pm to kpfa.org to hear from community organizations. The Rainbow Community Center of Concord, East Bay Community Law Center and we also speak with Liz Carlisle on Community Gardening (First People’s ancestral methods) regenerative gardening and social justice..
(ICYMI) Here’s the Replay. Tonight’s Full Circle, Hosted by Sentient Shiloh b, AKA DJ Loh includes excerpts from a conversation they had with the artist collective WEDAPEPO , and five core members: Irene Carvajal, Oscar Lopez, Nivedita Madigubba, Michael Martinez and Jusun Seo. Listen in to our dialog about belonging, immigration, social practice, transnationality, creating culture, artistic collaboration and of course the circle. WEDAPEPO is a collaborative project started with seven trans-national artists; Irene Carvajal, Oscar Lopez, Nivedita Madigubba, Michael Martinez, Zhang Mengjiao, Jusun Seo and Vivian Vivas. We named our project after an anthology of essays on cultural identity by Jose Antonio Burciaga. Our discussion began with the question, “What space do I occupy in America?” Mainstream media often answers a question with manufactured labels, propaganda structures, and fragmented histories. WEDAPEPO emerges from the re-examination of our identities and roles within this rhetoric and we continue to question societal constructs, cultural myths, and weaponized institutions that continue marginalizing specific demographics in society.
My work is located in the space where globalized culture presses against local culture. Ubiquitous, mass produced everyday objects also exist in this space. When seen as more than just utilitarian, these objects become something full of social meaning —historic, political and cultural weight modifies and transforms the object into something larger. By eliminating the body and submitting the mass produced items to the physical pressures of the printing press I seek to explore these complex social and economic pressures.Using a combination of printmaking, sculpture and found objects, I create installations that at once seem both familiar and unexpected.
I am a visual artist born and raised in Mexico City, where I first came into contact with the art world in the Graffiti urban art scene. After immigrating to the USA to San Francisco, Bay area (Silicon Valley), focusing on trying to understand our complex society through a Mexican immigrant’s lens in the USA.I use a critical eye to engage with the globalization, imperialism, and capitalism that affect every corner of the two nations that share my soul. My concerns are reflected in a dialogue of the Stockholm syndrome symptoms created by the oppression and discrimination of imperialistic orders. On both sides of the border this is having a bigger impact on minorities, people of color and the workers that hold entire nations that also suffer from social and cultural amnesia. In order to survive in these societies built on the foundations of white supremacy and colonialism our ancestors have been forced for generations to either hide, directly confront, or sympathize with our oppressors, resulting in a mass forgetting of cultural and social practices. As our cultural identity and practices have been suppressed we have become hostages in our own homeland.
Nivedita Madigubba is an interdisciplinary artist. Her intermedia practice includes painting, drawing, video, sculpture, and installation. She uses products of cultural processes such as—images, ritual objects, architecture, etc. — as material. Her practice engages with the dominant memories attached to these materials and reframes them to visualize counternarratives.
Nivedita was born in Guntur and raised in Hyderabad, India. She holds a BFA (2020) from San Francisco Art Institute. She has exhibited in San Francisco and Los Altos, California. She is currently working with a collective of seven transnational artists—named WE DA PEPO. Her work with the collaborative focuses on language, agency/authorship, history and examines the role of technology within these contexts. She currently resides in San Jose, California.
Jusun Seo is a transnational artist working and living in Northern California. She graduated holding a double major in painting and printmaking B.F.A from San Francisco Art Institute (2020). Her works emphasize how her own culture reflected on her childhood memories and experiences. Through immigration, relationships, and different stories living as a female artist, she is questioning the aesthetics between Eastern and Western culture. In paintings, she has the most interest in depicting bodies in different spaces. With printmaking works, her interests in defining duplication as a post-modern era explore different visions from historical prints. Jusun Seo had shown her works in different galleries in CA recently at John Natsoulas Gallery, Fort Mason, Diego Rivera Gallery, and Merced Multicultural Arts Center. Also, She has shown works in Chicago and New York for the AXA travel exhibition. She graduated from SFAI with three awards; Best In Show, Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award, and Hart Lipton Art Supplies Prize.
Michael Martinez is a Tejano conceptual artist and part of the transnational art collective WE DA PEPO. Martinez specializes in the brazen and bizarre while confronting social ideologies unrelenting logic. Through his poignant compositions and often controversial subject matter, the artist can evoke intense feelings from the spectator with layered meanings to challenge the audience’s perspective.
Michael focuses his work on bearing witness to the human condition by using found objects and demonstrating unexpected duality found in two cultures and touches on the historical exclusion of lived immigrant experiences.
Martinez exercises his art, consisting of practical use of film development, various incarnations of zine production, an intriguing collaborative collage-work to refract information back to the viewer. His creative control of mixed media and use of nontraditional methods of photography and printmaking represents an articulation of rejection and non-conformity.
If he is not deconstructing portraits or traveling as a hired photographer, Michael is experimenting in full-stack web development.
onight on Full Circle, we will be getting word to you about two upcoming events in the Bay Area this weekend. On tonight’s show we’ll get an update from organizers in Contra Costa County as they plan to rally tomorrow in Antioch in support of a DA and FBI investigation into the Antioch and Pittsburg police departments. We’ll also get the 411 on the May May march set for Sunday May 1st in San Francisco to honor International Workers Day.
LINKS AND INFORMATION
Follow Together We Stand and Conscious Contra Costa on Facebook
On tonight’s show we’ll get an update on the proposed lithium mine with our special guests Michon Eben Cultural Resources Specialist and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Reno Sparks Indian Colony and Will Falk attorney, organizer, and co-founder of Protect Thacker Pass. We’ll also hear some music from the Mankillers, a Native, all-woman drum group that performs traditional pow wow music in the northern tradition. And we’ll kick off the show with a short announcement about a planned action in Antioch supporting an FBI and Contra Costa County District Attorney’s investigation into the Antioch and Pittsburg police departments
Tonight Full Circle joins in on the KPFA Birthday Celebration, yessssssss!!!!!! And while we’re at it. We will feature The Backyard Hideout, a live and online hang out that features and promotes new artists on the music scene and supports local grassroots organizations. On tonight’s show we’ll hear some select tracks from The Backyard Hideout’s featured performances. We also hear from the founder and operator of The Backyard Hideout Kevin Mcmanimen. We’ll talk about his idea behind The Backyard Hideout and what he’s doing for new artists and local grassroots organizations. And of course. We will be asking for your support tonight as part of KPFA’s 73rd Birthday Celebration. All that tonight on Full Circle. I am your host. Freewillin Franklin.
Tonight on Full Circle we will spend the hour with folk music artist, podcaster and military veteran Joy Damiani. On tonight’s show we’ll hear an interview with graduate Apprentice Sara Blanco and Joy Damiani as she speaks about music, the military, the recruitment of our children and of course war and peace. We also hear some of her music. We will close the show with an announcement of some upcoming events.
To find a veteran to come speak about the military at yout elementary or middle school contact ‘We Are Not Your Soldiers” at their website: https://www.wearenotyoursoldiers.org/
To learn more about the free Easter food giveaway in Antioch call 925-726-6922. The event starts at 1 p.m. at 611 West 9th Street in Antioch. 611 W 9th St
If you want to attend the launch party for the minister of information podcast it’s Saturday April 9th at Zanzi, at 5:30 p.m. 19 Grand Avenue Oakland California
Hey all, Tonight on FUll Circle we will feature some sounds recorded at recent events in Antioch. On tonight’s show we’ll hear voices from the Stop the Violence march and rally held in the Sycamore Corridor of Antioch. We also hear from the No Drilling Brentwood march and rally put together by youth leaders in Antioch and Brentwood along with the Sunflower Alliance
LINKS AND INFORMATION
All the links and articles for No Drilling Contra Costa and Sunflower Alliance can be found here: https://linktr.ee/nodrillingcc
(ICYMI) Tonight’s show was all about personal stories. These personal stories conveyed through interviews and firsthand narration will give us some insights and thoughts of the person who may be standing next to or passing by us at any given time of the day. On tonight’s show we’ll hear how one man made it from Michoacan Mexico to be my neighbor here in Antioch California . We also hear the reflections of author, Arif Katib, recalling a recent trip to the midwest as he traveled to speak about his book “In The Shadows of Obscurity” and his new film, “Because They Believed”. Later we’ll hear from kpfa mailroom employee Josh Elwood and First Voice graduate Sonja Tyesi. And we will close out the show with some sounds from outside the Contra Costa County Superior court and District Attorneys office in Martinez as family members react to the sentencing of former Co Co County sheriff and Danville police officer Andrew Hall to 6 years for the 2018 killing of Luademere Arboleda
Yoni Ki Baat was developed in 2003 by South Asian Sisters, a non-profit collective of South Asian women based in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has been performed throughout the United States and around the world.
Tonight’s Full Circle gives an International Women’s Day shout out to the Yoni Ki Baat by sharing some of their stories and poetic musings. Additionally, collective members, including co-founder Sapna Shahani, are interviewed by then First Voice Director Amelia Gonzalez-Garcia and apprentice in training, Pema Chogkhan, of Group 23, Kiva.
(ICYMI) Here’s the Replay. Tonight’s Full Circle, Hosted by sentient shiloh b, AKA DJ Loh is part one of Rona Reflections, which includes six different queer voices: Phillip L. Hammack a sociologist, Jessica Tracy a psychotherapist, Victoria Heilweil a feminist artist, a cultural producer, Victorian Montaño an Indigi Queer interdisciplinary artist, and Nicole Gervacio a social justice media maker and dancer reflecting on queer resilience, revalations, and revolution. As well as what we need to bring forward into 2022. This queering of time and space provided by Ms. Rona and her cousins is nowhere near over (which will only occur once the entire world is vaccinated) and we must evolve.
COVID 19 instituted a global pause which led many to reexamine, rethink, and redefine relationships in most if not all aspects of living. And what the world needs is healing and transformation. If we reflect, remember and redefine what is possible based on socially just priorities we will shift and transform culture into a more democratic and inclusive society. We must remember these insights and use them to redesign social structures and systems emanating from a foundation of repair and care.
Bios/Websites:
Jessica Tracy is a psychotherapist and faculty member at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Her areas of interest include: queer wellness and identity, complex trauma, and the collective unconscious as it pertains to power dynamics and social systems. you can find out more by visiting her https://www.jessicatracytherapy.com/
Jessica Tracy
Victoria Montaño (all pronouns are welcome) is a first generation, two-spirit, Yoe’me (yaqui), Mexikah, interdisciplinary artist born and raised in the village of Huchiun. Present day known as Oakland, CA. Victoria is a po-scholar, storyteller and land steward with Sogorea te’ Land Trust. Victoria’s work focuses on Indigenous solidarity across false man made borders, land rematriation and the reawakening of ancestral knowledge, etc.
Victoria Mara Heilweil is a feminist, lens-based artist and curator. she creates archives of the everyday to highlight and value ordinary human experience. Her artwork has been exhibited nationally, including the De Young Museum, San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art, Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum, University Art Gallery at California State Chico, and the Minneapolis Photo Center. Her photographs are included in collections at Cornell University, Center for Photography at Woodstock and CMPC/Sutter Health Van Ness Hospital in San Francisco. Heilweil holds a Masters of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts.
Phillip L. Hammack is a professor, author, and consultant who specializes in gender and sexual identity diversity. He has published widely in the social sciences and received numerous awards for his research. Hammack’s forthcoming book is titled Radical Authenticity: the 21st Century Revolution in Gender, Sexuality & Relationships (contracted with Oxford University Press). He is Professor of Social Psychology and Director of the Sexual and Gender Diversity Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz, CA.
we rise is a collective of artists who use multimedia, digital and live productions to challenge audiences to think critically about the systems that oppress us all, and use art to inspire active solidarity. As creatives, we craved a platform to share out the brilliance and bravery of our loved ones. We needed a space where process is just as important as product, where relationships and visions are tended with respect and care. It is rare to be able to gather together and create with integrity and genuine inspiration. This is our greatest aspiration, to nurture a culture of life-changing creativity.
Nicole Gervacio is an interdisciplinary artist based in occupied Ohlone land, Huchiun, commonly known as Oakland, California. a queer 1st gen Pilipinx American, her roots originate from Luzon & the Visayan Islands across the Pacific. Nicole uses various methods & mediums depending on the inspiration, from visual work, to movement, to words, and thrives in collaborative collective-minded communities. She navigates life with ancestors & future generations in mind.
Catherine Petru (aka Cat) is a queer, jewish cultural producer, whose roots extend to the Iberian Peninsula, Czech Replublic, Rrance, Holand, and places unknown. She loves stories, collaborative visioning, and while she appreciates digital technology for its ability to connect us and expand our awareness, she would rather be outside. She’s co-founder and co-director of we rise production, and associate producer at a kids company about.
you have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world and you have to do it all the time – Angela Davis
I began each interview asking everyone to gently close your eyes and notice your breath and think back to march 13th 2020. Can you remember what it was like for you? What were you thinking, feeling doing the first few days of quarantine? And then a few weeks in and a few months into it? How did you respond? What did you notice? what comes up when you feel into that memory?
Pleach out to share your stories: sburton@kpfa.org for part two of rona reflections.
First Voice Apprenticeship 