Art Rodeo Caldonia Rogers has been a part of numerous notable artist collaborations. From 1985 to 1989, she was a founding member of
Rodeo Caldonia, a black women's art collective formed in the Brooklyn neighborhood of
Fort Greene that included fellow artists
Lorna Simpson,
Chakaia Booker and Sandye Wilson among others. With Lisa Jones, also a member of Rodeo Caldonia, she wrote a series of radio plays--''Aunt Aida's Hand
(1989), Stained
(1991), and Ethnic Cleansing
(1993)--for New American Radio on National Public Radio. In 2015 Greg Tate facilitated a panel discussion with Rogers and Lisa Jones about Rodeo Caldonia in the 2011 film Brooklyn Boheme''. Alva Rogers and her work with Rodeo Caldonia was included in the 2017
Brooklyn Museum exhibition
We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–1985 curated by
Rujeko Hockley and Catherine Morris. During
Robert Colescott's 1989 exhibition at the
New Museum Rogers was featured in
Black to the Future: Alva Rogers in Performance, a public program that unpacked the issues in Colescott's work. The program was curated by
Kellie Jones.
Puppetry With puppeteer Heather Henson and the composer Bruce Monroe, she created three musicals:
nightbathing,
mermaid, and
Sunday (performed Off-Off-Broadway as part of the New Works Now! series at the
Public Theater. Rogers also created audio recordings for
Whitfield Lovell's work
Whispers from the Walls.
Other work In the late 1980s, Rogers was a vocalist with the New York City based alternative rock group
Band of Susans. She performed on their debut EP
Blessing and Curse (1987), and their first full-length album
Hope Against Hope (1988). Rogers appeared on the cover of
Essence Magazine beauty issue in January 1993. She has been photographed by photographer
Lyle Ashton Harris and
Dawoud Bey. She was a writer in residence at
Hedgebrook Women Playwright retreat on
Whidbey Island, Washington in 2011 that culminated in a reading of her work at
ACT Theater.
Acting School Daze In 1988, Rogers played Doris Witherspoon in
Spike Lee's film
School Daze about intra-racial prejudice in
HBCU academia. It was an early film for most of the actors and most of the stars and crew were African American. The film co-starred
Laurence Fishburne,
Giancarlo Esposito,
Tisha Campbell,
Ossie Davis and
Kadeem Hardison amongst others.
Daughters of the Dust In 1991, Rogers appeared in
Julie Dash's film
Daughters of the Dust. The film took place in 1902 about a matriarchal family during the
Great Migration. Eula, Rogers' character, is raped by a white man and the fear of lynching gives her family no recourse to investigate her pregnancy. The film has been noted to have influenced
Beyonce's 2016 album
Lemonade. The
cinematographer for
Daughters of the Dust was
Arthur Jafa.
Other films Rogers appeared as herself in the film
Brooklyn Boheme (2011), which documented the New Black Arts Movement in
Fort Greene in the 1980s and 1990s. She is featured in
Kerry James Marshall's film
The Doppler Incident (1997) and was a frequent subject in the photographs of
Lorna Simpson. == Filmography ==