RI
Sokeo Ros, Director of Case Closed!, Artist/Activist/Educator
Sokeo was born in a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand, arriving in the United States at the age of three. As a sophomore in high school, he began performing with the Carriage House Performers, a Providence-based hip-hop group. In 1998, Sokeo joined Everett as a creator and performer and has taught many master classes in universities throughout his touring experience. He has been in three touring pieces and is currently working on the fourth piece with Everett called “Freedom Project”. It explores mass incarceration and its effects on all aspects of society. Sokeo also tours throughout New England in Everett’s educational shows. He is the director of the hip-hop dance program at Everett’s School and has taught at many Rhode Island institutions including Central Falls High School, the Lincoln School, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Sokeo also directs the hip-hop based troupe, Case Closed!, which he founded in 2004. Case Closed! has performed at venues across New England including the Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Brown University and the Providence Performing Arts Center. Sokeo received a Rhode Island State Council on the Arts grant to develop a hip-hop theater piece, Culture Shock. He is a performer and creator of Everett’s last work, Brainstorm and Case Closed!’s latest piece called “A Daydream in the Ghetto”. Sokeo received another RISCA grant to work on a project called “From Refugee Camp to Project” which tells of his experiences of being born in a Thailand refugee camp and coming to the United States to live in an impoverished neighborhood. He recently came back from Cambodia from volunteering in non-profit organizations that offered free classes in education and the performing arts. He was able to conduct interviews and research his family’s compelling history of surviving the Khmer Rouge Regime. This was the first time that Sokeo got a chance to meet his family.
Latest Work:
This project, From Refugee Camp to Project, is a one-man show that tells the story of an individual who survived the refugee camps, thus making it to the United States where he lived in a low-income neighborhood that was filled with gangs, poverty and violence. Through hip-hop dance, traditional Khmer dance, theater, story telling, and video, he will share experiences and stories from the refugee camps and urban life as to how he has tried to stay away from the negative aspects found within his environments.
*This work varies from $3500-$5000 depending on travel, venue and residency work(master classes).
Objective
· I have been teaching and running high quality arts/dance programs, as well as workshops, master classes and residency work throughout New England and many other states in hoping to extend these skills to the position applied.
Education
Skills
Employment History
Current:
Everett: Company, Stage and School, Providence, RI. 02906, 1996-Present
DYS- Department of Youth Services 2013-Present
· Instructor/Director
· Arts programming for the youth in these “detention” facilities
The Gordon School East Providence, RI. December 2012-March 2013
Previous (10 years):
Master Classes/workshops
Local Public/Private/Charter Schools (2001-2010)
During school and Afterschool Programs
Performing/Choreography Experience
Awards/Recognition
2001 Awarded Project Grant from Rhode Island Council on the Arts to collaborate with other young artists to create a piece that explores the theme of prisons. The inner prison of the mind and outer prisons were some of the issues.
2007 Awarded Project Grant from Rhode Island Council on the Arts to collaborate with other young artists, Case Closed!, to create a piece that explores themes of communities and different backgrounds in the urban society.
2013 Awarded Project Grant from Rhode Island Council on the Arts to create a piece called From Refugee Camp to Project, a personal story of surviving the Khmer Rouge, refugee camps and gang violence in the Rhode Island to becoming an artist within the community
2007 Received Mentors That Matter Award
2015 Rebecca Blunk Award
Additional Content:
Institution/Business Type:
Artist / Creative (Individual)
Legal Status:
Commercial / For profit - Sole proprietorship
Year Founded:
2010
Institution/Business Type:
Artist / Creative (Individual)
Legal Status:
Commercial / For profit - Sole proprietorship
Year Founded:
2010
Primary Discipline:
Dance - Hip HopAdditional Disciplines:
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NEST Eligible Artist
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Fee Range:
$3,500 - $5,000State of Residence:
Rhode IslandMinimum Number of Performers:
1Maximum Number of Performers:
2