recorded readings, performances, & conversations
“Manananggal Meets Corporate Feminism”
2023 National YoungArts Week, Writers Reading at the Jewel Box
“How to Tell a Ghost Story”
“Performed at the 2022 Brave New Futures Convening in San Francisco. Youth Speaks poets Erzsabet Gonzalez and Zoe Dorado compare women's portrayal in cultural mythology to women's contemporary struggles in the reproductive rights movement.”
“I talk to Tiktik Maria Labo after joining TikTok’s ‘POV: u stopped dressing for the male gaze’ trend”
2023 Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam Finals Round #1 • Herbst Theater
“Lola says the only good thing about Colonialism was Catholicism”
2023 Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam Finals Round #2 • Herbst Theater
“When Nanay Comes home from the hospital”
From the Bigger Picture Project’s “Survival Pending Revolution” Public Health Campaign
“'Looking back at the 2020s: When America Felt Hopeless in the Face of Gun Violence.’ A US History Lesson.”
Winner of Power Labs’ first competition & public health campaign ‘Barrels to Bouquets: America Without Gun Violence’ in partnership with Brady United and Golden State Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr.
“What are the Consequences of Silence”
Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam Finals 2022 • April 8, 2022 • Sydney Goldstien Theater
“When I ask my mom how her day was”
After interviews from California healthcare workers Dolli, Joh, Gisella, & my mom
Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam Finals 2022 • April 8, 2022 • Sydney Goldstein Theater
“We Breathe”
“Listen to Zoe Dorado recite the powerful poem, "We Breathe" and talk about how she got started writing poetry, what inspired her to apply to the Alameda County Youth Poet Laureate program, and what she wants to accomplish as the Inaugural Alameda County Youth Poet Laureate.” - Alameda County Library
Youth Speaks Under 21 Open Mic — Featured Poet
Set List:
Ode to Metal (27:05)
A Personal Profanity (29:05)
For the missing ceiling tiles in 5th period history (30:45)
When I ask my mom how her day was (33:02)
I’m driving you home (37:04)
Quiet Girl — Director’s notes (40:52)
In Parallel (44:59)
Youth Speaks Under 21 Open Mic — MC
Footprints / Cold Sweat
With Zoe Dorado (drums), Skylar Tang (trumpet), Miles Blackwell (bass), and Bill Artola Whipple (piano/organ); recorded by Héctor Perez on 10/9/22. Footprints by Wayne Shorter. Cold Sweat by James Brown & Alfred Ellis.
Afro Blue
Zoe Dorado on drums w/ Dexter Griffin (guitar), Quincy Griffin (alto sax), Bill Artola Whipple (keyboard) and Héctor Pérez (bass), covering Afro Blue by Mongo Santamaria.
Stanford Jazz Workshop Miles Ahead Big Band feat. Zoe Dorado on drums.
School of Rock with drums
Filmed March 2021. After bona fide genius, David Dockery.
On Being an Earth Keeper: A Conversation with N. Scott Momaday
“Join us for a conversation with N. Scott Momaday, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet whose work celebrates and preserves Native American heritage, particularly that of the Kiowa people.
Mr. Momaday will discuss his book Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land with Alameda County Youth Poet Laureate and Castro Valley High School student Zoe Dorado and Librarian Chris Selig.
In Earth Keeper, a book of free-verse poetry, he reflects on his sacred connection to the American landscape and its influence on his people. Momaday shares his reverence for the natural world and calls on all of us to protect Earth's wonders and beauty. How can the cultivation of imagination and a love of the natural world spur environmental activism? Let's find out together.” — Alameda County Library
Conversation with Gabriel Cortez | Bigger Picture Project: Survival Pending Revolution
Conversation with Michelle Mush Lee | Through This To That
San Mateo County’s Arts As Life! Conference:
Poetry reading + conversation with Youth Poet Laureates Anouk Yeh & Madeleine Hur facilitated by San Mateo Poet Laureate Aileen Cassinettol.
Time stamps: Poems “In Parallel” at 15:19 and “We Breathe” at 58:07