About the Artist
Aleja Ajela, the “God Child,” is a multidisciplinary writer, poet, performer, singer-songwriter, photographer, editor, and director. She draws upon her own experience for honest discourse, analysis, and actualization of the surrealities of the Black experience. Drawing her creative motifs from Afro-Surrealist and Afro-Futurist movements. After her greatest creative endeavor, birthing her son, she has grown exponentially as a visionary, world builder, and businesswoman. Her muse, her one-year-old, Esaiah, has inspired her to hone in on her creative voice and visual fingerprint by blending faith, fear, nostalgia, surrealist reality, and action.
Homegrown and locally sourced from San Francisco’s District 10, she reflects her story by creating viscerally vibrant cinematic, auditory, and live experiences that expand her love of horror, sci-fi, and Afro-Surrealism. She is the founder and former Executive Director of the Bayview-based production company, RFLXN Productions (permanently closed).
In 2022, Aleja was on a roll, drawing on her experience both on stage and behind the scenes to enhance her live performance skills during her residency at Zaccho Dance Theater, culminating in an intricately designed performance. The rest of the year, she collaborated with organizations like SFCARD, the MyShake App, and the Bayview Opera House to create large-scale shows to provide a platform for artists and expose over 1,600 Bay Area residents to local talent and pair them with community resources, neighborhood safety, knowledge, and access. All while simultaneously creating for and starring in community projects like the annual Black History Month Afatasi Immersive Fashion Show and the illuminating and profound documentary, “Re-Entrification,” and short-film advertisement “The Last Blockbuster,” both in collaboration with Lyrical Opposition.
As a recipient of the Events and Performers Cohort Grant via the African American Arts and Cultural Complex, she is a hard-working force to be reckoned with. Using hip hop, RnB, disco, rock, blues, and funk to drive her creative engine, she nurtures the Bay Area's cultural arts ecosystem. Aleja’s artistic career is about community-driven change: carving out unique spaces for uncomfortable truths to be heard, explored, and supported because “we need art to educate our emotions.” (Zettl, H. (2017). Sight, Sound, Motion: Applied Media Aesthetics (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.)
Aleja Cobarruviaz as a child wearing glasses too small with a future. Taken by her mother, Marna Armstead. (2005)
Sunset at Sundial Park on Whitney Young Circle Landscape Photography Taken by Aleja Cobarruviaz (2018)
In 2020, she created an original Halloween-inspired live show to support local artists and provide a safe space within her community. A Haunting on 3rd has grown exponentially in the years following, becoming an annual staple for the Bayview before its 2023 hiatus. As a live performer, Aleja is an innovator. In 2022, Aleja used her experience both on stage and behind the scenes to enhance her live performance skills through her residency at Zaccho Dance Theater, ending in an intricately designed performance. The rest of the year, she collaborated with organizations like SFCARD, the MyShake App, and the Bayview Opera House to create larger-scale shows to provide a platform for artists and expose over 1600 Bay Area residents to local talent and pair it with community resource knowledge and access. Aleja builds her world with relatable characters and eclectic environments that deeply immerse the audience in her stories and music.
James Armstead and his "Sweet Little Baby Girl" and granddaughter, Aleja Cobarruviaz (2004)
Aleja's HART Artist Residency Rehearsal w/ Allura Lex and HAN!F (2022)
More Aleja
What's your favorite Karaoke Song?
"Boheimian Rhapsody" by Queen or "Raining Men" by the Weather Girls. TBH, I love disco, funk, and rock a lot. The late 60s to the early 80s has my heart in almost everyway iaginable (minus the coccain)!
If you could eat one food for the rest of your life what would you eat?
I use to say sandwiches because I love a good sandwich, theres so many kinds and you can never go wrong with a good one, however, I also could always go for barbeque or a really big mixed salad. I like flavor and sauces, shour out to my momma for makin
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I have 5 cats currently, but I have had 7 in the past.
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I'm the kind of person who takes a spider outside instead of killing it.
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I HATE WITH A BURNING, SEETHING PASSION WHEN PEOPLE PUT EYELASHES ON THEIR CAR!!