Impulsive Acts: The Art of Community Healing

FREE ‘EM ALL: A Black August/Labor Day Podcast By Body Ecology Performance Ensemble, NYC www.bettysdaughterarts.com "Because all prisoners are political prisoners." for Syria for Assata Shakur for us all... Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/ebonygolden/free-em-all-a-black-august Black August ended just a few days ago and Labor Day is almost over. But in case you haven’t noticed, we the people of these so-called United States must continue to labor for justice, equality and the liberation of political prisoners world-wide. Our positive thoughts are with Syria, the Middle East and right here in our communities that impacted by political and economic unrest. The associate artists of Body Ecology Performance Ensemble, based in NYC, have put together a podcast of some popular music along with our poems and ideas as a sonic exploration of the barriers to liberation as well as our ideas for liberation. It is our duty to stand up. It is our duty to speak out. It is our duty to make the change the world needs with whatever tools we have in our communities. We call this podcast FREE EM ALL because it is time to redefine criminality. It is time to redefine punishment. It is time to free those who have been pawned by the United States project and are essentially causalities of political, economic and social warfare. If the United States government isn’t locked up, the millions of people it has chosen to criminalize and block from ever having full access to citizenship should probably not be locked up either. Honoring Black August should be a life-long process and a year-around celebration of resistance, love and wellness. This year, Body Ecology felt it best to share our honoring just as people begin to get busy with the fall season, school, and work. Come back to this podcast as a reminder that each day should move you and your community closer to freedom. If our world is to be free, that freedom begins with each of us. Along with the voices of Body Ecology’s associate artists, expect to hear the familiar words and sounds of Assata Shakur, Blitz the Ambassador, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Fela Kuti, Erykah Badu, Janelle Monae, Oya Candomble, and Wale. Body Ecology is please to also share a performance of Rhinoceros Woman from Assata Shakur’s acclaimed autobiography, “Assata.” Please enjoy our offering. Conceived in 2009, Body Ecology Performance Ensemble works for the collective liberation, wellness and creative empowerment of black women and girls globally through performance art, educational experiences and cultural arts direct action campaigns. Body Ecology’s current campaign, RingShout for Reproductive Justice (#rs4rj) utilizes the cultural and spiritual practice of the ring shout, a method of praise in worship in the African tradition, to raise awareness, create solutions and broaden the conversation about reproductive health to include creative freedom and expression. The motto of the campaign is “our bodies and our creations are our own”. Current Body Ecologists include: Jasmine Coles, Katrina De Wees, Audrey Hailes, Sydette Harry, Ebony Noelle Golden (Artistic Director), Heather Lee, Taja Lindley, Kelly Thomas (Assistant Artistic Director) and Jessica Valoris. For more information visit www.bettysdaughterarts.com. Our next public art performance will happen on the streets of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, NY. The performance of RED TIDE RISING is the second theatre piece in our current campaign. The performance will be on September 27 at 6 pm. It is free! Look for information on our facebook page or at www.bettysdaughterarts.com.

posted by furious flower @ 7:57 PM 0 comments

Need: Online Ritual for Healing Brilliance inspired by Audre Lorde!

Join the Brilliance Remastered community the first week of March for an interactive webinar investigation of performance and online ritual in relationship to community accountable intellectual work.  Participants may be from any field (including performance studies) and will learn about performance practices from Audre Lorde's Chorale Need, and the shared experience of creating a healing multi-media cyber performance for our community about who we are and what we need as community accountable scholars.

Registration Due by Feb. 18, 2013 (Audre Lorde's Birthday!)
*the ensemble will be limited to 9 participants

Intensive dates: March 4,5,6,7,8  2012   (9pm Eastern Time)
Fee: Sliding Scale $150-250
Required Reading:

• "Need" "Coal" "Power" and "Litany for Survival" by Audre Lorde,
• One Campus Guide to Performing "Need" edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
• Excerpts from Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic by Omi Osun
• (all readings available via pdf and snail mail to registered participants)

To Register:

• Send an email to brillianceremastered@gmail.com with your contact info (INCLUDING SNAIL MAIL ADDRESS) and what you hope to get out of the course.
• Send registration deposit of $50 to Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind via paypal:
• https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=3VHV86GHPK56J
• Full registration fee is due by March 1, 2013
• webinar will take place over google hangout. participants will have to register (for free) for google plus.

posted by lex @ 3:47 AM 0 comments

Tickets Now on sale: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/28965 Learn more about Body Ecology Performance Ensemble-- www.bettysdaughterarts.com

posted by furious flower @ 10:49 PM 0 comments

Venerating Dr. Nina Simone: Conjure Woman, Soul Woman
by: Ebony Noelle Golden,
Co-Founder/ Co-Curator of Women on Wednesday Art and Culture Project

Women on Wednesday Arts and Culture Project honors the incomparable Dr. Nina Simone as the ancestral mother for WoW2012: The Naked Edition. WoWs organizers honor Nina Simone because of her unabashed boldness and fearless dedication to truth-telling, liberation and creative excellence. Join us in celebrating the brilliance of Nina Simone this month and every month.

Nina Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina February 21, 1933 and transitioned April 21, 2003. Her life, legacy, music, fashion and pursuit of liberation serve as guide for how black girls, women and the rest of the world can live their NAKED TRUTHS.


I was first introduced to Nina Simone in college. Every summer I taught dance and worked as a choreographer for the Young Performers Program at the Ensemble Theatre in Houston, TX. My first summer, I choreographed Lorraine Hansberry’s play “To Be Young Gifted and Black.” While researching the piece, I found Simone and remember listening to the song a few hundred times. I remember thinking that she didn’t necessarily have a melodic voice, but instead a committed voice. A voice that made to sit up and pay attention. A voice that demanded every listener recognize the wealth that is the black youth, black talent and just blackness overall. From then, I was hooked. Using her work in my scholarly, artistic and amorous adventures.

Years later, I remember playing a game of chest with a lover, who didn’t dig her sound. Her voiced opened me to a greater capacity of strategic maneuvering. I remember my lover asking about her, where she came from, why did I like her. I remember being bothered by his lack of love and admiration for Simone. In the months following that game of chest, I continued to play Simone’s music. Eventually, he learned to love her, and couldn’t remember the time when he didn’t appreciate her voice.



In a time where the cult of black respectability forced women and men to bend to white culture and standards, she was a member of a crew politically active, cultural warriors who visioned and worked for a world where creative innovation and liberation conspired to blaze a trail of possibility, beauty and freedom for communities, artists organizers and educators the world-over.

Simone’s iconic sound, political action and musical innovation resisted tradition, form and boundaries. Songs like “Mississippi Goddam” and “Four Women” season the soundtrack of liberation movements for global human rights. Always the conjure woman; Simone was able to move the crowd with the greatest of ease, radicalize a soul with a moan or a hollar, change the temperature of a room with a stoke of the piano and delve into the heart of all that is beautiful and troubling about the world with her soothing or harsh tones. She was one bad mama-jama.

This contemporary moment finds Nina Simone just as relevant. Simone serves as the muse for many Hip-hop artists, theatre-makers, dancers, choreographers and visual artists around the globe. Several of the Women on Wednesday Art and Culture Project participants are currently or have in the past created work that honors her life and legacy.

I wrote the poem below a few years ago. It is included in a poetry collection I am building and obsessed with called “again, the watercarriers.” The collection, includes a section dedicated to the diverse manifestations of the conjure woman archetype. That section includes a suite of poems dedicated to the one and only Nina Simone.



conjure woman, soul woman
for nina

nina
they say you stole shadows
you cast babyspirits out in nocturnal limboyou make them wander

in search of womb
in search of milk
in search of the space between heaven and hell
where each step is a breathsqueeze

they say you keep a sachet of boneshavings crescent city spit
and motherlanddust under your slip
that you blew
the brows clean off a man's forehead
for cutting his eyes at you

they say you could have been a street preacher
but you couldn't keep your legs closed
or pray just to our lord jesus

i know a woman who carries your face
and she aint nothing but sanctified
and she speak sweet like i hear you speak
and her fingers too are wands that stir heaven

and she holds night in her skinsings it to her children when dawn breaks

nina
they really don't know how you got the blood and the lightening in your tone
don't know how you swung back this lifetime without wings
know how you birthed us with out light so

they call you witch when obeah be your name
call you mystery when you are everywhere like dew
magician when magician you are
they call you alien when you are mamathey call you alien cause you tune our hearts
your name be obeah

you bend time
siphon your way through space
i hear you do it

stretch through speakers at me
stretch through speakers at me
just when i get tired of shouting freedom
writing freedom birthing freedom

stretch through speakers at me--your groove
a feathered redemption

About the Author
Hailing from Houston, TX, Ebony Noelle Golden is a cultural worker, artist and creative director of Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, LLC and artistic director of Body Ecology Performance Ensemble. Ebony's current bodies of work include: "RingShout for Reproductive Justice" and "again, the watercarriers." She also writes about jazz, culture and liberation for Okayplayer’s The Revivalist Magazine. www.bettysdaughterarts.com.

About WoW
Motto: Engage, Create, Empower
Mission: WoW is dedicated to celebrating the creativity, empowerment, holistic health, and civic engagement of black girls and women.

In honoring the voices of women and girls of the African Diaspora, “Women on Wednesdays: Art and Culture Series” privileges our ancestors and their labor, affirming our collective truth – we do not walk alone, and we could not create transformative and innovative art without the journeys of those who came before us. Thus, WoW creates a space for our ancestors’ at every “Women on Wednesdays” event, encouraging participating artists and audience members to share this sacred space.

This series’ success is notable, because it provided women of color professional and emerging artists with an opportunity to share their work, engaging audience members in talk-backs after each performance. Such opportunities are crucial for women of color and our community. Though many social and political advances have been made, cultural art-making by women and girls of the African Diaspora still lacks the support often granted to others. “Women on Wednesdays: Art and Culture Series” celebrates our labor and creativity, putting women of color at the center of cultural exchange while simultaneously creating a welcome space for audiences which may not have known of this work without such a platform for expression.

To find out more about Women on Wednesday Art and Culture Project visit our Facebook Group or wowproject.yolasite.com.

posted by furious flower @ 5:24 AM 0 comments

https://www.facebook.com/events/264913493551887/

Greetings,

Tomorrow is the day for Body Ecology's 2nd RingShout for Reproductive Justice! Dress warmly, fill your thermos and prepare yourselves for what will be a gripping and enlightening public art performance.

What is a RingShout? A ringshout is a method for praise and worship. In the ring shout people sing, dance, testify. Body Ecology recognizes the technology of the circle has made black women and black communities un-breakable. It is our circle that keeps us focused on the whole, the light in our community, the hopefulness that we can collectively vision.

Body Ecology affirms that this campaign, this ring shout this circle of energy and creativity is our best asset for addressing justice and reproductive health.Our RingShout is a performance of healing, truth-telling, humor and recovery. We do this through the performance of original poetry, narrative, choreography. Expect to be moved! Each ringshout ends with a community cipher/ story circle so bring a dance, a poem a testimony about health, legacy, reproductive justice or creativity! Join us!

In solidarity,
Ebony Golden
Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
www.bettysdaughterarts.com

posted by furious flower @ 9:05 AM 0 comments

RingShout for Reproductive Justice Continues Nov. 19th!


Body Ecology continues its RingShout for Reproductive Justice Campaign with a second public performance and street story circle. Check back soon for more information about the performance and how you can get involved!

Lauded as the "father of gynecology", Dr. James Marion Sims brutally experimented on enslaved African women in Birmingham, Alabama. There just so happens to be a monument built in his honor on 5th Avenue. Body Ecology wants this memorial removed!

We are calling on the power of the women who suffered at the hands of this "doctor" as we offer our second installment of RingShout for Reproductive Justice. We are calling on the power of the women are experiencing joy, trauma, revelation, doubt, and a myriad of emotions and feelings that relate to our reproductive health and choices.

What is a RingShout?

A ringshout is a method for praise and worship. In the ring shout people sing, dance, testify. Usually the songs are lead but there is time for each person to speak or sing. You may be more familiar with recent configurations of the ringshout including the cipher or even the "sista circle" or sacred circles for women. The idea is that the circle is sacred and when those join in the circle they harness an energy and power to manifest what they choose. Also, there are theatre makers who are using the ring shout in traditional theatre settings for similar purposes.

Body Ecology recognizes the technology of the circle has made black women and black communities un-breakable. It is our circle that keeps us focused on the whole, the light in our community, the hopefulness that we can collectively vision. Body Ecology affirms that this campaign, this ring shout this circle of energy and creativity is our best asset for addressing justice and reproductive health.

Our RingShout is a performance of healing, truth-telling, humor and recovery. We do this through the performance of original poetry, narrative, choreography. Expect to be moved!

Each ringshout ends with a community cipher/ story circle so bring a dance, a poem a testimony about health, legacy, reproductive justice or creativity! Join us!


More about the RingShout for Reproductive Justice Campaign

Read More Here:
http://www.bettysdaughterarts.com/#!ringshout-for-reproductive-justice

www.bettysdaughterarts.com

posted by furious flower @ 7:43 AM 0 comments

BDACs current campaign is called the RingShout for Reproductive Justice!

Join us for our 2nd RingShout November 19!

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=264913493551887

What is a RingShout?

A ringshout is a method for praise and worship. In the ring shout people sing, dance, testify. Usually the songs are lead but there is time for each person to speak or sing. You may be more familiar with recent configurations of the ringshout including the cipher or even the "sista circle" or sacred circles for women. The idea is that the circle is sacred and when those join in the circle they harness an energy and power to manifest what they choose. Also, there are theatre makers who are using the ring shout in traditional theatre settings for similar purposes.

Body Ecology recognizes the technology of the circle has made black women and black communities un-breakable. It is our circle that keeps us focused on the whole, the light in our community, the hopefulness that we can collectively vision. Body Ecology affirms that this campaign, this ring shout this circle of energy and creativity is our best asset for addressing justice and reproductive health.

Our RingShout is a performance of healing, truth-telling, humor and recovery. We do this through the performance of original poetry, narrative, choreography. Expect to be moved!

Each ringshout ends with a community cipher/ story circle so bring a dance, a poem a testimony about health, legacy, reproductive justice or creativity! Join us!

posted by furious flower @ 10:02 PM 0 comments

Join Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative in our inaugral cultural arts direct action campaign!!! We begin tomorrow!

Body Ecology: Creativity and Transformation Residency


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Public Performing Arts and Activism Workshops for South Bronx Community
Contact: Ebony Noelle Golden
Email: ebonygolden@bettysdaughterarts.com


www.bettysdaughterarts.com

South Bronx, New York --6 pm on September 28, Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative in collaboration with Casa Atabex Ache will launch the Body Ecology: Creativity and Transformation

residency for women and trans folks of color . The residency will address reproductive rights, environmental justice and spiritual activism over a period of a month. The residency will

feature public performance opportunities, creative dialogue, dance, writing and theatre workshops at Casa Atabex Ache. Participants will also have the opportunity to participate in two

public performances: one at Casa Atabex Ache and the other at the Harriet Tubman Memorial statue in Harlem. The performances will feature the original work of participants who will be

exploring the role of creative arts in working for individual transformation and community action.


The workshops will take place 6-8 p.m. at Casa Atabex Ache located at 471 East 140th Street Bronx, NY 10454. Participants have the option of paying between 20 and 40 dollars each

session, although no one will be turned away due to lack of funds.

Dates & Topics Include:

September

Reproductive Justice Cultural Arts Direct Action Campaign Debuts

28: Body Ecology Residency Begins @ Casa Atabex Ache. Register Here. Reproductive Justice!

October

1: Ringshout for Reproductive Justice 3 pm @ the Harriet Tubman Memorial Plaza 122nd and St. Nick.

3: Performance/Workshop: Ritual Theatre & Choreopoem Aesthetics @ Medgar Evers College

5: Environmental Justice Workshop

12: Spiritual Activism Workshop

19: Solo and Collaborative Performance Workshop

22: Body Ecology at The Black Girl Project Symposium

26: Final Benefit Performance in Support of Casa Atabex Ache and Project Zanzibar


The residency is a part of Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative's inaugural cultural arts direct action campaign season dedicated to using arts to address issues of reproductive justice within

the African Diaspora community. Ebony Golden, Creative Director of Betty's Daughter said, “This cultural arts direct action campaign has been a dream for several years. I am excited to

use the arts to vision a world I want to live in with the rest of the ensemble and community. We are not fighting against anything, we are honoring our autonomy over all that we choose to

create-artistically, politically, spiritually, economically, educationally...” The goals of the campaign are to raise awareness, increase creative action, facilitate dialogue and support local

organizing efforts.

The campaign will take the ensemble to Boston, Washington, DC, and Baltimore. Local allies include Casa Atabex Ache, Ocean Ana Rising, Brecht Forum, and WOW Cafe Theatre.


Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, LLC is a cultural arts direct action group that inspires, enlivens, and incites justice and transformation of individuals and communities through

creativity, cultural arts and radical expressiveness.

Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative envisions and works for a world where cultural and artistic practice envelops and sustains wellness and justice movements for individuals and

communities.

posted by furious flower @ 8:41 AM 0 comments

Join Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative in our inaugral cultural arts direct action campaign!!! We begin tomorrow!

Body Ecology: Creativity and Transformation Residency


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Public Performing Arts and Activism Workshops for South Bronx Community
Contact: Ebony Noelle Golden
Email: ebonygolden@bettysdaughterarts.com


www.bettysdaughterarts.com

South Bronx, New York --6 pm on September 28, Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative in collaboration with Casa Atabex Ache will launch the Body Ecology: Creativity and Transformation

residency for women and trans folks of color . The residency will address reproductive rights, environmental justice and spiritual activism over a period of a month. The residency will

feature public performance opportunities, creative dialogue, dance, writing and theatre workshops at Casa Atabex Ache. Participants will also have the opportunity to participate in two

public performances: one at Casa Atabex Ache and the other at the Harriet Tubman Memorial statue in Harlem. The performances will feature the original work of participants who will be

exploring the role of creative arts in working for individual transformation and community action.


The workshops will take place 6-8 p.m. at Casa Atabex Ache located at 471 East 140th Street Bronx, NY 10454. Participants have the option of paying between 20 and 40 dollars each

session, although no one will be turned away due to lack of funds.

Dates & Topics Include:

September

Reproductive Justice Cultural Arts Direct Action Campaign Debuts

28: Body Ecology Residency Begins @ Casa Atabex Ache. Register Here. Reproductive Justice!

October

1: Ringshout for Reproductive Justice 3 pm @ the Harriet Tubman Memorial Plaza 122nd and St. Nick.

3: Performance/Workshop: Ritual Theatre & Choreopoem Aesthetics @ Medgar Evers College

5: Environmental Justice Workshop

12: Spiritual Activism Workshop

19: Solo and Collaborative Performance Workshop

22: Body Ecology at The Black Girl Project Symposium

26: Final Benefit Performance in Support of Casa Atabex Ache and Project Zanzibar


The residency is a part of Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative's inaugural cultural arts direct action campaign season dedicated to using arts to address issues of reproductive justice within

the African Diaspora community. Ebony Golden, Creative Director of Betty's Daughter said, “This cultural arts direct action campaign has been a dream for several years. I am excited to

use the arts to vision a world I want to live in with the rest of the ensemble and community. We are not fighting against anything, we are honoring our autonomy over all that we choose to

create-artistically, politically, spiritually, economically, educationally...” The goals of the campaign are to raise awareness, increase creative action, facilitate dialogue and support local

organizing efforts.

The campaign will take the ensemble to Boston, Washington, DC, and Baltimore. Local allies include Casa Atabex Ache, Ocean Ana Rising, Brecht Forum, and WOW Cafe Theatre.


Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, LLC is a cultural arts direct action group that inspires, enlivens, and incites justice and transformation of individuals and communities through

creativity, cultural arts and radical expressiveness.

Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative envisions and works for a world where cultural and artistic practice envelops and sustains wellness and justice movements for individuals and

communities.

posted by furious flower @ 8:41 AM 0 comments

Project Zanzibar:: Cultural Arts Residency

BDAC needs your help to get to Zanzibar!!! Each dollar is an investment!

Donate here: http://www.indiegogo.com/proj​ectzanzibar



Our Story
In August of 2010, Ebony Golden was introduced to Bi Aida and Mbaruk (Directors of Creative Solutions) by Tufara Muhammad at the Highlander Research and Education Center. During Cultural Workers' Weekend, Bi Aida and Ebony talked about the possibility of community cultural arts residency at their Creative Solutions school in Zanzibar. By the end of the weekend, Ebony was sure that this collaboration would be an awesome opportunity to learn and share art in community, while beginning an intentional and sustainable relationship with an international collaborator. This weekend, Project Zanzibar:: Cultural Arts Residency was born.

Utilizing art and creativity, Project Zanzibar:: Cultural Arts Residency seeks to amplify the voices and creativity of young adults and women at Creative Solutions Resource Systems school located in Mangapwani, Zanzibar.

The residency is a collaborative effort between Creative Solutions and Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, based in New York, NY.


Goals and Outcomes
1. 3 Yoga Workshops
2. 2 Dance/Movement Workshops
3. 2 Writing Workshops
4. 1 Story Circle
5. 2 Theatre/Performance Workshops
6. 1 Visual Arts Workshops
7. 1 Community Performances

More About The Collaborators
Creative Solutions Resource Systems is a non profit community learning center, located in the village of Mangapwani, approximately 27 kilometers from Zanzibar town and one kilometer from the beach. We are a grass roots organization providing access to education through both traditional and modern systems. CSRS strives to unleash the creative energy within each individual through participatory workshops, classes and demonstrations. CSRS is committed to the philosophy of creating solutions through self-help.


Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, LLC is a cultural arts direct action group that inspires, enlivens, and incites justice and transformation of individuals and communities through creativity, healing arts practices and radical expressiveness. Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative envisions a world where cultural and artistic practice envelops and sustains wellness and justice movements for individuals and communities. Betty's Daughter Arts collaborative provides workshops, residencies, performances and consulting services to communities working for justice and transformation.

Check out BDAC at work--http://youtu.be/j5evUIC​B7as and http://vimeo.com/17252820


The Impact

Participant Impact
Transformation: Creativity heals, transforms, liberates and enlivens individuals and communities. This experience will provide participants with tools they can use in their everyday lives to reflect, rejoice and renew through writing, performance, movement and meditation.

Community Sustainability: Creativity is integral to building and sustaining community. The residency will provide participants with tools to investigate art and creativity as a practice for solving issues impacting local communities. Through creative visioning, action and reflection participants will experience movement from issue to resolution while at the same time building a tool kit to continue the forward movement for community sustainability and growth.

Literacy: Creativity is directly linked to achievement in literacy and basic skills. Because arts practice supports the overall critical thinking skills of students, it is extremely important to find new and innovative approaches to getting students writing and thinking outside of books. Creativity helps students conceptualize and envision experiences that extend comprehension of texts and problem solving skills. The activities used in this residency will be useful to students as they work to achieve their educational goals.



Organizational Impact
Creative Solutions is looking for ways to offer its students quality cultural arts programming. These costs, of course, are steep for a community school. Through our collaboration, Creative Solutions will have a month-long residency that it can use as a template for building and sustaining cultural arts programs throughout the year. Because BDAC is looking to its supporters to help fund this residency, Creative Solutions will not have to worry about payment for the services and use those funds to sustain other educational projects.

The Bottom Line
1. If this project does not happen, Creative Solutions quite possibly will not have intensive cultural arts programming for the month.
2. Participants will not have access to a transformative arts experience.
3. BDAC will not be able to begin its international arts initiative.


What We Need
BDAC Needs 2500.00 for the residency. Here is how it will be spent.

1500-flight
200-medication
700-Food and Lodging
100-Flip Cam

What You Get
Mention in Newsletter
Mention on website
DVD of Residency
Residency Chapbook
A gift from Zanzibar
A post card from Zanzibar


Other Ways You Can Help
Tweet about the residency using the #ProjectZanzibar hashtag
Mention the residency and our campaign on your Facebook wall or status update
Come to the going away party in Brooklyn July 16th.
Donate books, media or school supplies to Creative Solutions
Donate yoga mats
Donate DVDs
Donate art supplies
Donate frequent flyer miles
Get your social club to donate
Purchase mailing of materials
Come up with another way to help and let BDAC know!

posted by furious flower @ 9:35 PM 0 comments

Register for the 5th In The People's Hands Arts and Activism Project workshop, in Durham NC.! Free.




4th Annual In the People's Hands Arts and Activism Project Presents...
The LIBERATION INTENSIVE

Location: TBA
Cost: FREE
Contact: Ebony Noelle Golden-ebonygolden@bettysdaughterarts.com,
Nia Wilson-spirithousenc@gmail.com
tel: 919.283.9032

www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com

Registration: email or text- ebonygolden@bettysdaughterarts.com or 919.283.9032.


Join SpiritHouse, Alternate Roots and Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative for the 4th In The People's Hands Arts and Activism Intensive. This year we are focus is LIBERATION. The weekend we will offer creative performance, spoken word, writing and community action workshops for the community.

Agenda

Thursday June 30th 430 pm
Meet and Greet and Opening Session
530 Introductions and Ice Breaker
600 Opening Session
Why Liberation? Why Now: A Creative Imperative
In this session, Ebony Noelle Golden will lead an interactive session with participants exploring creative approaches to liberation, RSC's principles of community engagement while framing the scope and range of the weekend intensive.

Friday July 1st 430 pm
430- Light Dinner/Snacks
5 pm- Session 1
630-645 Break
645 pm - Session 2
815- Wrap Up

Saturday July 2
10 am- Performance/Manuscript One-on-Ones with Visiting Artists (20 minute sessions)
11 am - Light Brunch
1130- Session 3
1pm- Break
115- Session 4
245- Break
330
Cultural Arts Direct Action: The Creative and the Strategic Road Map
In this session, Ebony Noelle Golden will lead participants in a process of mapping out the next steps for using art and culture for change. Participants should come prepared to talk about a tangible shift they want to see in their communities and how they want to use art and culture to do that work.

530 Break

7 pm Community Performances

posted by furious flower @ 11:45 AM 0 comments

May 15: Everyday Brilliance: Resilience Practices from Black Lesbian Elders

brought to you by the MobileHomecoming Project (mobilehomecoming.org)

amplifying generations of black feminist LGBTQ brilliance!

2pm-6pm Sunday, May 15 2011

Stone House

6602 Nicks Rd.

Mebane, NC

Join us for a day of immersive wisdom where black lesbian elders in North Carolina share the practices that have kept them awake and amazing for decades in an interactive, intergenerational, skillshare and dialogue!!!

Invited featured speakers include:
Dr. Anjail Ahmad
Ed Swan
C. C. Wiggins
Janice Vaughn
Carolyn Grey
Harriet Alston

Bring a dish to share and be prepared to be inspired everyday from now on!

email mobilehomecoming@gmail.com for more info!

posted by lex @ 12:38 PM 0 comments

Women on Wednesdays Teach-in & Healing Cipher

This year, WoW organizers are pleased to offer a day-long teach-in to deepen our exploration of our motto "Engage. Create. Empower". Save your spot by RSVP with an email to ebonygolden@bettysdaughterarts.com.



Agenda

10 am- Welcome and Honoring Toni Cade Bambara
1015 am-Yoga and Mindfulness w/ Dehejia Maat

1115 am- Workshop Selections (Descriptions below)

A-Define Your Personal Shine w/ BurnBright Lifeworks, Inc.
B-Finding Voice through Identity w/ Carmen Mojica
C-Lyrical Meditations: Using Freestyle to Free the Spirit with Toni Blackman

1215 pm- Lunch

1 pm-Safe Spaces w/ Ocean Ana Rising

3 pm-Break

315- Prepare Community Sharing from Workshops
330 pm-Community Sharing from Workshops
430 pm-Next Steps Continuing the Sisterhood
5 pm-Closing Activity



Workshop Descriptions

Yoga and Mindfulness with Dehejia Maat

All-Group Session 1 hr.

As a poet and writer I've come to a place where I can't write anymore, because the exterenal world impacts my internal. Yoga for Poets and Writers is a workshop that I've created to remove blockages thru meditation and yoga. Our focus: clearing the noise and drawing form the pool of inspiration.



Safe Spaces for Trauma to Triumph with Ocean Ana Rising

All-Group Session 2 hrs.

The Safe Spaces Workshop is designed to provide women survivors of violence with tools of creative expression to help them transform trauma into healing and liberation. Through this workshop, participants are encouraged to express their own sacred, magical selves, using cultural art techniques that can be revisited long after participation in the workshop. For this Safe Spaces residency, workshop participants will re-discover body awareness on their own terms through guided creative movement, body painting, & writing techniques. We will begin with free writing exercises using prompts that inspire participants to explore the initial and personal trauma. This writing will lead to creative movement techniques, focusing on breathing, flexibility, and rhythmic dance, utilizing an African dance fusion technique. The creative movement will gently guide participants through the memory of the initial wound/scar/trauma addressed through the writing exercise, toward a transformative process of re-memory through which the body experiences full expression and triumph. Participants do not need any formal dance training to participate in this workshop. Following the first portion of the creative movement aspect of the workshop, workshop participants will further celebrate their bodies, self expression, and beauty through a body painting session, high-lighting spaces on the body with visual symbols, designs and colors that reclaim and reinforce personal ideas of affirmation. After body painting, participants will return to creative writing, emphasizing transformation and triumph.

Define Your Personal Shine with BurnBright Lifeworks, Inc.
1 hour


Artist Track:
The overall objective of this workshop is is to equip artists with a deeper level understanding of how they may use branding as a personal & professional tool for their artistic endeavors (networking, seminars, collaborations, exhibit, etc.)

BREAKDOWN

This workshop will take place as a free-form dynamic discussion/presentation followed by a break out Q & A where participants may pose questions.

Glow Assessment (What's working for/against me?) With their lives moving at a lightening pace, many artists rarely get an opportunity to see themselves clearly. This section will focus on teaching participants to do a 360 degree analysis of their current situation.

Selecting Your Candle (Formulating their goals) Selecting your candle will help artists prioritize their goals and by doing so, develop their OWN standards for success.

Burning Bright (Branding Statement) The purpose of this section is for participants to walk away with their own personal Branding statement. Please not that this statement is quite different than an Artist's Statement. Participants will be coached to create a Branding Statement that will speak more to how they want to be SEEN as opposed to what their artistic vision is.

Voice and Individuality with Carmen Mojica
1 hr



Lyrical Meditations: Using Freestyle to Free the Spirit with Toni Blackman

1 hr.

Toni Blackman will lead a session using the spoken word to heighten creativity, inspire self-expression, and improve one's ability to go with the flow. Toni's participant centered wkshp provides a transformative experience that empowers those present to exist beyond their comfort zones. She facilitates the process of "getting open", guiding the energy so that both artist and non-artist benefit from the exercises. Be a part of the cipher.

posted by furious flower @ 8:31 AM 0 comments

Join Us as WE Celebrate Girls and Women of the African Diaspora!!!

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Women on Wednesdays Art and Culture Project Now Accepting Performance and Workshop Proposals

Greetings,

I hope you all are finding warmth as it gets really cold outside. I co-curate Women on Wednesdays Arts and Culture Project based here in NYC. We are currently accepting performance and workshop proposals from girls and women of the African diaspora to present creative works and teach during the month of February. Here is the link: http://www.bettysdaughterarts.com/women-on-wednesday-teach-in.php If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email me at ebonygolden@bettysdaughterarts.com.

Ebony Noelle Golden
Peace.

posted by furious flower @ 7:52 AM 0 comments

Get Hip and Get Some Black Women's Art in Your Life


Women on Wednesdays: Arts and Culture Series
Curated by Ebony Noelle Golden and Nina Angela Mercer


Description

Women on Wednesdays (WoW)is a month-long series that highlight the arts and cultural practices of girls and women of the African diaspora. Co-curated by Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative and Ocean Ana Rising, WoW features work of emerging and seasoned artists and cultural workers in the fields of theater, music, film, dance, literature, and scholarship. The series culminates in a day long teach-in as we explore activism through creative arts; a reception will follow. There is a suggested donation for all WoW events, and no one is turned away. Events take place at Brecht Forum located in the West Village at 7pm on each Wednesday of the month.

Artistic Manifesta


Culture

I guess that waltzes
Do not move me.
I have no sympathy
For symphonies.
I guess I hummed the blues too early
And spent too many midnights
Out wailing to the rain.

-Assata Shakur


"Magic, Everyday"


In "The Quilt: Towards a Twenty-First Century Black Feminist Ethnography" Renee Alexander Craft offers, “African/black women have all too often been imagined, defined, labeled and packaged in ways that are at odds with who we are and understand ourselves to be” (56). Craft's ideas highlight media representations of the mythic Black woman. Craft acknowledges that Black women's identities, (re)productive potential, and labor/work have been high-jacked by dominant media outlets. Women on Wednesdays Arts and Culture Series (WoW) grew out of a similar acknowledgement. WoW's organizers recognize the intersecting oppressions of race, sex, and gender that marginalize Black women's cultural and artistic labor. We affirm the pressing need to collaborate with Black women artists who are expanding conversations about what it means to be Black, woman, artist, cultural worker, and scholar. As a Black women-led project, we recognize the radical practice of providing an uncensored and economically-supported platform for WoW's participants to articulate identity, art, and cultural practice as a personal evolutionary process and negotiation of violent landscapes founded in doctrines of silence and erasure.

When we harness artistic and cultural practices in the tradition of our fore mothers, we quilt a brilliant narrative that shifts and balances the rhythm of this universe. WoW honors the art women make on the porch, at the kitchen table, in the studio, classroom, street and beyond. This series affirms the movement, stories, melodies, theories, and meditations and laments, placing women's voices at the center of narratives about our shared and unique experiences. Women's artistic practices are not only tools for survival but tools for activating an aesthetics of radical imagination that conjures liberation for the artist and our communities. Utilizing art and culture, women conflate the personal and the political, the intimate and the communal, the artistic and the academic to not only honor our collective legacies but inform and imagine the world we want to live in today and tomorrow.

February 3

Body: Word, Move, Perform
"Body: Word, Move, Perform", is an exploration of the body through word, movement, and performance. The night features literary readings, choreographic works and short performance pieces and ends with a round table discussion about how Black women use dance, performance, and literary art to explore the individual in relationship to surrounding political, environmental, and social landscapes. Talk-back moderated by Ebony Noelle Golden

February 10
She Got a Fierce Up-Rock: Women in Hip Hop
Featuring a screening of the film "Say My Name" and a performance by Kymbali Craig, "She Got a Fierce Up-Rock" provides a space to explore Black women in Hip Hop. From politics of production, to juggling motherhood and career, the panel discussion promises to be a vibrant and necessary conversation. Talk-back moderated Brandy Monk-Payton and Kymbali Craig.

February 17
Daughters of Shange
Featuring a staged reading of "I Am a Drum" by Sybil Roberts, "Daughters of Shange" features short experimental performance works that trouble and conflate traditional categories of theatrical performance. Talk-back moderated by Nina Angela Mercer.

February 21

"Teach the Teacher" harnesses the power of communal learning and knowledge sharing. Featuring workshops, discussion, and performances, "Teach the Teacher" is day-long teach-in for those who are interested in utilizing art and culture for awareness and social justice

February 24
Ñañakuna K’uychimanta (sisters of the rainbow) is a musical, literary and dance performance that will explore the artistic expressions of women from the African Diaspora. The evening employs a reinterpretation of "round robin sessions" where each artist will share with their fellow performers, writers and musicians, their work to generate a discussion at the end of the performance. This event will feature the talents of The Mimi Jones Band; poets Tara Betts, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs and, Tonya Foster; and choreographer dancer Paloma McGregor.
This event is curated and moderated by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs.

posted by furious flower @ 5:34 PM 0 comments

WHAT RACE ARE YOU RUNNING? SUBMIT YOUR LO-PHY PERFORMANCES/LO-TECH PHOTOS ebonygolden@bettysdaughterarts.com to contribute to our web installation project debunking POST-RACIAL HYPNOSIS!!!!!! GO HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.bettysdaughterarts.com/a-poetics-of-progressive-pedagogy.php

posted by furious flower @ 12:17 PM 0 comments

Call for art, spoken word, music- Sex worker rights are Human rights!

In conjunction with International Human Rights Day on December 10th, a coalition of New York-based sex worker rights, anti-violence and decriminalization advocates are hosting a Human Rights Speak-Out and Arts Evening. You are encouraged to submit your work!

We are looking for:
- pieces that connect to or highlight themes in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (see http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ and the examples below); and to the idea that criminalization of sex work leads ultimately to human rights violations.
- visual art; and short (2 to 7 minutes) spoken word or poetry pieces, musical pieces, theater shorts, films, etc.
- current/ former sex workers, and folks who are otherwise in communities that are heavily impacted by criminalization and policing of sex work are especially encouraged to submit

Submit to : kmdadamo@gmail.com and belltoweroverflo@hotmail.com
For spoken word and performance, please email written copies if possible. For film, either mail a copy or send an online link to view. For visual art, please either send JPG images (no more than 2) or otherwise call to make arrangements to submit.

Submit by: November 25th

Be sure to keep Dec. 10th on your schedule! Travel stipends for local NYC area travel to the event on the evening of December 10th may be available for submitting artists. Please keep in mind that the event will be promoted to media outlets in order to try to bring a sex worker rights and human rights message to a wider audience.

Here are some examples of conditions faced by sex workers and articles of the UDHR that correlate:

Sex workers and people profiled as sex workers are often ignored when they report violence, rape, or other crimes against them, and even presumed to have brought the violence on themselves. Frequently, they face violence, including sexual violence and extortion, at the hands of the police.

Article 3.

* Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 5.

* No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 7.

* All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

People, particularly transgender folks and people of color are often profiled as sex workers and arrested. For example in Washington, DC, officers can arrest people they “presume to be prostitutes” in so-called Prostitution Free Zones.

Article 9 of the Declaration says:

* No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 20.

* (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

Criminalization and stigmatization create enormous obstacles to sex workers organizing for labor rights, and sex workers sometimes face discrimination when they seek different work.

Article 23.

* (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
* (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
* (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
* (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 25.

* (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

posted by furious flower @ 8:11 AM 0 comments

Stand in Solidarity with Gumbo YaYa!
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com





Greetings community,

Gumbo YaYa wants you to stand in support of healing and creative expression for African American girls and women. Most of you know I help sustain a community-based sister circle called Gumbo YaYa: Creative Expression and Healing for African American Girls and Women. Well soon the project will expand to communities in South Africa and Kenya and continue in Durham, NC.

We want you to stand in solidarity with us! If you believe in our mission and our work email your name and the organization you represent to be listed on our community support page!

Gumbo YaYa is a holistic, arts-based program that directly addresses reproductive justice, awareness, and empowerment of African American girls and women. Established in 2007, Gumbo YaYa draws on the cultural practices of knowledge-sharing, political action, art-making, and community- building created and sustained by African American girls and women.

Gumbo YaYa’s mission is to affirm the health, wellness, and vitality of African American girls and women through creative and expressive healing.

To date, Gumbo YaYa has worked with over 100 women and girls in New York, North Carolina, and New Orleans. We have staged three community performances, and held one community forum.

We have collaborated with a host of like minded individuals who firmly believe in our mission and our work. We have been funded by New York University- ism project grant, New York University- Department of Multi-cultural Programs, Health Medical Research Foundation, The Imperial Court of the Daughters of Isis, Billings & Martin and several private sponsors. We have successfully entered our fall giving season, and raised over 2,000 for our international initiatives.




Here is what coming up...

Winter 09-10: Gumbo YaYa Cycle 3 Planning phase
Spring 2010: Gumbo YaYa Reproductive Justice, Now! begins
Community performance and forum
Summer 2010: Gumbo YaYa South Africa/ Kenya
Fall 2010: Gumbo YaYa documentary short film screening

We want you to stand in solidarity with us! If you believe in our mission and our work email your name and the organization you represent to be listed on our community support page!

Please feel free to share resources with us about grants, funding streams, donations, bartering/freecycling, people doing this work internationally, activities, and more.

We look forward to hearing from you.

In service and solidarity,

Ebony N. Golden

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