In 1978 at the 4th Annual Conference of Afro-American Writers at Howard University, June Jordan facilitated a historic and controversial panel on "Black Women Writers and Feminism." The talk that she presented "Where is the Love?" defined black feminism as a crucial act of love. Met with some hostility and homophobia from the audience, the talk was later published in Essence Magazine and remains a generations primary interface with what black feminism might mean.
More than 30 years later we are still working through what it means to create community and transformation through a radical understanding of love. Join BrokenBeautiful Press and SpiritHouse for a discussion of this important essay!
In Durham we will be gathering at 1pm on Saturday February 7th.
The essay is available for free download at :http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/where-is-the-love-session-ii/
Feel free to read along and gather wherever you are!
love,
lex
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Gumbo YaYa "Sista Circle" Continues with
"Mother. Ourselves" Interactive Workshop led by Alexis Pauline Gumbs and
Zachari Curtis (3:00-5:30)
Contact: Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
Media Alert
bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com www.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Durham, NC- Jan. 28, 2009
The North Carolina Humanities Council and SpiritHouse-NC sponsor a creative healing and expression process for women and girls of the African diaspora Durham, NC. The 12-week process, Gumbo YaYa, began January 4 and will continue to March 29 with a creative performance. Now in its second month, Gumbo Yaya continues to incorporate methods for growth,expression, and community-building to actualize individual and artistic processes. The theme is "Love is Radical: Approaches to Mothering, Daughter(ing), and Sister(ing)".
Up-coming Sister Circles Include
Feb. 1, "Mother. Ourselves." with Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Zachari Curtis.
Feb. 8, "In The Beginning Was Her Word: Empowering Women One Story At A Time", with Dr. Anjail Rashida Ahmad.Feb. 15, "The Healing Practice of Dance"
Feb. 22, "Meditation and Creative Visioning: Building Intergenerational Bridges Among Black
Women and Girls"
The "sista circle" uses methods such as improvisation, dance, journaling, meditation, storytelling, photography, theater, poetry, and music to explore the intergenerational relationships between black mothers, daughters, and sisters. The "sista circle" series culminates in multimedia theater performance at the end of March.
All sessions, materials, performances, and discussions are free for participants and audience members. Gumbo YaYa will provide child care and dinner during every "sista circle". Participants do not have to be students, or affiliated with any particular institution to participate.
Ebony Noelle Golden, Creative Director of Gumbo YaYa thanks the North Carolina Humanities Council, SpiritHouse-NC, and Healing with CAARE, Inc. for their generous sponsorship. Nancy "Mama Nia" Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "We are really looking forward to hosting Gumbo YaYa. This process will definitely help to continue conversations black women and girls are having about how we relate to each other. We hope this process helps mothers, daughters, and sisters strengthen their relationships with each other and the larger communities."
For more information about Gumbo YaYa visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com, or email bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com.
--
Ebony N. Golden, MFA, MA
Creative Director
bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Hire Betty's Daughter for your arts consulting needs!
"creating radical expressiveness in community"
Check out...Gumbo Yaya/or this is why we speak in tongues
"Creative Healing and Expression for Women of the Diaspora"
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
"Mother. Ourselves" Interactive Workshop led by Alexis Pauline Gumbs and
Zachari Curtis (3:00-5:30)
Contact: Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
Media Alert
bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com www.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Durham, NC- Jan. 28, 2009
The North Carolina Humanities Council and SpiritHouse-NC sponsor a creative healing and expression process for women and girls of the African diaspora Durham, NC. The 12-week process, Gumbo YaYa, began January 4 and will continue to March 29 with a creative performance. Now in its second month, Gumbo Yaya continues to incorporate methods for growth,expression, and community-building to actualize individual and artistic processes. The theme is "Love is Radical: Approaches to Mothering, Daughter(ing), and Sister(ing)".
Up-coming Sister Circles Include
Feb. 1, "Mother. Ourselves." with Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Zachari Curtis.
Feb. 8, "In The Beginning Was Her Word: Empowering Women One Story At A Time", with Dr. Anjail Rashida Ahmad.Feb. 15, "The Healing Practice of Dance"
Feb. 22, "Meditation and Creative Visioning: Building Intergenerational Bridges Among Black
Women and Girls"
The "sista circle" uses methods such as improvisation, dance, journaling, meditation, storytelling, photography, theater, poetry, and music to explore the intergenerational relationships between black mothers, daughters, and sisters. The "sista circle" series culminates in multimedia theater performance at the end of March.
All sessions, materials, performances, and discussions are free for participants and audience members. Gumbo YaYa will provide child care and dinner during every "sista circle". Participants do not have to be students, or affiliated with any particular institution to participate.
Ebony Noelle Golden, Creative Director of Gumbo YaYa thanks the North Carolina Humanities Council, SpiritHouse-NC, and Healing with CAARE, Inc. for their generous sponsorship. Nancy "Mama Nia" Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "We are really looking forward to hosting Gumbo YaYa. This process will definitely help to continue conversations black women and girls are having about how we relate to each other. We hope this process helps mothers, daughters, and sisters strengthen their relationships with each other and the larger communities."
For more information about Gumbo YaYa visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com, or email bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com.
--
Ebony N. Golden, MFA, MA
Creative Director
bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Hire Betty's Daughter for your arts consulting needs!
"creating radical expressiveness in community"
Check out...Gumbo Yaya/or this is why we speak in tongues
"Creative Healing and Expression for Women of the Diaspora"
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Greetings Gumbo YaYa Supporters,
Last week's session "Brilliant Tomorrows: Sister(ing) as Communal Creative Performance" was a success! We had 20 women in attendance as we engaged diverse ways of practicing sisterhood.
This sunday features an extended gourd making and percussion workshop, HandWork to HeartWork" led by Connie Leeper of Kannapolis, NC. The session will begin at 2:30 and end 6:30. All programs happen at Healing with CAARE, Inc on 214 Broadway St in Durham, NC.
We are also pleased to announce that two of our youth, Nadirah and Bryonna, will lead us in a meditation and visualization activity to start the workshop.
As always, dinner and child care will be provided.
Additionally, please see the link to more pictures of the Everlasting Life workshop from our second week. Thank you sister Courtney Powell-X for the photography work.
http://picasaweb.google.com/sis.courtney/GumboYaya?authkey=vLMkbfNO_IU#5293620404058243410
Please visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com and leave us a note!
Last week's session "Brilliant Tomorrows: Sister(ing) as Communal Creative Performance" was a success! We had 20 women in attendance as we engaged diverse ways of practicing sisterhood.
This sunday features an extended gourd making and percussion workshop, HandWork to HeartWork" led by Connie Leeper of Kannapolis, NC. The session will begin at 2:30 and end 6:30. All programs happen at Healing with CAARE, Inc on 214 Broadway St in Durham, NC.
We are also pleased to announce that two of our youth, Nadirah and Bryonna, will lead us in a meditation and visualization activity to start the workshop.
As always, dinner and child care will be provided.
Additionally, please see the link to more pictures of the Everlasting Life workshop from our second week. Thank you sister Courtney Powell-X for the photography work.
http://picasaweb.google.com/sis.courtney/GumboYaya?authkey=vLMkbfNO_IU#5293620404058243410
Please visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com and leave us a note!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Greetings Gumbo YaYa Supporters,
Below you will find upcoming Sister Circle information. Please forward to Black women and girls you think may be interested in coming.
As with all circles, refreshments and child care are provided.
For more information, visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com or bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com
Jan. 18. “Brilliant Tomorrows: Sister(ing) as Communal Creative Performance”
Ebony Noelle Golden
Workshop Description- How are black women taught to sister? What are the some of the rites, rituals, and performances of sistering? How can we honor the space and practice of sistering? In this session, participants will engage in poetry, performance, music, and movement activities that help us create a vocabulary for active, present, and radical sistering.
The workshop is informed by the work and scholarship of Alice Coltrane, Romare Bearden, Ntozake Shange, Augosto Boal, Anna Deveare Smith, Nina Simone, Zora Neale Hurston, Soyini Madison, among others.
Jan. 25 “HandWork to HeartWork” Gourd Making & Percussion Connie Leeper
On the surface, this workshop is about music and gourd making. On a deeper level, it is more about connection…connection to ourselves, playfulness, imagination, culture, health and community. No experience necessary. Must be willing to be open, welcoming & ready to learn and teach. This workshop only requires that you bring your whole self into a process of intentional creativity.
Feb. 1 “Mother. Ourselves.” Alexis Pauline Gumbs & Zachari Curtis What happens when a life’s work stretches to include many lifetimes and multiple bodies? What models of communication allow those of us living in the flesh on this plane to access the imperatives of ancestors and the unborn? This exploration of the practice of spiritual daughterhood demonstrates and investigates radical connection as a calling and a strategy for healing and action.
Presented by three spiritual daughters of Durham visionary artist, educator and now ancestor Nayo Watkins, “Mother. Ourselves.” is both a performative tribute to Mama Nayo’s life and energy and a model for communication across the presumed limits of life itself. Mama Nayo understood the necessity of the creative process to radical political struggle and healing. This is how she lives with us now; reaching forward and back, moving away and drawing us together.
Time, distance, dis(ease), death, scarcity if asserted as essential, linear, terminal, logical, confine individuals and disrupt communication across seemingly impermeable barriers. What we know already is that we already have everything we need in order to reclaim, remember, revision ourselves, together, free. As Nayo put it, “You already know all you need to know… It’s in your bones.”
Feb. 8 “In The Beginning Was Her Word: Empowering Women One Story At A Time”
Dr. Anjail Rashida Ahmad
Over the millennia, women have held societies together word of mouth, hand to hand and vision by vision simply by the words issued from their tongues. The word or the power of one’s intention spoken into existence is the essence of who we are and can be a force that drives the unfolding of our life experiences. This speaking often takes the shape of stories both narrative and poetic. It’s the power of one’s own story articulated and shared that can have a most transforming effect throughout our societies both private and public.
In this workshop, Dr. Ahmad will lead us in uncovering the essence of the words lying at the bottom of our own hearts and use them to formulate our stories/poems/womanifestas-what desires to be spoken that has not yet been uttered.
Participants should bring a photograph of themselves preferably from the remote past. Use black and white if you have it or copy with a black and white copier. Together we will write autobiographically/biographically, herstorically inspired poems. Come prepared to be reaffirmed, to search-out the words and images, to gather and shape them and to share that which has the power to make us whole.
Below you will find upcoming Sister Circle information. Please forward to Black women and girls you think may be interested in coming.
As with all circles, refreshments and child care are provided.
For more information, visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com or bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com
Jan. 18. “Brilliant Tomorrows: Sister(ing) as Communal Creative Performance”
Ebony Noelle Golden
Workshop Description- How are black women taught to sister? What are the some of the rites, rituals, and performances of sistering? How can we honor the space and practice of sistering? In this session, participants will engage in poetry, performance, music, and movement activities that help us create a vocabulary for active, present, and radical sistering.
The workshop is informed by the work and scholarship of Alice Coltrane, Romare Bearden, Ntozake Shange, Augosto Boal, Anna Deveare Smith, Nina Simone, Zora Neale Hurston, Soyini Madison, among others.
Jan. 25 “HandWork to HeartWork” Gourd Making & Percussion Connie Leeper
On the surface, this workshop is about music and gourd making. On a deeper level, it is more about connection…connection to ourselves, playfulness, imagination, culture, health and community. No experience necessary. Must be willing to be open, welcoming & ready to learn and teach. This workshop only requires that you bring your whole self into a process of intentional creativity.
Feb. 1 “Mother. Ourselves.” Alexis Pauline Gumbs & Zachari Curtis What happens when a life’s work stretches to include many lifetimes and multiple bodies? What models of communication allow those of us living in the flesh on this plane to access the imperatives of ancestors and the unborn? This exploration of the practice of spiritual daughterhood demonstrates and investigates radical connection as a calling and a strategy for healing and action.
Presented by three spiritual daughters of Durham visionary artist, educator and now ancestor Nayo Watkins, “Mother. Ourselves.” is both a performative tribute to Mama Nayo’s life and energy and a model for communication across the presumed limits of life itself. Mama Nayo understood the necessity of the creative process to radical political struggle and healing. This is how she lives with us now; reaching forward and back, moving away and drawing us together.
Time, distance, dis(ease), death, scarcity if asserted as essential, linear, terminal, logical, confine individuals and disrupt communication across seemingly impermeable barriers. What we know already is that we already have everything we need in order to reclaim, remember, revision ourselves, together, free. As Nayo put it, “You already know all you need to know… It’s in your bones.”
Feb. 8 “In The Beginning Was Her Word: Empowering Women One Story At A Time”
Dr. Anjail Rashida Ahmad
Over the millennia, women have held societies together word of mouth, hand to hand and vision by vision simply by the words issued from their tongues. The word or the power of one’s intention spoken into existence is the essence of who we are and can be a force that drives the unfolding of our life experiences. This speaking often takes the shape of stories both narrative and poetic. It’s the power of one’s own story articulated and shared that can have a most transforming effect throughout our societies both private and public.
In this workshop, Dr. Ahmad will lead us in uncovering the essence of the words lying at the bottom of our own hearts and use them to formulate our stories/poems/womanifestas-what desires to be spoken that has not yet been uttered.
Participants should bring a photograph of themselves preferably from the remote past. Use black and white if you have it or copy with a black and white copier. Together we will write autobiographically/biographically, herstorically inspired poems. Come prepared to be reaffirmed, to search-out the words and images, to gather and shape them and to share that which has the power to make us whole.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Please Sign!
To: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesThis petition has been launched to object to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' announcement that it will give Jerry Lewis its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscar Awards ceremony on February 22, 2009.
During his decades of hosting the Labor Day Telethon, Jerry Lewis has helped to perpetuate negative, stereotypical attitudes toward people with muscular dystrophy and other disabilities. Jerry Lewis and the Telethon actively promote pity as a fundraising strategy. Disabled people want RESPECT and RIGHTS, not pity and charity.
In 1990, Lewis wrote that if he had muscular dystrophy and had to use a wheelchair, he would "just have to learn to try to be good at being a half a person." During the 1992 Telethon, he said that people with MD, whom he always insists on calling "my kids," "cannot go into the workplace. There's nothing they can do." Comments like these have led disability activists and our allies to protest against Jerry Lewis. We've argued that he uses the Telethon to promote pity, a counterproductive emotion which undermines our social equality. Here's how Lewis responded to the Telethon protesters during a 2001 television interview: "Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!"
Jerry Lewis has also made derogatory comments about women and gay men. His outdated attitudes and crude remarks are dehumanizing, not humanitarian.
Therefore, we the undersigned support the actions and arguments of the coalition group The Trouble with Jerry. We protest the Academy's characterization of Jerry Lewis as a "humanitarian." And we ask that the Academy cancel its plans to give Lewis the Hersholt Humanitarian Award.Sincerely,
View Current Signatures
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Get Hip and Get Your Necessary Dose of Gumbo YaYa!
January 5, 2009 –A New Year and new process to get the job done
On this new show in the New Year, we talk about upcoming events and setting goals for 2009.
Phyllis Coley, editor of Spectacular magazine and Ebony Noelle Golden creative director of Gumbo Yaya gives us a lot of new information to think about. Phyllis shares info on the upcoming Jan 31 celebration of Martin Luther King in Durham. Ebony tells us about the weekly sisterhood circles that she is guiding. Each of my guests use a process unique to them that I know you will find interesting and can be used as a guide to strengthen your own goals in 2009. Join the conversation and send me your goals that you have set for 2009.
Visit at www.richardbrownshow.com to listen to and download the podcast.
Visit Gumbo YaYa at www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
January 5, 2009 –A New Year and new process to get the job done
On this new show in the New Year, we talk about upcoming events and setting goals for 2009.
Phyllis Coley, editor of Spectacular magazine and Ebony Noelle Golden creative director of Gumbo Yaya gives us a lot of new information to think about. Phyllis shares info on the upcoming Jan 31 celebration of Martin Luther King in Durham. Ebony tells us about the weekly sisterhood circles that she is guiding. Each of my guests use a process unique to them that I know you will find interesting and can be used as a guide to strengthen your own goals in 2009. Join the conversation and send me your goals that you have set for 2009.
Visit at www.richardbrownshow.com to listen to and download the podcast.
Visit Gumbo YaYa at www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
Monday, January 05, 2009
Because We Still Are Here: Radical Women of Color in Solidarity with Palestine
Mai'a Williams and Alexis Pauline Gumbs invite you to participate in a new website documenting and continuting the solidarity of women of color in the United States with the people of Palestine.
email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com with any statements of solidarity or documentations of solidarity in action that you would like to share. below is an a excerpt from the site.
www.becausewestillarehere.wordpress.com
we still are here
with our words and with our actions.
on January 3rd, 2009 UBUNTU a women of color/survivor led coalition in Durham North Carolina organized a vigil in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Here are some captioned images from the event.
(photos by Ajamu Dillahunt)
Rachael Derello, the organizer who first voiced the need for a vigil in Durham, sings "We Shall Be Released"
Manju Rajendran, one of the main organizers who MC'd the event reminds the crowd of the need for aid and medical supplies inside blockaded Gaza.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Racheal Derello and Kriti Sharma (speakers from UBUNTU) listen as Laylah Haddad describes the violence her family is experiencing in Gaza due to the Isreali bombings.
Laylah Haddad told the crowd that her cousins witnessed children bombed to death while playing dice in front of their home in Gaza.
Theresa El-Amin formerly of SNCC and currently organizing with Solidarity reminded the crowd that the City of Durham had once divested from all connections to Apartheid South Africa and must now divest from the Isreali Aparthied state.
Nadeen Bir and Kifu Faruq hold signs reminding us that "Until Palestine is Free, None of Us Are Free"...and connecting the occupation of Palestine and the occupation of Iraq.
And the little ones raise their voices.
other coverage of the Durham event
http://raleighfist.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/durham-protests-gaza-bombings/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)