Wednesday, July 13, 2011




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!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Lex in Atlanta Tomorrow!: The Revolution Starts at Home: Transformative Justice with Alexis Pauline Gumbs


Wednesday, July 13, 7:30-9pm

Charis Books and More

1189 Euclid Ave. NE Atlanta, GA 30307 (404)524-03


Join us in welcoming back a longtime member of our Charis family, Alexis Gumbs as she reads from her essay in The Revolution Starts at Home and shares some of her strategies and wisdom about creating transformative justice in all of our communities.

Based on the popular zine that had reviewers and fans alike demanding more, The Revolution Starts at Home
finally breaks the dangerous silence surrounding the "open secret" of
intimate violence—by and toward caretakers, in romantic partnerships,
and in friendships—within social justice movements. This watershed
collection compiles stories and strategies from survivors and their
allies, documenting a decade of community accountability work and
delving into the nitty-gritty of creating safety from abuse without
relying on the prison industrial complex.

Fearless, tough-minded, and ultimately loving, The Revolution Starts at Home offers potentially life-saving alternatives for creating survivor safety while building a movement where no one is left behind.

http://www.charisbooksandm​ore.com/book/9780896087941

This event is part of our Organizational and Community Building Project and is co-sponsored by Southerners on New Ground (S.O.N.G.)

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Rainbow Reclamations Durham (Red) "Keep Your Sorry" Break Up Poetics

Sunday July 24th 2011

5pm-8pm

Inspiration Station, Durham NC (email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com for directions)


Dedicated to the broken ground of your healing heart! This session for women of color and and feminists of color who do not conform to the gender binary is about lifting up break-up poetics as necessary and transformative clarity that can help us to create the lives, loves, and spaces we deserve! If you have ever been through a break-up, need to transition a relationship or are in the midst of a relationship transition right n...ow come to this event!

By popular demand and with infinite love WE CONTINUE a seven month process called Rainbowed Reclamation, a colorful women of color juicy poetry and food-filled space of sacred discussions that reclaim our bodies, collectivize our spiritual energy and the brilliant choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.

These monthly discussion/rituals are love in practice towards creating a spiritually …aligned, intimately interconnected, queer affirming and self loving community of women of color and genderqueer people of color ready to support each other in transforming the world.

This month’s activity is specifically about visible solidarity as and with sex workers of color. We will be having a ritual and making a banner of belief to place at the site of the Duke Lacrosse House.

*****Please wear RED and bring some food to share if you can. *******

Childcare will be provided!

If you are a woman of color and/or a genderqueer person of color anywhere near Durham…COME! If you are a woman of color and/or a genderqueer person of color anywhere in the world email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail

.com to find out how to host your own event and send folks in North Carolina to us!!! If you are an ally spread the word and please send this to people who need this space!!!!