Arts & Activism Event!

Hey friends, 

I have questions… all the madness and social injustice in the world… I have questions, and concerns, and desires around my role as an artist in effecting change. And I yearn for any and all opportunities to connect with people who also have questions… 

I am so thankful to have had opportunities to engage with artists such as Liz Lerman, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and the amazing Urban Bush Women community,Celeste Miller, Billy Yalowitz, and countless artists who create space for exploring these questions. 

Every encounter fuels the desire for more encounters!! 

So, I hope you'll come ask questions with me on November 19th at "Arts & Activism: Responding to Social Crisis" at the Painted Bride Art Center. It's free, it's a multimodal brainstorming event, it's a potluck!

Website: https://paintedbride.org/events/artsactivism/

Vietnam 2014

Project Dance Together: Vietnam 2014

I am honored to have been able to return to Vietnam to participate in Project Dance Together with Evolve Dance Inc, Pacific Links Foundation, Hagar International Vietnam, and Vietnam Dance College.  Through this multifaceted program, we connected through dance classes, workshops, exchanges, and residencies towards the overall effort of establishing dance programs for survivors of human trafficking.

Being able to return to continue our collaboration was such an amazing opportunity to strengthen connections and develop new questions and ideas.  

The amazing dance students and faculty of Vietnam Dance College in Hanoi deepened my appreciation of collaboration.  Daily interaction without a common language meant finding various ways to exchange ideas; it meant migrating through moments of confusion, clarity, challenges and successes.  We journeyed together, and I learned so much from the process!  Above all, it was inspiring to be a part of their dancing environment for a short time and let their artistry and passion for dance broaden my perspective and fuel my desire to explore community interaction and dance.

It was so wonderful to reunite with the residents and staff of the Compassion House in Lao Cai, operated by Pacific Links Fnd, and to meet new friends there.  Karenne Koo did a fantastic job facilitating creative movement sessions.  Annie Tucker and I had a blast dancing with the young women who all contributed their ideas, curiosities, and movement explorations.  One of my favorite moments was when we "danced the environment," drawing inspiration (literally and figuratively) from the outdoor spaces of the shelter to create collaborative choreography.

To learn more about the 2014 trip, visit Evolve Dance Inc., or read about the first trip in 2013 here.

UBW Summer Leadership Institute 2014

As many of you know, I had the opportunity to travel to New Orleans and participate in Urban Bush Women's Summer Leadership Institute.  Upon my return, I was immersed in the process of preparing and writing for my Qualifying Exam.  This turned out to be a great way to synthesize all that happened at SLI, and now that I have finally resurfaced, I am ready to articulate this long overdue response...

First, I am thankful to Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and the amazing UBW SLI team for facilitating this program.  It was invigorating to be amongst such a diverse group of people who are working and thinking about intersections of arts, community, and social change in so many different ways.  I learned so much from each and every person I encountered.

Second, words cannot express how well this experience was facilitated.  The UBW philosophy around entering, building, and exiting community was embedded in every interaction - on a micro level between individuals, through to a macro level of co-creating a performance, and beyond.  It was incredible to see that in action and to be a part of it.   

I was challenged, supported, and motivated.  The atmosphere was electric, sparking new questions and prompting the reframing of existing questions. Through multimodal inquiry and ample opportunities for dialogue, we looked at issues through multiple lenses.  In every exchange --  between people, places, and activities -- we found connections to specific issues and overarching themes. 

I'll conclude by sharing some burning desires, further fueled by my experience at SLI. 

I desire to:

 - continue to hone the skill of telescopic investigation... zooming in to focus on details and widening out to identify to broader systems and structures.
 - further examine my role as a researcher and artist in building community... especially as I work to find my place in my new home of Philadelphia.
 - work in ways that dismantles rather than upholds racism
 - understand my relationship to activism in my creative practice/doctoral research
 - stay connected to the amazing friends that I made at SLI.

Okay, one last thought:

After one of the performances, I overheard an audience member remark, "Now that was community!"  Through that one culminating event, she was apparently able to perceive something that I experienced throughout the creative process… something that began as a glimmer of potential, that percolated through our hard work and dedication to the process and to each other, and developed into an experience I will never forget.