Women artists are responding to the recent shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and elsewhere by organizing for more gun control legislation. In Washington, D.C. there will be a March on Washington for Gun Control organized by Molly Smith, the Artistic Director of the Arena Theatre and her partner, American Indian activist Suzanne Blue Star Boy, in collaboration with One Million Moms for Gun Control, Trinity
United Church of Christ, Foundry United Methodist Church and the
Washington National Cathedral.
In the video below, Smith and Blue Star Boy explain why they felt compelled to organize this event. They make the point that since they are from Alaska, they can understand people who use guns to hunt, but they do not believe that people need the kinds of weapons that are available now.
The march is aligned with President Obama’s initiative on gun-control
including reinstating the assault weapons ban, banning high-capacity
ammunition magazines, requiring background checks, focusing on
gun-safety training and outlawing bullets that shatter in the body.
The march will start at 10 a.m. at the Reflecting Pool on Third Street NW. Thousands are expected to join this march to the Washington Monument.
Other theatre artists in Washington, DC have also stepped forward. At 3 p.m. there will be a performance of “Boged (Traitor): An Enemy of the People” (based on the Ibsen play) at
Theater J followed by a “theater action” to support gun control staged by NoPassport theater alliance at 5
p.m. at Georgetown University’s Gonda
Theatre.
NoPassportwas founded by playwright Caridad Svich in
2003. It is an artist-driven, grass-roots theatre
alliance and press devoted to cross-cultural, Pan-American
performance, theory, action, advocacy, and publication. For the gun control action, Svich sent out a call for 3 - 7 minute plays in December. At the NoPassport event, produced in
collaboration with Theater J, interdisciplinary arts ensemble
force/collision, and Twinbiz, performers will read from new works by playwrights including Matthew Paul
Olmos, Neil LaBute, Jennifer Maisel and Caridad Svich.
In closing, we also want to mention a thought-provoking blog by playwright Tammy Ryan asking what it means that her plays with guns in them are the ones that get produced the most:. She writes:
"I have never owned a gun, never touched a gun, never
even ever seen a real gun... but the characters in my plays do. Not in
all of them -- just the most successful ones, the ones that have been
sanctioned by the powers that be as "good," the plays that receive
professional development, multiple productions, get published, and win awards.
In each one of those plays a character either has a gun, shoots a gun, is
threatened by a gun, threatens someone else with a gun, is afraid of guns or is
somehow traumatized by the violence of a gun. This is a deeply disturbing
revelation for me. I don't think of myself as writing about guns. I think I'm
writing about family, communication, the power of forgiveness and healing. But
the presence of guns in my writing is undeniable." The guns in my plays
(1/20/13 on Howlround.com.)
There is some especially exciting news in her report on the Women At Sundance party (http://www.jackizehner.com/2013/01/24/women-at-sundance-party-2013/ ) Over 150 people, both men and women, packed into her house to celebrate
the success of women filmmakers at this year’s festival, to discuss ways
to further empower women in filmmaking, and to hear the results of a
research study called “Exploring the Barriers and Opportunities for
Independent Women Filmmakers.”
Also, to assist female directors in breaking through to that elusive
mainstream Hollywood success, it was announced at Women at
Sundance that a new fund has been set up in partnership with Impact Partners and Chicken & Egg to directly fund films by women filmmakers. Called Gamechanger, this fund will be run by Producer Mary Jane Skalski, and will fund women directors in a variety of genres with the goal of making commercially successfully films.
Melissa Silverstein of Women and Hollywood has also been posting lots of great articles and reviews. doing great coverage. We especially enjoyed Fariha Roisin's review of Salma about a Tamil woman poet's struggle against the patriarchy, and Kerensa Cadenas' list of Sundance Deals for Women's Films.
We also want to congratulate our Bay Area colleagues at Chicken & Egg Pictures. Five of their grantees have films at Sundance this year:After Tiller by Martha Shane & Lana Wilson; Citizen Kochby Tia Lessin & Carl Deal; Gideon's Army by Dawn Porter; The Squareby Jehane Noujaim; Valentine Road by Marta Cunningham. Also, two films by their grantees have just been nominated for Academy Awards - Kings Point (directed by Sari Gilman) for Best Documentary Short and The Invisible War (directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering) for Best Documentary Feature.
A Birthday Message from Our Executive Director Martha Richards
As I celebrate my birthday this week, I feel blessed that I get to work with so many amazing and creative women. I know it is not easy to be an artist these days, and I am grateful to all of you for sticking to it.
We have been enduring three decades of a long, cold winter of shrinking funding and dismissive public attitudes towards artists. I believe we will eventually pass through a cultural solstice and the light will start to return, but meanwhile, we need to figure out ways to sustain each other.
If you are like me, you are being deluged with funding requests at this time of year.
If you are able to make cash gifts to women artists and women's organizations, I hope you will do so. Most of us (including WomenArts) are working on a shoestring, and your cash gifts will really make a difference.
But I also believe there is a currency of kindness that we can use to lift each other's spirits whether or not we have any spare cash on hand.
I have seen it over and over again at WomenArts and in other parts of my life - you can often give someone the courage to keep working or try something new just by listening to them carefully, acknowledging their hard work, and finding kind, supportive things to say.
Believe in the Currency of Kindness
I am making a special birthday request. I want each of you to do the following three things:
Take time during the holiday season to think about a women artist whose work touches you.
Do your best to contact that artist and tell her what you love about her work. If she needs money and you have some extra, make a donation to her work.
If not, just say kind words.
This email is being sent to over 10,000 people. Just think how many women artists will be energized if all of us make a conscious effort to cheer them on! Let's do it!
Thanks again to all of you for filling my life with so many moments of sheer joy. You make me happy on my birthday and every day.
Best Wishes for the Holidays!
Martha Richards
Executive Director, WomenArts
SWAN Day Celebrated By Liberated Muses in Washington, D.C.
Collage from the "I'm Every Woman" SWAN Day Event
It's hard to believe it's been almost three months since the fifth international SWAN Day! We're continuing to profile the amazing women who make SWAN Day events happen all over the globe. This year, one of our most delightful discoveries during SWAN season was the Liberated Muse Arts Group, who put on a SWAN Day concert on March 30, 2012 in Washington, D.C. featuring long-time Liberated Muse artists. The event, called "I'm Every Woman," was held at The Potter's House, and included musical performances by Teisha Marie, Quineice, Colie Williams, Mama Moon, Lea, and the show's organizer and Liberated Muse founder Khadijah "Moon" Ali-Coleman. Singer and musician Derrick Marquis also paid tribute to women in music with a medley of songs by female soul musicians. The event was a great success, with the musicians selling over 40 CD's during the two-hour concert.
Here at WomenArts, we were captivated by the promotional video for "I'm Every Woman," which features music by jazz singer Dianne Reeves and photos of all the performers. The song's positive message of hope and commitment to the arts against a history of oppression resonated with us, and we wanted to find out more about this powerful group of women.
The Latest Publication from Liberated Muse
It's not surprising that the "I'm Every Woman" SWAN Day concert was such a success, given the history of Liberated Muse. Founded in 2008 by Khadijah Ali-Coleman, a writer, educator, performer, and creativity coach, as an online community for artists to share news, photos, videos, and performance opportunities, the group began producing the Capitol Hip Hop Soul Fest, a Washington D.C. hip hop festival that ran from 2008-2010. Liberated Muse Arts has continued to build on its mission to produce multi-cultural arts events in non-traditional arts spaces as well as providing arts workshops, online content management, and PR services to artists and small businesses.
Liberated Muse continues to produce arts events - most recently, another showcase of musical talent on June 16, 2012, for The Artomatic, during which Washington, D.C. artists take over an 11-story building in Crystal City, VA, that is slated for demolition, and transform it into a month-long celebration of creativity, featuring workshops, exhibitions, concerts, seminars, and other events that are free and open to the public.
If you're in the Washington, D.C. area, be sure to check out Liberated Muse's upcoming events and like them on Facebook. And wherever you live, click on the links in this article to be introduced to some very talented musicians and artists who will be sure to inspire you to liberate the muse inside yourself.
Honoring the Past While Creating the Future:An Interview With Kim A. Clarke, Founder and Organizer of the Lady Got Chops Women's History Month Jazz Festival
Kim A. Clarke, Founder of the
Lady Got Chops Festival
Ten years ago, jazz bassist Kim A. Clarke started a festival
called Lady Got Chops in New York City to showcase and celebrate women jazz
musicians. Lady Got Chops has grown into an annual event during Women’s History
Month, and has also become a SWAN Day event.
Inspiration for the Lady Got Chops festival came in 2003,
when Clarke was called to sub for another bassist at a new club in Brooklyn
called The Jazz Spot, which was owned by a mother-daughter team, Lillithe
Meyers and Tiecha Merritt. Clarke was impressed with the two women's entrepreneurship,
and Meyers and Merritt were happy to see a female musician come through the
doors.
They asked Clarke where all the other female jazz musicians were. Clarke
had toured with saxophonist band leader Kit McClure and her all-women Big Band,
so she knew plenty of other women musicians, and before long, she and her new
friends were planning a celebration in honor of women’s history month. They
decided to focus primarily on women jazz instrumentalists, since they tend to
be more overlooked than vocalists. The club provided the space and food, and
Clarke created a website, made flyers, booked the musicians, and promoted the
event.
“In particular, we wanted to address the anonymity issue, as
refers to women (primarily instrumentalists) in music as well as provide a
platform for those who had never met to enjoy an evening of performing together
outside of their comfort zone,” reminisced Clarke about that first festival.
Lady Got Chops was so successful that it continued as an
annual festival at The Jazz Spot, which only seated 45 people, until the venue closed permanently in 2009. Since then, the festival has
been held in various spots around New York City – 43 different venues have been
featured.
WomenArts interviewed Clarke, who has played in numerous bands - notably, she is the leader of MAGNETS! West Coast-East Coast music project - about the history of the
festival, the challenges faced by women jazz musicians, and the musicians who
inspire her.
WomenArts: How has
the festival grown and changed in the past 10 years?
Clarke: The Jazz
Spot closed its doors permanently in 2009 after the 7th festival –
ill health took its toll on Lil after exposure at the WTC [collapse of the
World Trade Center following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks]. The 8th,
9th, and 10th festivals were held in a total of 43 venues
thereafter through the interest of friends who would share their bookings and
clubs and who were interested in honoring Women’s History Month. We raised
money for Doctors Without Borders in 2010 for earthquake relief in Haiti. The
venues extended from churches to art galleries, from wine tasting venues to
museums, from performance spaces to libraries. It’s become a free advertising
event for me, as I still need to seek employment as a performer and may have a
few more possibilities as a bassist during this time. It’s a two-edged sword –
I spend a great deal of time trying to meet print materials deadlines, booking
the events I have control of, and including those who have booked their own
while being a professional musician.
WomenArts: Can you
tell us about a few highlights from this year’s festival?
as Wendy Oxenhorn, the CEO of the Jazz Foundation of America, and my original co-producers Lillithe Meyers (also infirm due to WTC
exposure) and Tiecha Merritt, the Jazz Spot owners. To have these ladies in the
same room, to feed them and to present them with plaques as well as perform for
them, was such an honor for me personally. The idea originally came from our
friend, saxophonist Carol Sudhalter. The venue was the Dwyer Cultural Center, a
new artistic space in Harlem. Another honor was for two of my old friends who
have done so well in music to permit me to list their events with the rest of
the festival: Cindy Blackman-Santana and the brilliant Carmen Lundy. I was also
honored by Rome Heal and given the Golden Shakere Award. Here is a link to the
full festival schedule.
Lady Got Chops 2012 Poster
WomenArts: How did
you first discover jazz? Which artists were your early influences?
Clarke: My father
grew up with New York jazz notables – my grandfather was a touring vaudevillian
trombonist turned acoustic bassist (he passed on in 1967). Dad worked for
transit but played big band and bebop music every morning while dressing for
work. He also played records at home as well as cutting a mean jitterbug with
Mom. Those were my earliest jazz influences. I took ballet from age 3 til about
12 and liked what the pianist was doing more so than the workout I was getting
– lol. My babysitter brought in all the Hendrix, Otis Redding, R&B, etc.
Mom loved the “gutbucket” blues of the south. I started playing at 17-18, but
my jazz training came 4 years after I was already playing along with my
favorite records in the R&B genre. I met a friend at Bennett College who
told me about the Jazzmobile program of study on Saturdays. I enrolled and had
classes with the likes of Jimmy Heath, Jimmy Owens, Victor Gaskin, JohnStubblefield, Lisle Atkinson and Charlie Persip. I transferred to CCNY [City College of New York] and studied with John Lewis of the MJQ [Modern Jazz Quartet] and was awarded three grants to study jazz
with Ron Carter, Buster Williams, and Lisle Atkinson consecutively. I was a
pre-med major prior to all of this – didn’t read a note of music. I was later
introduced to the Barry Harris improvisation workshop and later became the
house bassist for the Jazz Cultural Theatre Jam Session: Art Blakey Breakfast
Jam. My most influential artists were the ones I knew and played with: KennyGates, Jeff King, Art Blakey Jr., Evelyn Blakey, Don Echos, George Braith,
Gilly Coggins, Leon Thomas, Clifford Jordan, Eddie Jefferson, Philly Joe Jones,
Jo Jones Jr, Jimmy Lovelace, Eddie Henderson, Tommy Turrentine, Clarence C. Sharpe, Richard Williams, Gerald Hayes, Louis Hayes, Wallace Roney, CindyBlackman… so many…
WomenArts: Can you
talk about one or two women jazz musicians who really inspire you?
Clarke: The first
woman to inspire me to play music was Cynthia Robinson, best known for being
the trumpeter and vocalist in the popular and influential psychedelic soul/funk
band Sly and the Family Stone. Robinson is notable for being one of the first
(both) black and female trumpet players in a major American band.
Cynthia Robinson Playing Trumpet
With Sly and the Family Stone
WomenArts: As a
woman jazz musician, what is the field like?
Clarke: I guess the
older one gets the more the perspective changes. Women are always viewed as
more than just musicians – I do believe in music, as well as politics or any
other public occupation, having the aptitude is mandatory but the looks are the
deal closer… Yeah I said it – lol.
WomenArts: Do women
in jazz experience discrimination? Is it more difficult for female jazz
musicians to find work?
Clarke: Of course.
Absolutely. Everything is about quick sales and marketability. Number 1 – jazz
is an outsourced art form – more respected abroad than in the U.S. Number 2 –
sex sells and the submissive side of women is the accepted norm; therefore
playing jazz with a vengeance short circuits the common male-dominated imagery…
and it’s being done. However, the less heady art forms and female images get
infinitely more publicity.
WomenArts: What do
you love most about jazz? Why is it such an important art form?
Clarke: Jazz – or
BAM (Black American Music) as it is being called by some – is music of soul
suffering spirit trying to extricate from pain with a smile on its face despite
the insults and omissions… it’s a language which was born of the socio-cultural
reality that is uniquely African-American – Euro-Asiatic – Caribbean – it
reflects humanity from the depths of the brothel to the parlors of the rich and
the church. It’s the global export that precedes the internet – I personally
have found folk who don’t speak English but because of world wars know the
music of my fathers and play the heck out of it as well. Mathematically
speaking, good jazz, like good classical, makes one think on a deeper level… I
love jazz because of the many I’ve met and the insights they’ve shared – their
love of the music as well as the pain of choices. It’s a mountain… when you get
to the top you can see a bit further.
Thanks to Clarke and the other women who participate in Lady Got Chops, we can all see a bit further into a future in which women musicians have the same opportunities and receive the same respect as their male counterparts. Be sure to follow the many links within this interview to listen to the musicians who inspire Clarke - and be sure to check out her website to get a taste of the music she plays, undoubtedly inspiring others.
Karen L.B. Evans, Founder
Black Women Playwrights' Group
For the third installment of our series on the movement for equity for women playwrights, we're profiling the Black Women Playwrights' Group, a Washington DC-based group that expanded its activities to the national level in 2008.
The group was founded in 1989 by Karen L.B. Evans, a playwright who has received
fellowships from the NEA and the DC Commission on the Arts and
Humanities and had numerous publications and presentations of her work. Its core activities are monthly meetings for its members to workshop new material and share information about playwriting opportunities, and both emerging and established playwrights are welcome. In addition to the monthly meetings, there are networking events with producers, directors, designers, and actors. The members also co-produce and produce their own work in the DC area, and they have collaborated with The DC Black Theatre Festival, The New York Theater Workshop, Primary Stages, The Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Dramatic Publishing Company, and many other organizations.
While Black Women Playwrights' Group (BWPG) continues its traditional activities in Washington DC, it is also participating in some exciting new programs that place the group at the forefront of new trends in theatre.
Theatre and Digital Media: In 2008, BWPG held the first national meeting of women of color writers in Chicago, where members identified three areas of interest: digital media, university residencies and productions, and the world of presenters. Following talk with action, the group decided to explore digital media, and held another conference in Chicago in April 2010, Linking Platforms: Theater and Digital Media in the 21st Century.
The outcome was a partnership with Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center to design a content and delivery program focused on theatre and its expansion into digital formats. Through this project theatre companies will work in pairs to choose and produce three plays by living playwrights. Each chosen playwright will write additional scenes, monologues, and character studies that extend the world of the play, and these will be made available online in an interactive environment designed by computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon.
This extension of the world of a play across multiple media platforms is called transmedia storytelling. The goal is to engage the audience in an interactive, contemporary way.
The first partner theatre in the project is Wooly Mammoth Theatre, a D.C. company founded in 1978 with the mission of producing bold and innovative new works. In February 2012, Wooly Mammoth, BWPG, and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) held a presentation of projects that included CMU grad students and playwrights discussing transmedia. Playwright Lynn Nottage spoke about her play By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, which she initially conceived as a transmedia story. The play, which premiered in 2011 at New York's Second Stage Theatre, is about an African-American film actress from the 1930's who played the roles open to her at the time - maids, slaves, and mammies - roles that she might have played in real life in another time.
By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, whose very subject crosses media genres - a play about a film star - is an appropriate piece to expand into new digital platforms (additional material will include clips from Vera Stark's films). It is also appropriate because it looks back at the history of a marginalized population - African American women - and simultaneously brings this history alive in the future, using new technologies to share the story with contemporary audiences.
Though the BWPG-CMU transmedia theatre initiative is not specifically focused on women or women of color playwrights, BWPG's leadership in this project is significant because it places women of color at the cutting edge of new developments in theatre. They will work with the CMU team to design cross-media platforms to enhance the work of playwrights and the experiences of audiences. Women's involvement in the early stages of new developments in technology and the arts is crucial to creating new platforms that not only include women participants, but fully embody women's perspectives and concerns.
Oral History Project with StoryCorps - In keeping with its interest and involvement in cross-platform media, BWPG recently collaborated with StoryCorps, National Public Radio's oral history project, to interview senior citizens in Brookland, a diverse neighborhood in the northeast quadrant of Washington, DC. BWPG conducted the interviews, then used the material to write a short screenplay (a skill they learned for the project) about the neighborhood, called Brookland, Not Brooklyn, which follows a boy whose family flees Montgomery, AL during the Bus Boycott of 1955.
The film will be produced by BWPG and StoryCorps, and will feature footage from the resident interviews at the end. BWPG held a fundraiser in November 2011 that included a preview of the film, dramatic readings by BWPG members, and opportunities for attendees to record their own stories with StoryCorps representatives. This collaboration with StoryCorps to create a cross-platform examination of the history of a neighborhood is right in line with BWPG's dedication to being involved in new and exciting technologies, while bringing the stories of African Americans to a wider audience.
Black Women Playwrights' Group has a long history of activism for women of color playwrights and effective support and advocacy for its members. It is especially inspiring that they are now initiating cutting-edge projects to make sure that the voices of women of color will continue to be heard in the future. Find out more at http://www.blackwomenplaywrights.org/home.asp.
Congratulations to the organizers of SWAN Festival Bulgaria for their second four-day SWAN celebration. The efforts have been led by musician Dessi Dimova of Art Nova Foundation.
Dimova worked closely this year with Rumyana Tancheva of Wonderland Events and Nevena Gadjeva of City Center Sofia Mall where many of the events were held. She also formed partnerships with the American Embassy in Bulgaria, Les Fleurs Hotel, the Sofia Municipality, Social Me (check out the cool graphics on their site), and Fresh Swing Dance.
This year's celebration focused on the active participation of
the audience by offering workshops in several styles of dancing, puppet theatre, candle-making,creating batiks, knitting, painting with watercolors (for children), food carving, and food photography.
Lemon from Food
Carving Workshop
They also offered their first "SWAN Academy," a one-week free "boot camp" in documentary film-making led by Minnesota-based U.S. filmmaker Melody Gilbert of Frozen Feet Films.
To see the complete schedule of SWAN Festival Bulgaria, please visit: swanfestivalbg.com. Note: This site is in Bulgarian, but if you go to Google Translate you can enter the link for the site and Google will translate the Bulgarian to English and many other languages.
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