Brooklyn Excelsior
by: Affea T Henriques
February 8, 2010
For the month of February 2010, the organization Betty's Daughters will be co-curating a weekly performance called Women on Wednesdays at the Brecht Art Forum in the West Village. The series seeks to explore themes associated with women and girls of the African Diaspora in the field of arts. The performers in the series will use a variety of mediums to explore themes having to do with consciousness of one self and reflection inward as well as a critical review of social ills and injustices. In the first performance of the month, last Wednesday, the artists explored the topic of the body and used their art to tell a story to the audience about the physical identity of women of the African Diaspora. The performers told stories in their own distinct ways. One performer, Phakiso Collins, used a combination of visual media and dance to tell a story about movement and what it means to her.
Collins used a style of dance she whimsically dubs as "remix," inspired by a variety of dance styles including Hip-Hop and Nago, a warrior dance from Haiti. Part of her routine included a booty dance accompanied by a hip-hop song called "Hoochie Mama." At first, I thought her dance was meant to find fault within certain representations of women in the media, specifically women in music videos. Collins explained that her dance was not trying to knock booty shaking or winding. "I think what's missing is ownership," she clarified, "there's nothing wrong with trying the new Beyonce dance, it's about who you are moving for."
The creative director of Betty's Daughters, Ebony Noelle Golden, also performed. Her performance included an eerie audio recording of a poem that includes imagery conveying disillusion and metaphors expressing endless discontent. Golden wandered around stage while a recording of the poem was played while holding a long piece of fabric and dead flowers. During her trance, she used chalk to draw symbols on the floor, which she wiped off later in the performance. Golden explained the significance of marking the floor, "those symbols represent cycles, that we have to erase." The piece took a radical turn when Golden began to tell the story of a woman who willingly starves herself. The character is taken from a book Golden is currently working on and is referred to as "the one who eats like a bird, yet cannot fly." The book is called "Again the Watercarriers," and it chronicles the lives of a group of women migrating from Louisiana to Texas in the early twentieth century.
Another performer named Barbara Asare-Bediako did a portion of a one-woman show she is currently working on. Asare-Bediako's performance dealt with the use of non-Western healing practices, colonialism and her experience working for a women's shelter in Washington D.C. Her performance drew attention to women who are poor and how the body can be misused. The show also included Tonya Cherie Hegamin, author of the children's book Most Loved in All the World and Shenelle Eaton Foster, who performed a dance sequence inspired by exploring vocabulary and influenced by yoga and modern dance.
Betty's Daughters is an Arts Collaborative that seeks to motivate people to form creative responses to the events happening around them. Some of the social issues the organization draws attention to is environmental justice, the prison industrial complex and violence against women. Art is essentially being used to make issues more present. Golden feels that art is essentially a different language, that evokes deep feelings in the members of the audience and inspire others to create. Women on Wednesdays is being held so that women of the African diaspora can tell their stories in an environment with no political or spiritual alignment. The series also seeks to emphasize the diverse nature of the art produced by black women.
The performances left an enduring impression because they were charged emotional turmoil and anxiety. The women tackled a theme that deals with the tangible world as opposed to abstract problems of the mind. The show got pretty bizarre at times, but the performers were able to strongly impact the audience by using radical methods of self expression.The Brecht Art Forum is at 451 West St. in Manhattan and Women on Wednesdays will be held every week for the rest of the month at 7pm.
Collins used a style of dance she whimsically dubs as "remix," inspired by a variety of dance styles including Hip-Hop and Nago, a warrior dance from Haiti. Part of her routine included a booty dance accompanied by a hip-hop song called "Hoochie Mama." At first, I thought her dance was meant to find fault within certain representations of women in the media, specifically women in music videos. Collins explained that her dance was not trying to knock booty shaking or winding. "I think what's missing is ownership," she clarified, "there's nothing wrong with trying the new Beyonce dance, it's about who you are moving for."
The creative director of Betty's Daughters, Ebony Noelle Golden, also performed. Her performance included an eerie audio recording of a poem that includes imagery conveying disillusion and metaphors expressing endless discontent. Golden wandered around stage while a recording of the poem was played while holding a long piece of fabric and dead flowers. During her trance, she used chalk to draw symbols on the floor, which she wiped off later in the performance. Golden explained the significance of marking the floor, "those symbols represent cycles, that we have to erase." The piece took a radical turn when Golden began to tell the story of a woman who willingly starves herself. The character is taken from a book Golden is currently working on and is referred to as "the one who eats like a bird, yet cannot fly." The book is called "Again the Watercarriers," and it chronicles the lives of a group of women migrating from Louisiana to Texas in the early twentieth century.
Another performer named Barbara Asare-Bediako did a portion of a one-woman show she is currently working on. Asare-Bediako's performance dealt with the use of non-Western healing practices, colonialism and her experience working for a women's shelter in Washington D.C. Her performance drew attention to women who are poor and how the body can be misused. The show also included Tonya Cherie Hegamin, author of the children's book Most Loved in All the World and Shenelle Eaton Foster, who performed a dance sequence inspired by exploring vocabulary and influenced by yoga and modern dance.
Betty's Daughters is an Arts Collaborative that seeks to motivate people to form creative responses to the events happening around them. Some of the social issues the organization draws attention to is environmental justice, the prison industrial complex and violence against women. Art is essentially being used to make issues more present. Golden feels that art is essentially a different language, that evokes deep feelings in the members of the audience and inspire others to create. Women on Wednesdays is being held so that women of the African diaspora can tell their stories in an environment with no political or spiritual alignment. The series also seeks to emphasize the diverse nature of the art produced by black women.
The performances left an enduring impression because they were charged emotional turmoil and anxiety. The women tackled a theme that deals with the tangible world as opposed to abstract problems of the mind. The show got pretty bizarre at times, but the performers were able to strongly impact the audience by using radical methods of self expression.The Brecht Art Forum is at 451 West St. in Manhattan and Women on Wednesdays will be held every week for the rest of the month at 7pm.
Herald-Sun
Oct. 5.
Writing as an agent of change
BY KEITH UPCHURCH
kupchurch@heraldsun.com; 419-6612
DURHAM -- Letting people tell their own stories is a major part of a creative writing program run by Ebony Golden.
Called "The Community Writing Intensive," it is currently focused on exploring ways to improve the prison system.
"We're looking at ways in which youth are involved in the prison system and the way our communities can be more mobilized to create stories around change and transformation, and thinking about ways to engage and intervene in the prison system," Golden, creative director of the writing program, said in an interview Sunday.
Golden is helping writers with their manuscripts at the workshop's center at 110 E. Geer St.
The project is sponsored by the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other organizations.
"Overall, the goal is for people in the community to tell their stories and be able to create change through creative writing and creative performance,'' she said. "This allows artists, activists, community members and social workers here in the Southeast. We're creating a creative think tank.''
Golden said participants are trying this year to rethink how the prison system might be run better.
"We feel there is a creative way to think about what's going on in our communities and how we're interfacing with the prison system.''
She said some people in the program believe the prison system should be dismantled and re-created.
"Some of us believe there should be more creative and community-based intervention,'' she said. "We believe communities can make an impact on what's happening with the youth and the people who are going to prison.''
She said creative writing can help people unlock new ways to think and improve the prison system and the rest of society.
One person getting support from the program is Aya Duafe of Durham, originally from Cambridge, Mass.
Duafe is a mother, poet and dancer who performs in schools throughout North Carolina with The Magic of African Rhythm, based in Raleigh. She's creating her own production, which she calls a "fusion of dance, writing and photography.''
She is currently working on a manuscript about the relationship between mothers and daughters ''when daughters become mothers,'' and finding support through Golden's writing workshop.
Also participating in the workshop is Nia Wilson, executive director of Spirit House in Durham, which ''works primarily in the African-American communities to help empower those affected by racism, poverty, illiteracy and gender discrimination.''
Wilson works with youths ''who may be on the fast track to prison.''
"We use arts as part of the way we do our work, because we believe that art helps people to be creative and to envision innovative ways to change things affecting the community,'' she said. "So poetry and writing is one of the things we use a lot in the work we do.''
Wilson said cultural arts help people become visionaries.
"Everyone is a poet and an artist, and we try hard to communicate that,'' she said. "It's all art, and it's beautiful.''
