FREE ‘EM ALL: A Black August/Labor Day Podcast By Body Ecology Performance Ensemble, NYC www.bettysdaughterarts.com "Because all prisoners are political prisoners." for Syria for Assata Shakur for us all... Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/ebonygolden/free-em-all-a-black-august Black August ended just a few days ago and Labor Day is almost over. But in case you haven’t noticed, we the people of these so-called United States must continue to labor for justice, equality and the liberation of political prisoners world-wide. Our positive thoughts are with Syria, the Middle East and right here in our communities that impacted by political and economic unrest. The associate artists of Body Ecology Performance Ensemble, based in NYC, have put together a podcast of some popular music along with our poems and ideas as a sonic exploration of the barriers to liberation as well as our ideas for liberation. It is our duty to stand up. It is our duty to speak out. It is our duty to make the change the world needs with whatever tools we have in our communities. We call this podcast FREE EM ALL because it is time to redefine criminality. It is time to redefine punishment. It is time to free those who have been pawned by the United States project and are essentially causalities of political, economic and social warfare. If the United States government isn’t locked up, the millions of people it has chosen to criminalize and block from ever having full access to citizenship should probably not be locked up either. Honoring Black August should be a life-long process and a year-around celebration of resistance, love and wellness. This year, Body Ecology felt it best to share our honoring just as people begin to get busy with the fall season, school, and work. Come back to this podcast as a reminder that each day should move you and your community closer to freedom. If our world is to be free, that freedom begins with each of us.

Along with the voices of Body Ecology’s associate artists, expect to hear the familiar words and sounds of Assata Shakur, Blitz the Ambassador, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Fela Kuti, Erykah Badu, Janelle Monae, Oya Candomble, and Wale. Body Ecology is please to also share a performance of Rhinoceros Woman from Assata Shakur’s acclaimed autobiography, “Assata.” Please enjoy our offering. Conceived in 2009, Body Ecology Performance Ensemble works for the collective liberation, wellness and creative empowerment of black women and girls globally through performance art, educational experiences and cultural arts direct action campaigns. Body Ecology’s current campaign, RingShout for Reproductive Justice (#rs4rj) utilizes the cultural and spiritual practice of the ring shout, a method of praise in worship in the African tradition, to raise awareness, create solutions and broaden the conversation about reproductive health to include creative freedom and expression. The motto of the campaign is “our bodies and our creations are our own”. Current Body Ecologists include: Jasmine Coles, Katrina De Wees, Audrey Hailes, Sydette Harry, Ebony Noelle Golden (Artistic Director), Heather Lee, Taja Lindley, Kelly Thomas (Assistant Artistic Director) and Jessica Valoris. For more information visit www.bettysdaughterarts.com. Our next public art performance will happen on the streets of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, NY. The performance of RED TIDE RISING is the second theatre piece in our current campaign. The performance will be on September 27 at 6 pm. It is free! Look for information on our facebook page or at www.bettysdaughterarts.com.

Tickets Now on sale: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/28965 Learn more about Body Ecology Performance Ensemble-- www.bettysdaughterarts.com

Venerating Dr. Nina Simone: Conjure Woman, Soul Woman
by: Ebony Noelle Golden,
Co-Founder/ Co-Curator of Women on Wednesday Art and Culture Project

Women on Wednesday Arts and Culture Project honors the incomparable Dr. Nina Simone as the ancestral mother for WoW2012: The Naked Edition. WoWs organizers honor Nina Simone because of her unabashed boldness and fearless dedication to truth-telling, liberation and creative excellence. Join us in celebrating the brilliance of Nina Simone this month and every month.

Nina Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina February 21, 1933 and transitioned April 21, 2003. Her life, legacy, music, fashion and pursuit of liberation serve as guide for how black girls, women and the rest of the world can live their NAKED TRUTHS.


I was first introduced to Nina Simone in college. Every summer I taught dance and worked as a choreographer for the Young Performers Program at the Ensemble Theatre in Houston, TX. My first summer, I choreographed Lorraine Hansberry’s play “To Be Young Gifted and Black.” While researching the piece, I found Simone and remember listening to the song a few hundred times. I remember thinking that she didn’t necessarily have a melodic voice, but instead a committed voice. A voice that made to sit up and pay attention. A voice that demanded every listener recognize the wealth that is the black youth, black talent and just blackness overall. From then, I was hooked. Using her work in my scholarly, artistic and amorous adventures.

Years later, I remember playing a game of chest with a lover, who didn’t dig her sound. Her voiced opened me to a greater capacity of strategic maneuvering. I remember my lover asking about her, where she came from, why did I like her. I remember being bothered by his lack of love and admiration for Simone. In the months following that game of chest, I continued to play Simone’s music. Eventually, he learned to love her, and couldn’t remember the time when he didn’t appreciate her voice.



In a time where the cult of black respectability forced women and men to bend to white culture and standards, she was a member of a crew politically active, cultural warriors who visioned and worked for a world where creative innovation and liberation conspired to blaze a trail of possibility, beauty and freedom for communities, artists organizers and educators the world-over.

Simone’s iconic sound, political action and musical innovation resisted tradition, form and boundaries. Songs like “Mississippi Goddam” and “Four Women” season the soundtrack of liberation movements for global human rights. Always the conjure woman; Simone was able to move the crowd with the greatest of ease, radicalize a soul with a moan or a hollar, change the temperature of a room with a stoke of the piano and delve into the heart of all that is beautiful and troubling about the world with her soothing or harsh tones. She was one bad mama-jama.

This contemporary moment finds Nina Simone just as relevant. Simone serves as the muse for many Hip-hop artists, theatre-makers, dancers, choreographers and visual artists around the globe. Several of the Women on Wednesday Art and Culture Project participants are currently or have in the past created work that honors her life and legacy.

I wrote the poem below a few years ago. It is included in a poetry collection I am building and obsessed with called “again, the watercarriers.” The collection, includes a section dedicated to the diverse manifestations of the conjure woman archetype. That section includes a suite of poems dedicated to the one and only Nina Simone.



conjure woman, soul woman
for nina

nina
they say you stole shadows
you cast babyspirits out in nocturnal limboyou make them wander

in search of womb
in search of milk
in search of the space between heaven and hell
where each step is a breathsqueeze

they say you keep a sachet of boneshavings crescent city spit
and motherlanddust under your slip
that you blew
the brows clean off a man's forehead
for cutting his eyes at you

they say you could have been a street preacher
but you couldn't keep your legs closed
or pray just to our lord jesus

i know a woman who carries your face
and she aint nothing but sanctified
and she speak sweet like i hear you speak
and her fingers too are wands that stir heaven

and she holds night in her skinsings it to her children when dawn breaks

nina
they really don't know how you got the blood and the lightening in your tone
don't know how you swung back this lifetime without wings
know how you birthed us with out light so

they call you witch when obeah be your name
call you mystery when you are everywhere like dew
magician when magician you are
they call you alien when you are mamathey call you alien cause you tune our hearts
your name be obeah

you bend time
siphon your way through space
i hear you do it

stretch through speakers at me
stretch through speakers at me
just when i get tired of shouting freedom
writing freedom birthing freedom

stretch through speakers at me--your groove
a feathered redemption

About the Author
Hailing from Houston, TX, Ebony Noelle Golden is a cultural worker, artist and creative director of Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, LLC and artistic director of Body Ecology Performance Ensemble. Ebony's current bodies of work include: "RingShout for Reproductive Justice" and "again, the watercarriers." She also writes about jazz, culture and liberation for Okayplayer’s The Revivalist Magazine. www.bettysdaughterarts.com.

About WoW
Motto: Engage, Create, Empower
Mission: WoW is dedicated to celebrating the creativity, empowerment, holistic health, and civic engagement of black girls and women.

In honoring the voices of women and girls of the African Diaspora, “Women on Wednesdays: Art and Culture Series” privileges our ancestors and their labor, affirming our collective truth – we do not walk alone, and we could not create transformative and innovative art without the journeys of those who came before us. Thus, WoW creates a space for our ancestors’ at every “Women on Wednesdays” event, encouraging participating artists and audience members to share this sacred space.

This series’ success is notable, because it provided women of color professional and emerging artists with an opportunity to share their work, engaging audience members in talk-backs after each performance. Such opportunities are crucial for women of color and our community. Though many social and political advances have been made, cultural art-making by women and girls of the African Diaspora still lacks the support often granted to others. “Women on Wednesdays: Art and Culture Series” celebrates our labor and creativity, putting women of color at the center of cultural exchange while simultaneously creating a welcome space for audiences which may not have known of this work without such a platform for expression.

To find out more about Women on Wednesday Art and Culture Project visit our Facebook Group or wowproject.yolasite.com.

https://www.facebook.com/events/264913493551887/

Greetings,

Tomorrow is the day for Body Ecology's 2nd RingShout for Reproductive Justice! Dress warmly, fill your thermos and prepare yourselves for what will be a gripping and enlightening public art performance.

What is a RingShout? A ringshout is a method for praise and worship. In the ring shout people sing, dance, testify. Body Ecology recognizes the technology of the circle has made black women and black communities un-breakable. It is our circle that keeps us focused on the whole, the light in our community, the hopefulness that we can collectively vision.

Body Ecology affirms that this campaign, this ring shout this circle of energy and creativity is our best asset for addressing justice and reproductive health.Our RingShout is a performance of healing, truth-telling, humor and recovery. We do this through the performance of original poetry, narrative, choreography. Expect to be moved! Each ringshout ends with a community cipher/ story circle so bring a dance, a poem a testimony about health, legacy, reproductive justice or creativity! Join us!

In solidarity,
Ebony Golden
Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
www.bettysdaughterarts.com

RingShout for Reproductive Justice Continues Nov. 19th!


Body Ecology continues its RingShout for Reproductive Justice Campaign with a second public performance and street story circle. Check back soon for more information about the performance and how you can get involved!

Lauded as the "father of gynecology", Dr. James Marion Sims brutally experimented on enslaved African women in Birmingham, Alabama. There just so happens to be a monument built in his honor on 5th Avenue. Body Ecology wants this memorial removed!

We are calling on the power of the women who suffered at the hands of this "doctor" as we offer our second installment of RingShout for Reproductive Justice. We are calling on the power of the women are experiencing joy, trauma, revelation, doubt, and a myriad of emotions and feelings that relate to our reproductive health and choices.

What is a RingShout?

A ringshout is a method for praise and worship. In the ring shout people sing, dance, testify. Usually the songs are lead but there is time for each person to speak or sing. You may be more familiar with recent configurations of the ringshout including the cipher or even the "sista circle" or sacred circles for women. The idea is that the circle is sacred and when those join in the circle they harness an energy and power to manifest what they choose. Also, there are theatre makers who are using the ring shout in traditional theatre settings for similar purposes.

Body Ecology recognizes the technology of the circle has made black women and black communities un-breakable. It is our circle that keeps us focused on the whole, the light in our community, the hopefulness that we can collectively vision. Body Ecology affirms that this campaign, this ring shout this circle of energy and creativity is our best asset for addressing justice and reproductive health.

Our RingShout is a performance of healing, truth-telling, humor and recovery. We do this through the performance of original poetry, narrative, choreography. Expect to be moved!

Each ringshout ends with a community cipher/ story circle so bring a dance, a poem a testimony about health, legacy, reproductive justice or creativity! Join us!


More about the RingShout for Reproductive Justice Campaign

Read More Here:
http://www.bettysdaughterarts.com/#!ringshout-for-reproductive-justice

www.bettysdaughterarts.com

BDACs current campaign is called the RingShout for Reproductive Justice!

Join us for our 2nd RingShout November 19!

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=264913493551887

What is a RingShout?

A ringshout is a method for praise and worship. In the ring shout people sing, dance, testify. Usually the songs are lead but there is time for each person to speak or sing. You may be more familiar with recent configurations of the ringshout including the cipher or even the "sista circle" or sacred circles for women. The idea is that the circle is sacred and when those join in the circle they harness an energy and power to manifest what they choose. Also, there are theatre makers who are using the ring shout in traditional theatre settings for similar purposes.

Body Ecology recognizes the technology of the circle has made black women and black communities un-breakable. It is our circle that keeps us focused on the whole, the light in our community, the hopefulness that we can collectively vision. Body Ecology affirms that this campaign, this ring shout this circle of energy and creativity is our best asset for addressing justice and reproductive health.

Our RingShout is a performance of healing, truth-telling, humor and recovery. We do this through the performance of original poetry, narrative, choreography. Expect to be moved!

Each ringshout ends with a community cipher/ story circle so bring a dance, a poem a testimony about health, legacy, reproductive justice or creativity! Join us!

This Body Ecology: Creativity & Transformation Residency will be looking at the connection between spiritual practice and creative performance. Expect to deepen conversations around ritual, Shange, Alice Walker, Sonia Sanchez and others. Expect to be asked to "perform something that pushes you to a new awareness of yourself and your creative potential". Join us!


https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197374113662828